Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” (John 8.1-11)
On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we do not have a selection from the Gospel of Luke as we have come to expect, having heard from him for the earlier Sundays of the season, but instead we have a passage that probably belongs in his gospel, more so than it belongs in the Gospel of John where we find it. The passage, as we have seen, is the story of the woman caught in adultery, a sinner brought before Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees who want her stoned for her sin.
For all intents and purposes, no one in the scholarly community believes it was part and parcel of the Gospel of John at the start, but instead was inserted along the way by a zealous transcriber or two who wanted the story to be remembered, the event in Jesus’ life apparently having floated around independently of any gospel, passed down in written form until it finally found a foothold in the Gospel of John.
While it does not slide effortlessly into this gospel for any number of good reasons, instead squeezed into the text almost by force, it does fit exceedingly well with the season of Lent, perfect both in content and in message for these weeks dedicated to the call for repentance. We have no trouble finding a cause for its insertion into this special season. If we didn’t know better, we’d say the story was written specifically with Lent in mind.
However, before we examine the topic of repentance, always a fruitful exercise regardless of the season, we may want to look more closely at the context of the story. The storyline is simple and straightforward. A woman who has been caught red-handed in the act of adultery–meaning during, not after the fact–is brought before Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees for him to render judgment upon her.
Of course, based on our familiarity with these religious leaders, we are primed to expect duplicity and deceit on their part, however cleverly disguised their ill intentions might be. We should note that they address Jesus as teacher, an honorific title that under normal circumstances implied a position of knowledge and authority on certain matters. For them, it is false flattery, setting up Jesus for a fall. They use the address as a building block in their plot to entrap him in their subterfuge.
Presenting him as someone who should know the answer, they inquire as to his stance on the matter presently before them. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery,” they say. “Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” Lest we fail to see the setup, the writer takes us aside, whispering in our ears, “They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.”
We’ve seen the word “test” several times before, most clearly when Jesus is tested in the desert by Satan. So, to find the word used again here tells us that some sinister effort is underfoot along the same lines as earlier examples of Jesus’ being tested, all of them intended to see him trip and fall. Always, those who test Jesus want to expose him as a fraud or as a derelict.
This instance is no different, the evil intent of the scribes and Pharisees revealed in their citing the Mosaic Law, boxing Jesus into an either-or position. Either he agrees with the Mosaic Law, in this way alienating the crowds who in all likelihood feel some connection with and compassion for the woman, also knowing the law in all likelihood was rarely enforced, especially during Roman occupation, or he disagrees with the punishment, putting him at odds with the sacrosanct law of Moses. Much like a chess player would do, these adversaries believe they have blocked Jesus on the board, forcing him into a no-win situation.
So, in effect, Jesus is the one put on trial, the woman only an unfortunate pawn in the effort to convict Jesus. They abuse and humiliate her in their plot to unseat Jesus as an authority on the Law and as a spokesperson for the Most High God. With total disregard for the humanity of the woman, cast in front of the crowd like an animal in a cage, the scribes and Pharisees show their evil hearts even in this moment as they put forth their efforts to ruin the reputation of Jesus, hoping to remove him once and for all from the public scene, nothing more than a troublemaker in their eyes and a dangerous influence on the crowds.
Of course, Jesus is not beaten or belittled by them anymore than he was bested by the devil and his bag of tricks in the desert. He refuses to fall into their trap, choosing to ignore their question, instead stooping towards the ground to scribble something in the sand. No one knows what he was doodling in the dirt, although people are not shy about offering opinions. As I see it, had his writing in the sand been important to the story, the storyteller surely would have told us the words that he wrote.
Seemingly unperturbed by all the ruckus around him and asked a second time for his opinion on the matter concerning the woman caught in adultery, Jesus rises and answers, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” With that simple statement, Jesus turns the tables on the scribes and Pharisees, suddenly subjecting them to a similar scrutiny, in this way positioning them as the ones on trial. Scholars tend to agree that he is not referring to sin in general, but specifically to sin of a sexual nature, in this way forcing the woman’s accusers to see her failings as little different from their own failures to live blameless lives.
