I Need You in the Dirt with Me

A few years back a department at my work contacted me because they wanted someone to speak on compassion.

They had seen some of my videos and writing and thought I would have an interesting take on the subject. (You can watch the video I did for their virtual meeting on my YouTube channel. It is called “Christ Consciousness”)

Compassion seems like it should be a pretty natural human experience and practice but you don’t have to look very far to see that as a people group we kind of suck at this?

Compassion is interesting because compassion requires a familiarity with pain and suffering. It is the ability to feel with another person. Not looking on and observing someone’s pain, but it is a participation in it.

Remember this story…in the ‘First Nations Version” of the New Testament it is written something like this.( Buy this translation by the way it is A-mazing).

…A group of men are dragging a woman naked through the streets, she is crying and terrified and they come before Jesus and throw her on the ground in front of him and the people.

They tell Jesus and the crowd that this woman was caught in the very act of sleeping with another man that wasn’t her husband.

They pose the famous question “The law says to stone her, what do you say, about this?”

Then this famous scene plays out. Jesus says nothing but stoops down and with his finger writes in the dirt.

I have heard this story so many times, I have talked about this story and written about it before, because it is such a powerful picture and depiction of who God/Jesus is.

Usually, the emphasis or our attention in the story goes to Jesus writing in the dirt. We wonder what did he write? What was the symbolism, did he start writing everyone’s naughty list on the ground!?

I was at a Mental Health Seminar in April and the idea of what people need when they are not well came up. And one thing for sure, is that people do not need people looking down on them- “oh, you poor thing, so sorry you are down there, if you want to come up here with the rest of us, just let me know.”

NO my dears, what we ALL need is someone to get down in the dirt with us.

So I see this story and I see this picture of this woman “cold and shamed, lying naked on the floor” and I see Jesus stoop down and gets in the dirt because she is in the dirt. I see him stay down at her level, he then rises to answer the question of the judgmental, cruel, hateful, dehumanizing crowd and then he stoops back down until they all slowly walk away. He stays down until she is safe. He stays down, to then help her up. He looks her in her eyes and says,

“Honored woman, Where are the ones who were accusing you? Is there no one who finds fault with you? The woman looked up timidly into his eyes and said “No one, Wisom-Keeper.” “Then I also find no fault with you,” he said to her, “You may go your way, but take care not to return to this broken path you have been walking.” (John 8:10- FNV)

It is never about “right and wrong” with Jesus it is always about restoring us to the amazing, vibrant, brilliant people we should be. The people we were made to be. It is leaving the broken path and entering the life-giving path.

What if we approached people and their circumstances like this? What if our posture towards people was one that helps get people on the path that restores, the path that gives life, that feeds your soul, that produces joy, life, and health?

We need healers, not judges, we need those that can see beyond what is..to what can be, and we need those willing to get down on the ground with some folks, I pray you will be one.

Show me your hands and I will see your heart. I hope you have dirt under your fingernails!