Phubbing may well become the word of the century. It describes the act of phone-snubbing, where a person deliberately looks at their phone and refuses to engage the person who is trying to serve them. Many in the hospitality and service industry are now reporting feeling diminished and dehumanized. But perhaps all the airline hosties of the world, who have been ignored for years during their preflight speech, are finally feeling understood.

Was Jesus guilty of phubbing in that incident concerning the women caught in adultery? When the crowd, citing the law of Moses, asked for the woman to be stoned, Jesus replied, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”. He then bent down and wrote with his finger in the sand, ignoring the crowd, and waited. Eventually everybody left, except the red-faced woman who had been dragged to the spot. And after a word of grace, he dismissed her too.

Jesus could not have been more socially, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually present, and so he cannot be accused of phubbing. So what was he doing? He was doing what God does every day. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” And presumably for the woman caught in adultery, during the painful silence, this is what she did. “Has no one condemned you?” said Jesus. “No one, sir,” she replied. “Then neither do I.” And he meant every word of it, for the Lord never phubs nor fibs.