The Last to Leave

​a poem by: Ted Lewis
A young religious leader, early to arrive at the scene of public condemnation, ends up being the last to leave.

Sometimes those who
are most eager to arrive
are the last to leave.
This applies well to one
Of the newest Jewish
Students in Jerusalem.
His unknown face gave
Him unique powers
To track rogue rabbis
And adulterous women.
Timing was everything
As when his elders set
A trap for the Nazarene
Who sat in the temple.

Pharisees and woman
Finally stood together
Before the sitting rabbi
And yet they othered her
In her isolated shame.
Their power drew from
Her disempowerment.
As secret truth rubbed
Against sacred law
The air was electrified.
The informant student
Pinched his own skin
As Phineas-zeal filled
His Torah-loving heart.

Jesus felt every thought
And knew every emotion.
He stooped low to a knee
And mysteriously doodled
Something in loose dirt.
As he formulated a deep
Counter-truth in his mind
His touch grounded out
The charged negativity
That holds hearts hostage.
When the justice question
Kept raining down on him
He finally stood to say
“Let him who is without…”

Pin drop. His statement
Was so dazzlingly new
And so humanizing that
Hate evaporated in the air.
Jesus again met the dirt
And drew out the venom
Of the mob-mindedness
He had deconstructed.
Only individuals remained
With the shamed woman.
One by one the older men
Left leaving their students
And the last to leave was
The one fresh from Tarsus.

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Ted Lewis is a restorative justice mediator, consultant and trainer, working for the Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking (University of Minnesota). He also provides workshops and reconciliation services for church communities. Ted runs the Agapé Peace Center in Duluth, MN where he lives, and also serves as Executive Director for the International Jacques Ellul Society. (www.restorativetrainer.com)

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