John 8:7-11

00:00:00:12 – 00:00:22:52
Clint Loveall
Hey everybody, thanks for joining us as we finish out this Thanksgiving week and hope you and yours are doing well and in whatever way you’re celebrating. Holiday, thanks for joining us. We are halfway through a story. We try not to break stories in the middle when we can, but this is an interesting one. And with the week, we thought it worked well to handle it in kind of two sections.

00:00:22:57 – 00:00:48:28
Clint Loveall
This is out of John chapter eight. The woman caught in adultery. If you missed yesterday or the session before this, it might be helpful, to go back and pick that up because there is some background and some interesting stuff about this text itself. But in terms of the story, just a quick recap of yesterday’s the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, the scribes.

00:00:48:28 – 00:01:10:34
Clint Loveall
They’ve brought Jesus, a woman who they say was caught in adultery. In fact, it says in the very act of adultery. And they have tried to trap Jesus by saying, what should we do? The law says, stoned her. What do you say if Jesus says, stone her, he’s sideways with Roman law. If he says, don’t stone her, he’s sideways with Jewish law.

00:01:10:39 – 00:01:43:59
Clint Loveall
They think they have him. And then Jesus responds by bending to write on the ground, which is a very interesting detail. That’s where we picked up the story. Jesus has been writing on the ground and we jump back in here. What would that be? Verse. Looks like verse seven. So when they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and he said to them, let any one among you without sin be the first to throw the stone at her.

00:01:44:04 – 00:02:15:22
Clint Loveall
And once again he bent down and began to write on the ground. When they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the oldest. 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, the neither do I condemn you.

00:02:15:26 – 00:02:42:14
Clint Loveall
Go on your way. And from now on do not sin again. So this is one of those moments. We see it in the gospel whenever someone thinks they have Jesus cornered, they don’t. That that’s especially true. I think in the Gospel of John, Jesus is writing on the ground and they press him. Jesus, give us an answer that we mentioned yesterday.

00:02:42:14 – 00:03:06:38
Clint Loveall
That may be Jesus way of withdrawing and saying, look, I’m not interested in this game you’re playing. You don’t really care about my answer. I know this is a trap, but they say, come on, Jesus answer, give us your answer. So he he says this rather well known and I suppose famous line let anyone without sin cast the first stone.

00:03:06:43 – 00:03:20:25
Clint Loveall
And, I think it’s very interesting, like, or how Jesus has now flipped the script and it’s the Pharisees and, scribes who now find themselves sort of the ones being trapped.

00:03:20:40 – 00:03:50:00
Michael Gewecke
This is not the only story of this genre in the Gospels. There are often these moments, like Solomon’s wisdom, where this seemingly impossible problem is brought to Jesus, and he cuts between both of these impossible polarities. And, you know, we find a new way. But, Clint, I do think that this story, because of how relatable it is, or at least we can imagine it, even if it’s not relatable to our specific life experience.

00:03:50:00 – 00:04:15:30
Michael Gewecke
We can imagine being in a socially vulnerable, a moment, an experience of being outed for our deepest sinfulness, that this is the stuff of nightmares. And here, when we see Jesus reaching down whatever he’s writing, we I think it’s wise to go back to that previous conversation. Let’s not get fixated on what the writing is. Let’s get so fixated here.

00:04:15:30 – 00:04:39:21
Michael Gewecke
Jesus is it is disconnected from the kind of risk that is at play for him. Right? Because the tension here is the Pharisees, the scribes, they’re coming to trap Jesus using this woman as a pawn. But Jesus doesn’t view the woman as a pawn. He doesn’t see her as a means to an end. So he sees her in her full humanity.

00:04:39:21 – 00:05:14:07
Michael Gewecke
His compassion is for her, and it leads him down the path that the leaders had not even considered. They thought it was trapping Jesus between Roman rule and law and the law of Moses. Whereas Jesus sees God’s beloved care for his daughter for for someone who God knows by name. And that’s the kind of turn and the story which has something to teach us, yes, about Jesus’s wisdom and his ability to disarm his opponents, though in John we’re not surprised by that.

00:05:14:07 – 00:05:35:55
Michael Gewecke
At this point. It also has something to teach us about how Jesus views the world radically different in its power structure than the people who are the religious leaders coming against him. The reason that they are so rattled and so threatened is because Jesus represents something other than the common sense that everyone knew had to be the case.

00:05:36:00 – 00:06:14:27
Michael Gewecke
Jesus saw the kingdom. Jesus revealed the kingdom. Jesus initiated the kingdom in a way that none of these leaders could have anticipated. Then I just think these words let anyone among you who’s without sin be the first to throw a stone at her has a way of both humanizing this woman, but interestingly, also humanizing these men, because where they might have been taking the law as an excuse for their own inherent sinfulness here, Jesus also has a deftly pointed out the hypocrisy of that position that they, too, are sinners who stand in need of grace.

