The Story That Wouldn't Die

Midweek Worship

The Fifth Week after Epiphany, 2022

A Reading from John’s Gospel:

Then each of them went home, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 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. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

She said, “No one, sir.”

And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I’m cheating a little bit, just in case you hadn’t noticed. The Gospel read this evening was in fact yesterday’s selection for vespers. Call it the pastor’s prerogative. You see, the tale of the woman caught in adultery is simply too good to pass up.

We find the story here at the beginning of the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel, yet there are ancient manuscripts of John which do not include it. Others place it elsewhere in the text, or in a different text altogether. Some versions have it in Luke, and to be honest it fits a lot better there. That’s probably where the story started out.

Luke told this tale, it would seem, during Holy Week, the last days of Jesus’ earthly life before His Crucifixion. At this point the Lord has entered triumphally into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and He finds the city a powder keg just waiting for some spark. Judea’s itching for an excuse to throw off the yoke of Rome.

If a rebellion is going to happen, it’s going to be now. Jesus is the Christ—or at least many people hope that He is. And the Christ, as everyone knows, will toss the Romans out on their ear and reëstablish Israel as the Kingdom of God on earth. But many in authority understandably fear that a rebellion will bring only calamity; causing Rome to bring down the hammer of the Legions and smash Jerusalem flat, as they’ve already crushed so many would-be messiahs before.

The city authorities have to find a way to remove Jesus without igniting the crowds. They can’t just snatch Him off the street; they’d have a riot on their hands. But—if they can trap Him within His own words, then that could diffuse the situation before things get even more out of hand. That’s why we read of so many people testing Jesus during Holy Week. They’re trying to slip Him up.

Take tonight’s story for example. A woman is brought to Jesus in a very public place, while He’s teaching in front of the Temple. And keep in mind that, in these days before the Passover, the city is packed with pilgrims, visitors, foreigners. And the Pharisees and the scribes say to Him, “We’ve caught her in adultery, Jesus. Go on and tell us what we should do. Tell us all what the Law would demand.” For you see, the Law of Moses would condemn this woman to death, but the law of Rome would allow no such thing.

They’re trying to catch Him in a pincer movement between Jewish and Gentile law. If He says to kill her—to stone the adulteress—then they’ve got Him. Everybody heard Him contravene the rule of Rome. They can hand Him over to the Legions. But if He spares her, He’d be contradicting Moses—here in the Temple, here at the Passover! Then the crowds would surely denounce Him as a traitor and no true prophet, let alone the Christ.

So what does He do? He doodles in the dirt. A remarkable little detail, that. It’s actually the only account we have of Jesus writing something. We’ve no idea what. It could well be symbolic: a reference to Jeremiah, who prophesied that those who forsake the Lord “shall be written in the earth.” Taken aback, but hardly daunted, they press Him for an answer, and His response is justly famous:

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And they are stunned. How can they respond? Perhaps some of them really do consider themselves to be sinless according to the letter of the Law. But they can hardly say that, can they? And they certainly can’t hurl the first stone. If they do, they’ll be caught in their own trap, liable to the Senate and People of Rome; or to the Emperor, at any rate. There’s nothing they can do. So they slink away, defanged, compromised, looking like sinners in the eyes of the crowd.

It’s a brilliant bit of political theater. And this poor woman—who may or may not have done what they claim—who just a moment ago was staring a slow and agonizing death in the face for no better reason than that some religious men wanted to discredit a different religious Man—she is left standing there with Jesus.

“Where did they go?” He asks her. “Is no-one left to condemn you?”

“No-one, Lord,” the poor woman says, here in front of the Temple, here in front of the crowds. 

“Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus says. “Go, and sin no more.”

It’s powerful, dramatic, wickedly clever; profound in its simplicity; and utterly scandalous in its implications. That, I think, is why it was removed from Luke’s Gospel. People couldn’t take it. No death penalty? No punishment for adultery? How could society stand such laxity? Why, the women would all be running amok! So the copyists left it out.

But a good story is hard to kill, and a true story proves particularly resilient. The Christian community kept repeating it: “Did you hear the one about the woman caught in adultery?” It was never truly forgotten, never truly lost. And eventually it found its way back into the Gospels—just into John’s, rather than back into Luke’s, maybe because it’s easier for us to write John off as “symbolic.” We wouldn’t want people getting mischievous ideas, now would we?

I’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of love fulfilling the Law, completing the Law, rather than simply contradicting or replacing the Law. Is it just to punish wrongdoing? Sure. Is there a greater justice to be found in mercy? Absolutely. Notice that Jesus neither condemns the person nor condones the sin. As I’m always telling our Confirmands, justice and mercy to us seem opposed. But not in God. In Him, perfect justice and perfect mercy are both revealed as perfect truth.

Perfect justice opens the door to mercy, and perfect mercy allows opportunity for restitution. Sin cannot be done away with by blunt force trauma. Only repentance can do that; only a restoration of truthful, selfless love.

The woman caught in adultery is the story that wouldn’t die, the story that rose again like Jesus from the tomb. And that name we give it appears to miss the point entirely. Perhaps we should call it the story of religious hypocrites victimizing women in the name of public morality. Or does that seem a bit too on-the-nose? Better to leave it with the words of Jesus:

Are there none left to condemn you? Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.