Now forced by Jesus into a corner as they have tried to do to him, they leave one by one, beginning with the oldest among them, until no one remains but Jesus and the accused woman. Their stepping away from the scene is an admission of their personal guilt. Surprised by the turning of the tables on them, they become the shamefaced ones, silently slithering away, unable to throw stones at the woman because, as the saying goes, they also live in glass houses. Jesus has exposed their hypocrisy in front of everyone.
As the story ends, Jesus stands alone with the condemned woman and asks her a question, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She answered him, “No one, sir.” To which Jesus answered, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” It is a beautiful reaffirmation of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus found earlier in the gospel when he says to the Pharisee, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him” (John 3.17).
It should be noted that while Jesus does not condemn the woman, he also does not condone the sin, urging her to sin no more, in this way inviting her to a turning away from sin that calls for a changing of her ways, a conversion of her heart so that she might live each day in accord with the will and with the ways of the Most High God who desires that his children live in the world as children of the light, not as children of the darkness.
In many ways, the story of the woman caught in adultery carries similarities with the story of the prodigal son. Both stories have a flawed central character who has fallen into sinful ways. Both stories show tender mercies extended to the one in sin. And both stories also have a party or parties on the sidelines who are quick to criticize and to condemn the one in sin.
As we know from last Sunday’s reading, in the case of the prodigal son it was the elder brother who did the finger pointing. Here, in this story, it is the scribes and Pharisees who are only too happy to parade before the public the private sins of the woman, their actions belying their own duplicity and immorality. They become the elder brother in this story, ready to dish out punishment, refusing to show an ounce of mercy.
Another thing to consider. As with the parable of the prodigal son, this story of the woman caught in adultery allows us to place ourselves into the shoes of any person in the story. Obviously, the story would have us see ourselves as little different from or little better from the sinful woman, but that may require more honesty on our part than we have on any given day.
Nor are we all that quick to admit to standing alongside the scribes and the Pharisees, always unflattering characters in any story, their propensity to point fingers and to publicize the faults of others while turning a blind eye to their own evil ways regularly resulting in a dressing down by Jesus. Again, seeing our own reflection in their judgmental and critical faces calls for a more honest inspection of our souls than we are comfortable in doing as a general rule.
Which leaves us in the place of Jesus, a stretch for us even on Sundays. But, in the end, that seems to be where we are supposed to set our eyes, especially since we call ourselves his followers, meaning we strive to imitate the ways of Jesus in all manner, shape, and form. If so, then we are expected not to judge others however large the sin or however plain it is to see.
As we look at Jesus as our model, we find someone who refuses to see the woman as defined by her sins, but rather sees her as a person much like everyone else, far from perfect, but much more than the sum of her wrongdoing. He offers her healing for her soul and invites her to return to her place in the human family, no longer an outcast, but someone who needs a helping hand to get back on the right path.
Of course, that requires from us a good measure of mercy rather than the heavy-handed judgment that we are so quick to render upon others who do not measure up to our satisfaction. And for some unknown reason, we tend to be tight-fisted when it comes to extending mercy to those whom we consider beneath us, or inferior to us, or unlike us.
How are we to remedy that situation, meeting the challenge given to us by Jesus who said that we must be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful? I suppose the first step is to want it, a desire to show mercy being no walk in the park for most of us who have a natural knack to pile up on others who fail to measure up in some way, making us little different from the scribes and Pharisees who seem to measure mercy with a thimble, not with a cup. It is always easier for us to judge than to forgive.
The surest prod for showing mercy is a want on our parts to share in the life of Jesus who showed no hesitancy in extending mercy to sinners. As we know, he was much more comfortable with sinners than he was with hypocrites who claimed to be lily white and pure as snow, a reminder to us that if we truly want to be in his company, then it is better for us to admit our sinful ways than to rush to judge others who have fallen short.
A well-known attorney once wrote that early in his career as a prosecutor he was instructed on what to look for in potential jurors. Choose clean shaven rather than bearded; old rather than young; married rather than single; employed rather than jobless. All of whom had a stake in the system. However, he was told that the ideal juror for the prosecution was “the little old Lutheran lady in pearls because she would be quick to judge and slow to forgive.”
His words are a sad commentary on the Sunday church goer who, it would seem, prefers to stand with the scribes and Pharisees more than with Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, a call to conversion on our parts if there ever was one.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 