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Sermons In Time |
The Scripture from John's Gospel (John 8:1-11) is one of those rare passages in the New Testament which nobody seems to know quite what to do with. In the newer translations, it is not found in the regular text. The reason is that in the earliest editions of Scripture, this passage is just not present, is found in other places, the language, diction, is so much different that the rest of John's Gospel there are those who are convinced it is just not a part of the New Testament Tradition. But it belongs in the canon somewhere! It's one of those passages you just cannot dismiss lightly because it says so well that which needs to be said. It is faithful to the Gospel message in a very deep and rich way.
We examine the context also in the light of Paul's affirmation in Romans the Eighth Chapter. This passage has three phrases I would lift up. 1.The first is this: " He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." That which happened after Jesus said that, is precisely what happens to all of us. The crowd began to reflect inwardly on their own lives. When you begin to examine your own life, you realize that all of us are sinners. All of us have done those things, have acted in ways which make it impossible to be too critical of the other person.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, 7) there is that brief admonition "Do not take the speck out of your brother's eye until you have dealt with the log in your own." It's a consciousness that all of us are sinners and what we have fallen short of the glory of God.
There was a time in our tradition, about 75 years ago, called the "liberal" period. The motif was simply if you kept progressing well enough and far enough, going ever upward and onward - we would finally come to the City of God right here on earth where nobody would be a sinner.
Then came the "first world war," the great depression, the "second world war, the atomic bomb, and nuclear weaponry. There was Korea and Vietnam, and continued strife - to this day - throughout the world. We became conscious of "sin" in an alarmingly present way. Thre is a pervasiveness of alienation in the human spirit that is ever with us!
Recently that "sinfulness" has been expressed in the popular media as the "anti-hero." Note the contrast between movies when they started out and where they are today. Two quick illustrations: In the earlier times, all the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats (Inadvertently racist?) And the good guys never did anything wrong. They were always "super good" They were so good, in fact, that when you look at them today, it's almost funny to see Tom Mix riding his white horse off into the distance with his white hat on and he looks deeply into the eyes of the girl - but never touches her, and moves right on out!
By contrast "Lucky Lady" is a different kind of story. It is the story of three people who convince you for about half the movie they are still sinners - not good guys. They're "kinda" bad guys who take on the worse bad guys. So, it's bad fighting worse before it's over! But the consciousness that comes through for all of us is the pervasiveness of sin - that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's an old Biblical statement. And our generation has come to understand once again that's where it is. "We all stand in the need of the means of Grace." We all stand in need of forgiveness and redemption. We are all those who have alienated ourselves from our world, from our own life, and from the lives of others around us.
2. Perhaps the most difficult passage in this 8th Chapter of John are the words, "Go and sin no more." That is a perfect admonition. It's the best you could ask for. Sounds just like a parent! It's the kind of statement you would expect from Jesus! It's like the passage in the 6th chapter of Matthew : "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." I don't think there is anyone among us who but who has that kind of goal for our life. We'd like to be that good! But it is also like that "Liberal spirit - that person who says he is without sin - usually is the one who is walking around with blinders on his eyes!
I once lived in a community which boasted of "living seven miles from any known sin." Yet, I could tell you some things which happed in the context of that spot that would make your hair curl! It is just not possible to make that kind of statement - that we have moved away completely for the position of sinners - that we have not "done it again." Now, if Jesus had said, "Young lady, don't go out and commit adultery anymore," that would have been manageable. I believe she could have managed it, and I believe most people could manage it. It is possible for persons to make the decision where they deliberately do not do certain kinds of things which are inappropriate. If it were thus limited, the passage would be simple. "Do not commit adultery again." But that's not what he said. Instead he said, "Go and sin no more!"
