Senior Sermon - Arun Varghese George, BD IV

Beyond the Safe Space

Drenched in blood she lay, crumpled on the ground after seven and a half minutes of stoning. The voice of the yelling and judging husband form the script of the horrifying story  The Stoning of Soraya M., an American-Iranian film, portraying a true story of a woman who is wrongly accused of adultery. The husband creates a conspiracy to kill her because he wants to marry a fourteen-year-old girl. Even as the husband plots Soraya’s death, the scene of her stoning makes a deep impact on the viewers. While stoning at her, she delivered a prophetic line “with each stone you throw, your honor will return.”

Such incidents are not strange in our society too. We have terms like honor killing, honor rape and moral policing all primarily victimizing women. The Global Slavery Index demonstrates that more than 35 lakh women were forced in to sex trafficking. Many among them are forced to have sex with minimum 11 men a day.

Let’s reflect on the text from this context.

John 8:1-11 is the most challenging of stories in Jesus’ ministry. The literary style suggests the non-Johannine origin of the story. While some Bibles omit this story, others put it in brackets. The omission could be have been made to avoid the scope of encouraging adultery.

Traditionally, answering a difficult legal question was a custom. It was taken to a Rabbi for a decision. Thus, considering Jesus as a Rabbi, the Scribes and Pharisees approached Jesus with the woman who was caught in adultery. The forth Gospel narrates the incident to show how the Scribes and Pharisees tied Jesus inescapably on the horns of a dilemma so that they could discredit him.

Adultery is considered as an anti-social as well as anti-God act in the Jewish law. In the Ten Commandments adultery functions as an intolerable sin along with murder and stealing. The Law of Moses prescribes death for an adulterous married woman without specifying the manner of death. However, the law advises stone death for the disloyal betrothed woman (Deut 22:23,24). The answer to the Scribe’s question and the punishment depend her marital status. It is unclear whether she is married or betrothed women or none of these?

Pseudo Morality: Being in the safe space

This incident not only shows shrewdness of the Pharisees and Scribes but also reveals their Pseudo morality. Psychologist Albert Bandura defines pseudo morality as a ‘cognitive reconstruct.’ It is turning something more moral than what it actually is. The Pharisee with an injury or bleeding is considered as the most holy person. It is done by turning ones head away from any woman seen in public and constantly hitting into things and tripping until injured himself. With this pseudo moralistic nature, Jesus calls ‘whitewashed tombs.’ Moreover, the Scribes and Pharisees used ‘pseudo moral justifications’ to describe something immoral as moral.

Today the pseudo morality has been fondly called as Moral Policing. These vigilante groups claim to be the protectors of culture. In Kerala, it went up to the extent of targeting a mother and her son for travelling together during night.

Getting back to our story, although a woman alone does not engage in adultery the counter part is invisible here. The story does deny the “space” of her identity with no name, no personality or no feelings but Jesus carries her in a “space” that brings her new identity. It was not a herculean task either for Jesus, due to the fear of the crowd for exposing their pseudo-morality in public.

In this analysis, let me put my language of psychology little more. In the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, there is a phenomenon called “Reaction Formation,” which is a defense mechanism. Here the emotions and impulses create “anxiety”- producing or perceived to be unacceptable and develop an opposing tendency. It also appears as a defense against a feared social punishment. Furthermore, ‘The bandwagon effect’ in social psychology says that people do something primarily because other people are doing it, regardless of their own beliefs. In our story, people who brought the woman to Jesus are acting like they hate adultery while they may really engage in. This is mainly because of their fear of the losing their public image as well as punishment. In simple words it is being with the majority to be in a safe space.

Morality to humanity: Crossing the safe space

Perhaps, the words of Jesus “let him who is without sin throw the first stone at her” creates a counter space: a space between the crowd and the women. Jesus’ words resonate for the space for realization of their sin where the crowd “backed off” and the woman “stayed back.” The space between these two generates out of Jesus’ “siding with the side lined one.” Can Jesus side with the crowd who are guiltier than the woman? Should Jesus have succumbed to the crowd or the majority or power pressure? Jesus created a new “space” with the very law by which they accused her. Condemning any one to death challenges ones right to live. Jesus retains the right of the woman to continue her life. Thus the new “space” is the “space of life.”  

Now let us turn our mind to reflect upon “how far we create, maintain and sustain the “space of life?” Probably, we do deal with problems with pre-occupied minds. We conclude even before we analyze the situation. We authenticate our set values. In his book ‘Game people plays’ Eric Bern, the psychologist termed this tendency as “cognitive grid.” Our non-evaluative belief system regulates our discerning faculty in all the issues we face. These decisions may not be asserted as accurate or appropriate. As the crowed approached the woman with a prejudiced mind, any attempt of “such a crowd mind” would sabotage the “life giving space” and create a “life negating space.” Jesus, with his response dismantles all such possibilities of creating a pseudo-moral space or lifeless space. Creating a new space necessitates one to undo the values that renounce life.  Pope Francis’ recent comments that “Christians and the Catholic Church should apologize to gay people, women and the divorced and ask for forgiveness for mistreating them,” needs to be seen as an undoing or creating a space of life for whom it is denied.

Beyond the safe space: Space of Reign of God

Jesus Christ did not condemn the woman who is caught for adultery but He gave her a chance to survive and to have a new start. Though it looks so simple it is something very drastic and life changing. The woman is invited to embrace a new future that will allow her to live as a free woman, not a condemned person. Sunita Krishna a social activist who was honored with the Padma Shree award this year and is also the co- founder of ‘Prajwala’, an NGO that works for the rehabilitation of sex workers and their children, stands as the best example of affirming life that Jesus offers to all. Sunitha rescues the sex workers from their vulnerable conditions. However for her the act of rescuing the life of girls accomplishes the goal of providing “acceptance to them in society”. Their social stigma and pain of rejection alleviate when bringing them into the “space of life.” If they carry someone from the “space of death” to the “space of life,” is it not the characteristics of the reign of God?

“Safe space,” by “being with the majority,” provides a “sheltered life” for us pastors but it appears to be a “space against the reign of God.” As Jesus did, moving beyond the “safe space” demands two things. Firstly, the crowd politics should not be “taken for granted” at the cost of the life of “the weak and the meek.” Secondly, the ‘weak’ and the ‘meek’ should be brought to a space where “abundance of life is assured.”   

As a community, committed to the “new space created by Jesus,” are we ready to face the challenges of the crowd for ensuring the space of reign of God for the weak and the meek? When the church and society form itself as a prototype of the crowd, what is our response? We see the crowd around us in the form of “males with stones,” “dominant castes - with apology, including me,” “gender biased pseudo- moralists,” “pseudo-saviors of mother earth, with tons of stone like garbage, chemical emissions, water plunderers, robbers of natural resources,” and so on. As a faith community we are called to be a therapeutic community and agents of transformation. Let us travel along with Jesus to make a “model space” where life is sustained. Why don’t we all be “Christ like”?” Why can’t we be like true disciples of Christ like Pope Francis and Sunita Krishna? It needs guts, guts to break the shackles of conformities, pseudo morality and thrive to go beyond the comfort space risking our life to save lives. If we can’t do any of this, can we at least put down our stones and avoid stoning.

I’m sure Jesus would provide women a “space of life.” However, do not stop dreaming to be creators of the “space of life,” which is the reign of God. If we are ready to face risks, surely, we can be with those in the “space of life.” Amen.