Mtr Kelli Joyce

Dear friends in Christ,

Today’s story from the Gospel according to John is one of the most powerful in all of scripture. It is, in its way, a model account of civil disobedience. The crowd wants Jesus to endorse the stoning of a woman taken in adultery, which is precisely what the law requires. Jesus knows the law, and they know that he knows it, and they want to see what he’ll do.

Jesus, famously, isn’t willing to take part in their law-enforcement efforts. He says “whichever one of you has never broken the law should go first, if you’re going to throw rocks.” And he shames them into walking away, one by one. Then he comforts the woman whose life he has just saved, and exhorts her to live a just and holy life from now on.

In this story Jesus shows us that compassion and the saving of lives is more important than obeying the law - then, and now. And so, as Christians, I hope we will think of this story when we read about members of No More Deaths being persecuted and prosecuted for providing water, medical care, and other aid to migrants crossing the Sonora. God’s mercy and love for every human being override and overrule any human law that would try to obligate us to stand by and watch passively as people die when we could have helped them. And God’s command for us to live in holiness and in imitation of Christ overrules any attempt to make questions of righteousness into mere questions of politics.

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli