I was struck by Clive Hicks-Jenkins painting of a scene from John's gospel, 'Christ writes in the dust - the woman taken in adultery' as I have been for a long time by the brief, arresting narrative which inspired it.
The painting renders the scene in a contemporary way and invites, in doing so, a current perspective on the misogyny and abuse in the scene. The woman's humiliation and trauma are laid bare in her posture and the noose around her neck which for me functions literally and metaphorically: she was shackled before the rope was ever placed around her neck. It's hard, from a contemproary perspective, not to feel outrage at the blatant display of patriarchal privilege, violence and entitlement. And that's before we get to the hypocrisy.
The scene (in both the painting and the gospel account) is a gestural drama: the phalanx of swaggering, duplicitous men; the lone woman traumatised and shamed having been 'caught' and fearful for her life; Jesus, compassionate towards the woman but totally alert to the game which is being played. The men, certain that they are in the right and that 'justice' will be done.
In the painting, the figure of Jesus is contorted and bent double, mirroring the posture of the woman: empathy made manifest. The men already hold stones in their fists ready to execute summary justice.
The gestural nature of the scene
And as Jesus is asked the question intended to trap him, the gestural nature of the scene takes an extraordinary turn: Jesus, apparently ignoring their question, stoops and writes in the dirt. Faced by a group of angry, bullish men, he makes himself physically low before them - likely on a level with the woman - apparently ignoring them. This, of course, roils the men up to insist on the moral rectitude behind their question, firing it at him again. What he writes is to me, irrelevant and not worth the speculation. I read in the gesture of his response two things: firstly, he's taking a moment to contain his outrage at the presumption and hypocrisy playing out in front of him so he can respond from a place of calm - he literally 'grounds' himself; and secondly, he's letting the men drop into a place of discomfort that this isn't playing out as they expected - and as they thought was their due.
What masterful use of gesture and timing to quietly turn around an ugly and violent situation. Having no answer to give to his response to them, the men slink away to nurse their outrage and shame elsewhere. The woman, seen with great clarity and compassion by Jesus, is freed on a number of levels. And Jesus, presumably goes about the rest of his day, the whole scene being over in a few moments.
Hicks-Jenkins take on the scene is helpful in bringing us out of the narrative familiarity that the gospels, read again and again, can have, dulling through familiarity the startling drama that is playing out. But dropping back into the time and place of the scene, the immensity of what Jesus does is striking, confronting and critiquing as he does (and as he does so often) a whole range of contemporary social norms.
And I'm left wondering how I can also critique the norms and assumptions of our complex and contested times and how I can do that from a place that is grounded, centred, compassionate, wise.
Gus McLeod