00:06:14:27 – 00:06:35:16
Michael Gewecke
And so it’s that moment, I think, where Jesus is both revealing a different way. He’s disarming the powers that be. He he’s showing us what God looks like when he encounters the brokenness of humanity. And it’s both for the one who claims the law and the one who stands in judgment of the law, and Christ is the Christ.

00:06:35:16 – 00:06:36:25
Michael Gewecke
For both of them.

00:06:36:30 – 00:07:08:30
Clint Loveall
So I love this part of the story. You know, these men bring this woman to Jesus. She’s a sinner. She’s unrighteous. The law says that we who are righteous are to punish her by death. And Jesus says, yeah, okay. If that’s if that’s what you want to do, then whoever’s without sin, you get it started, right? You go first and then he bends down again like, okay, yeah, don’t do what you’re going to do.

00:07:08:34 – 00:07:37:53
Clint Loveall
And he he again sort of detaches himself from it. And now he’s put them in a bind, because anyone who would do that first throwing of the stone would therefore be making the claim that they are without sin. So, so they would be sinning in their pride, in their hubris, in their self-righteousness. And and so Jesus disarms what they can do.

00:07:37:55 – 00:08:15:27
Clint Loveall
He he, he upholds the law. He doesn’t get sideways with Rome. And he reframes the issue from person to theirs. Yeah, she’s a sinner. What about you? Any of you then, aren’t you? Throw the rock and then there’s this beautiful line, Michael, that they went away one by one, beginning with the elders or the oldest. We don’t know exactly what to do with that, but it probably means that those who had been around longer knew that they were had, that they gave up.

00:08:15:27 – 00:08:40:48
Clint Loveall
You know, when you’re young and stubborn, maybe you hang in there longer thinking, we can’t believe he got us. The older man. They seem to know we’ve lost this round. And then one by one, they go away. Which is a very interesting place that John takes us in the story, that eventually it’s Jesus and the woman left alone.

00:08:40:53 – 00:09:07:44
Clint Loveall
And then Jesus says, well, where, where are they? Have are is there no one here to condemn you? And of course, the answer is am I going or the real question, am I going to condemn you? And Jesus says no. And then, because grace is always followed with responsibility, go. And from now don’t sin again. In other words, rethink your life.

00:09:07:44 – 00:09:28:37
Clint Loveall
Reevaluate your choices. Try to do better. I mean, this is a woman who, by all claims at least, was committing adultery, are involved in adultery. And so Jesus calls her to something better. It’s really, really interesting way that John weaves this story together and delivers us to the conclusion.

00:09:28:46 – 00:09:57:09
Michael Gewecke
I think you’re exactly right to point out to us, and to direct our attention to the fact that when Jesus asked, has anyone condemned you? The ultimate answer to his own question is his statement. Neither do I condemn you that there’s a kind of implicit rounding out of this entire story in that comment. I also want to point out, though, that now we see how the bending down to the dirt provides another kind of bookend towards a similar vein.

00:09:57:09 – 00:10:21:25
Michael Gewecke
In the first point, he gets down with her in the second. In the Gospel of John. Of all of the Gospels, we know that Jesus Christ is perfect. He’s sinless. He has nothing to confess. Right? And so when Jesus says, let anyone who is without sin to be the first to throw a stone at her, he reaches down to the very place he would pick up a stone.

00:10:21:30 – 00:10:50:38
Michael Gewecke
And there he continues to simply write. In other words, Jesus Christ stands as the one who is the just judge. In that moment, he could have been the one to throw that first stone because of the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ is thoroughly and unendingly and perfectly sinless, and here his choice to just go back to the writing that he was doing ultimately seals the fate of these religious leaders who come after him.

00:10:50:38 – 00:11:15:57
Michael Gewecke
And I think one of the really fascinating ways that the text ends is exactly how you pointed out how at the end of all of this, neither do I condemn you. Then he says, go your way, and from now on do not sin again, that once again Jesus has violated the kind of polarities, the kind of opposites that the Pharisees and scribes tried to create.

00:11:16:08 – 00:11:45:46
Michael Gewecke
Because if this story was only grace, if it was only compassion, it was only you should be nice to other people, because you have times in your life when you would like it if people were nice to you. If that’s all that this was, it would still be an amazingly deep spiritual teaching, but not at the level that this is because Jesus here, who is the resurrection and the life, who is the judge, and also the one who’s given as the as the judgment.

00:11:45:50 – 00:12:13:21
Michael Gewecke
He is the one who sends this woman out and says, May your life be turned upside down. It live differently. May this moment cause a new kind of holiness, a new kind of encounter in the kingdom that’s being proclaimed. It’s not just grace, it’s also a new life, new opportunity, new moral, new ethic. There’s a whole kind of transformation here, not just even in the Pharisees and the scribes.

00:12:13:21 – 00:12:37:44
Michael Gewecke
We see Jesus sees the world larger than even the kind of polarities that it was presented to him. There’s a kind of beautiful wrap up teaching at the end of the story that I just really appreciate. John is showing us that Jesus is grace, but also truth. Jesus is love, but that love sometimes takes us to very difficult places and hard choices.

