Ancient
Spiritual Practices:
Reading with the Imagination - Monthly Passage
- Read this passage once and try to get
comfortable picturing it in your mind:
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but
early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A
crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As
he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and Pharisees
brought a woman they had caught in the act of adultery. They
put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher” they said to Jesus, “this
woman was caught in the very act of adultery. The
law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
There were trying to trap him into saying
something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down
and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding
an answer, so he stood up again and said,
“All right, stone her. But let
those who have never sinned throw the first stones!” Then
he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped
away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus
was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then
Jesus stood up again and said to her, “ Where are your
accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord” she said.
“Then neither do I. Go and sin
no more.”
- Read this passage again. This time
imagine yourself as one of the onlookers in the crowd. Really
try to see and smell and hear and feel what an onlooker would
have been experiencing.
What do you notice after this reading?
- Read this passage again. This time
imagine yourself as the woman and you have been caught in
the midst of your worst sin and thrown before Jesus.
What do you notice after experiencing Jesus?
End in prayer, journaling, sitting in God’s
presence, or whatever seems natural. |
