Kristen Stewart via Wikipedia |
After I posted about this, I
was reminded by a film critic of the mythic nature of Stewart's relationship with Robert Pattinson, her boyfriend of four years. The two play the title roles in the gigantically popular Twilight
films, and their romance in real life only fuels fan adoration and fascination.
As is sometimes the case, the actors become inseparable from their roles. Add to
this that Stewart is much more famous than Sanders, and it goes a long ways towards explaining why the attention would be drawn more towards her than the director—as well as the extreme emotional response by fans.
Rupert Sanders via Wikipedia |
But I don’t want to paint Stewart as a victim.
Even if Sanders used his position and age to instigate the affair, Stewart—an adult—had
a choice. Again, what bothers me is the way we have responded to the story by
blaming Stewart (with astounding viciousness) as if Sanders is more or less
her victim, or at the very most, gave into a wayward impulse.
Of course, this instinct is nothing new. Two
thousand years ago, we were doing the same thing:
Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them. The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery.
They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, "Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?" They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, "The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone." Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.
Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. "Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?"
"No one, Master."
"Neither do I," said Jesus. "Go on your way. From now on, don't sin."
Scholars have noted the
stark absence in this scene of the man with whom the woman was caught in the
act. It is only the woman. Our instinct is indeed ancient.
But how Jesus deals with
this is, at least to me, unexpected. He not only calls them on their instinct,
he diffuses it by turning their focus inward. While we don’t know what Jesus
wrote in the dirt, some have suggested it could have been the names of men in
the crowd who had also had sex with the woman or perhaps sins the men in the
crowd had committed. Whether they were convicted by what he wrote or the
silence diffused their frenzy enough to consider his words, all of them (interestingly,
starting with the eldest) turned and walked away—not because the woman wasn’t
guilty but because Jesus shifted their attention to themselves and their own destructive
behavior.
In some ways, the Stewart
and Sanders frenzy feels like a modernized version of this story. For some, their
response to the Stewart and Sanders affair comes from the pain they’ve suffered
because of similar actions by someone in their life. But for the rest of us, perhaps
Jesus’ encounter with this woman says something about the instinct we have to
join a crowd with stones in our hands because it allows us to focus, if only
for a brief moment, on someone else’s destructive behavior rather than our own.
If we follow through with
this modernized idea, then we need to allow Jesus to confront us again with how
we are to treat those caught in destructive and wrong behavior: humbly and with
mercy.
This doesn’t mean wrong
and destructive behavior is excused; to the contrary, as Jesus sets the woman
free he tells her to stop behaving that way. Later, he tells the same crowds
that choosing destructive and wrong behavior is a dead-end: “"I tell you most solemnly that anyone who
chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A
slave is a transient, who can't come and go at will.” Jesus, however, sets us free—“through and through”—from
that kind of life. He frees us to become the kind of people we were created to
be, ones who increasingly base their choices and behavior on their love for God
and others.
Now, lest you
think I’m placing myself on some sort of pedestal, you can forget it. When this
story started to break, I found myself on the edges of that crowd, stone in hand.
But Jesus is faithful—and merciful. And for that, I am thankful.