Out of this admonition has grown an interesting form of hypocrisy. Persons in the church who have had their sins forgiven (which easily leads them to say, "I don't sin anymore.") This is a difficult, if not impossible stance to maintain. Equally so, would be the statement, "My sins are forgiven, so I can do as I jolly well please." Neither are plausible positions. You and I live in the tension where we are all sinners saved by the Grace of God. There come times when one has to, like Luther, "sin bravely." The Church has been correct through the centuries, and stands correct today when she puts a place for confession of sins in the context of worship. A place where we understand in this moment that God does accept us and forgive us of our sins.
Unless that is true, we all become hypocrites which keeps us form being able to face, and therefore deal, with the sin in our lives. So, these two passages stand out as two great passages. Most of us have heard sermons across the years about those passages.
There is a third passage here less familiar - and more powerful.
3. It is where Jesus says, "Neither do I condemn you." One of my friends made a banner to celebrate this reality and it hangs in the church today. She also wrote me a note which said, "Tod be in Christ is to lose the need to condemn." I agree! "Neither do I condemn you."
In the 8th Chapter of Romans, the first verse, after speaking about condemnation in the sense persons feel condemned in the 7th Chapter, St. Paul goes on to say "...there is therefore now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus our Lord." To know the sense of condemnation is very real to all of us. It's a very present experience for those who have a deep sense of conscience. In contrast with the person who says, "I don't sin anymore," the sensitive spirit says, "I need constantly to be forgiven."
Anyone who has wronged another person or who has known themselves to be wronged by another person knows immediately that sensitivity of spirit which feels so deeply the sense of guilt - that sense of condemnation.
Whittier put it this way:
It would be a very perverse or callous person who would say, " I feel no sense of wrong. I feel no sense of guilt. I feel no sense of having that which alienates me from myself, from my neighbor, from my world, or from God." This is so pervasive that, as a pastor working with people who have struggled with the sin in their life, I'm convinced that to help make people feel guilty is just not very useful.
Most people already feel that sense of condemnation. If you take a person who has erred deeply and only pour on the guilt, if you push them away by saying, "I will have nothing to do with you," the alienation is just compounded. The distance is compounded. Rather, what that person needs to hear at the very depths of his or her being, that there is therefore, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That in Christ there is a release from condemnation, that we hear the Good News of Knowing ourselves forgiven: Forgiven of God and forgiven of those whom we have wronged most. The very people we have hurt come back to us and renew that relationship and remain vulnerable to being hurt again, but reach out and enfold and encompass. This, to me is the heart of the Gospel.
Jesus says one thing more that is extremely important in this passage: that although this woman has done wrong (by Jewish law she had committed a act that was worthy of being stoned to death), he turns and says, "You who are without sin, let him cast the first stone." He also then says, following the leaving of the woman by her accusers, "I have no need to condemn you either." He has the capacity for compassion. He has the capacity to reach up and sustain that persons life.
The condemnation of others, the need to put down, comes from a sense of self-protectiveness, a sense of insecurity inside of us. The person who says, " Look at what so and so did," or gossips about this other person is really saying, "I'm so insecure about my own life, that I have to look about and see someone who is worse off than I am. By talking about it , I hope that you also see them as worse than I am, and therefore, you will feel better about me." That comes from not having felt accepted and loved and redeemed and affirmed. We are usually most critical of those areas of our own life and of the life of others where we feel insecure about ourselves. So we put all kinds of structures around us to keep from being hurt by other people.
Yet, to be in Christ is to be vulnerable, to hurt. To put it another way, when we're clear about our own life, instead of condemnation we're capable of affirmation. We're capable of encouraging people. We're capable of reconciling life to one another,. We're capable of building up rather than tearing down. We're capable of giving security to another person and we're capable of growing spiritually. Thanks be to God for the possibilities that are there and that in our weakness, in our humanness, we don't have to throw in the sponge. We don't have to put up false fronts. We can be the persons we are. The best persons that we are, with all of our weaknesses, and continue to grow in Christ Jesus, and in fellowship with one another. Amen!
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