Casting the first stone

Photo cred: https://selahvtoday.typepad.com/selahv/2010/04/stop-casting-stones.html

We all knew Leah, Leah’s father was never there and her mother couldn’t do much to keep up with the rising cost of living in Jerusalem. She was a beautiful woman shaped like two jars of wine one on top of the other. I remember I had the hots for her growing up. Her mother failed to pay a lot of debts and the debt collectors came and collected Leah and her brother as two seedlings from a dry garden. She was only 13 at the time when she was deflowered. She was a slave girl in Reuben’s father’s house then. Her little brother died at the age of 9 and soon after her mother also passed on.

When her mother’s debt was paid off, it was time she paid a debt of her own. A debt to life she never knew she had accumulated. Reuben’s father cut her off after she had fallen pregnant. Reuben’s mother would not wear the mantle of shame her husband had brought her. Everyone knew though. Now Reuben’s dad is on the council of the Sanhedrin, its amazing how far a few shekels can take you in the right hands. We heard that Leah lost the baby. The economy was getting tougher with the Romans imposing new taxes every day even poor Leah had to pay her share. Mrs. Yehuda had taken her in. Mrs. Yehuda ran a small brothel at the corner of Mamre and 1^st street.

On this particular day I was with Reuben and we were joined by Abimelek, Jacob and Solomon whom we call Sols. We were all now elders in our various synagogues and these days that was the way to go if you didn’t attend Law school in Greece or had a Roman Citizenship like Saul who had both and I particularly didn’t like the fella but he was efficient. Anyway, there was this new Rabbi in town who thought that he was better than everyone and would not see that the system we had as a nation worked but this guy was hell bent on destroying everything we treasured as a people. Well this day was the day of reckoning.

You see, we, we went to the elite schools in the country maybe not as fancy as the one Saul went to but we were pretty smart, smarter than 98% of the population so dealing with some carpenter was going to be a breeze and we were up to the task. To be convincing we needed a well-known sinner to use as bait, yea you guessed it, it was going to be Leah, no one would deny it if we somehow caught her in a compromising situation. You see our ancient laws say that if anyone is caught in adultery then they should be stoned to death but the Roman law says no Jew can kill anyone under any circumstances unless sanctioned by the prefects or governors, so you see whichever way this carpenter cum Rabbi would answer we still get rid of him. Either he is with us (against the Romans) or he is with the Romans simple.

Little Titus who usually collected the Sabbath offerings was the one we used to hire Leah for just an hour. We knew the place and time and we were there in time to catch all the action. Our group had grown larger because we needed to make a spectacle of this Rabbi. We grabbed Leah scantly clothed and dragged her to the carpenter Rabbi. She was sobbing because she knew we could deal with her as we dealt with Esther who would not cooperate and wanted to destroy the High priest’s reputation last year. I left the others chanting what was to me unimportant statements outside the temple. We were going to kill two birds with one stone. Destroy this new age Rabbi and instill the fear of God in to the people so that they know who is in charge. If the Romans try to pin this righteous execution on us the carpenter Rabbi was there to take the fall for it. Genius. I went to gather my little heap of stones.

photo cred: https://pastorernieblog.org/2016/10/18/a-woman-caught-in-adultery/

After explaining the easy situation to the Rabbi, we patiently waited for him to fall in to our trap. I could feel my heart starting to race with excitement. The Rabbi lifted up his head and we all went quiet with anticipation of this great moment. He looked at us who were in the front with our heaps of stones. My heap being a little bit bigger than the rest even after sharing some of my stones with Samuel who had come late. I am a perfectionist you see, so I wouldn’t want to leave the job half done. When his eyes met mine, it was as if I was looking in to a mirror after a wrestling match in the mud. I could feel his eyes moving on my conscience, then with a calm steady voice he said, “Let him who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her”. With this he looked back down to the ground and started writing on the ground.

We all somehow got confused at this clear statement and we all stood there like idiots who had messed their robes, unable to pick up a stone and yet unable to move away. On the ground it seemed to me that he wrote of that night I was with Sharon in Samaria but it can’t be, how does he know? No one knows about this. Is he going to announce this list? Who told him? My pride’s weak anchor was giving in to this wave of confrontation with what felt like God himself. My guilt started dragging my feet away. Simeon was the first amongst us to walk away, I was too ashamed to look at my colleagues, we were all ashamed somehow to look at each other. All I could barely hear were soft, quick footsteps retreating with guilt. We had somehow learned how to strain a gnat yet swallowing a camel whole, growing forests in our eyes yet the thicket of our shameful acts did not stop us from seeing the toothpicks in our others’ eyes. We all left our heaps of stones there that day. Our big heaps of self-righteousness, pride, hypocrisy and an assortment of hatred and judgement prepared for Leah, prepared always for others.

Leah has a Job now and she is married to one of the followers of that Rabbi. My Name is Joseph, today Leah’s husband and I are preparing the grave for that Rabbi whom they have finally crucified. We still gather stones but this time for a different purpose, building each other up as the Carpenter Rabbi has commanded us to do. Every time I see Leah, I see how the stones we can use to crush others can be used to build each other up. I will gladly cast my first stone of love to a foundation for others to be built up.

by Simbarashe McNorris Hakata