00:12:37:44 – 00:12:53:56
Michael Gewecke
And Jesus wants what’s best for this woman, and he wants her to not just be alive in body. At the end of this ordeal. He wants her to be alive in spirit, to live in abundant life. And he invites her onto that path after she’s seen who he is.

00:12:54:05 – 00:13:27:51
Clint Loveall
I agree completely, Michael. This is a beautifully crafted ending where Jesus and the woman are together. You know, when you when you cut through all of the stuff, the, the trap, the test, the self-righteousness, the let’s get him when all of that confronts Jesus and loses, it goes away. And then this woman who is guilty in the context of the story, is left alone with the only one who could throw the first stone.

00:13:27:55 – 00:14:00:54
Clint Loveall
He is the only one able and worthy to cast judgment and carry out sentence on her sin. And instead he says, neither do I condemn you. And from that moment of grace calls her to a different way of living. And that’s such a beautiful summary of the Christian experience in some way. What every Christian goes through, maybe with sins, we’d like to think less serious than hers.

00:14:00:59 – 00:14:26:54
Clint Loveall
But still, there is that moment where each of us encounters the one who could condemn us for our failures, but instead chooses to be gracious to us and set us on a better path, or call us to a better way of living. This. This is almost this comes very close to leaving the realm of story for me and becoming sermon.

00:14:26:54 – 00:14:41:13
Clint Loveall
I just think it is that well crafted in that well-told that it holds together so perfectly and delivers us to that moment. At the end is I. This is an incredibly well-written passage.

00:14:41:18 – 00:15:14:22
Michael Gewecke
I really cannot help but reiterate that that’s literally where I was going. I was going to make the case that I think admitting the bias, that there’s two people who who preach, and that’s a part of our identity and service in the church. But when you look at this story, it is all inclusive in a powerful way. It it transcends teaching morality like we think of in a classroom context where we say, you should do this or you should not do this.

00:15:14:27 – 00:15:51:04
Michael Gewecke
What this story does is it turns to narrative to display the truth of who all of us are at the core, and then to reveal to us what Jesus’s response to that sin is. And I think a way that you could imagine this story in light of that, is to ask the question, who is faithful to the faith less in this story that the scribes and Pharisees are interested in using the faith less one towards their own ends, and in doing so they reached their own kind of faithlessness.

00:15:51:09 – 00:16:16:09
Michael Gewecke
But there’s one who is got to stick with it for this woman. Jesus Christ cares nothing about advancement, and it really this story is not even about him winning in the sense that he doesn’t take away points from the crowd. There’s no reference that Jesus is hailed as a wise teacher. Now, there’s a kind of simple, and by simple I don’t mean deep.

00:16:16:13 – 00:16:47:51
Michael Gewecke
There is a understandable turn in this story where we can, for a moment, if we’re but willing to hear it, a kind of sermon that invites us to turn our own faithlessness over to the one who is faithful. And yes, this is a devotional way of reading the text, but whether or not this should be included, as you know, not being in those first manuscripts, what he wrote in The Dirt, you know, all these kind of technical details we’ve talked about in the previous study in and glossed over today.

00:16:47:51 – 00:17:16:54
Michael Gewecke
Clint, I, I think in spades. This story encapsulates the story of who Jesus Christ is and does so in a way that moves not just minds, but hearts. And I think it resonates today in this gospel with the Jesus portrayed as perfect, as wise, as discerning, and as an all loving and. And Jesus here provides for this woman and inflects in reflection point in her life.

00:17:16:58 – 00:17:25:10
Michael Gewecke
And the text invites us, therefore, to consider our own inflection points that we find in Jesus Christ.

00:17:25:15 – 00:18:04:37
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I, I think that this is one of many reminders that we see in the gospel, not just John, but we see it clearly in John that Jesus only seems to judge those who judge others, and Jesus only seems to warn condemnation for those who won’t admit their own sin. And you know, Jesus stands here as the one who could condemn but chooses not to, except for these self-righteous men who whose actions and hearts condemn themselves.

00:18:04:37 – 00:18:14:44
Clint Loveall
And again, not a new theme in John. Certainly not, a new theme in the gospel, but seen clearly in this story.

00:18:14:49 – 00:18:32:42
Michael Gewecke
Well, friends, this is a powerful story. If it’s been encouraging to you, if it’s been challenging to you, if it’s revealed the truth of your own faithlessness us and invited you to meet the one who is faithful, give it a like, certainly subscribe so you can stick with us on studies like this, the only thing we want to add is because it’s Thanksgiving.

00:18:32:42 – 00:18:47:38
Michael Gewecke
At the time of us studying this, we will not be back until next week, probably Wednesday. You’ll hear more on Sunday about that, but we look forward to continuing the study next week. Subscribe so you can stick with us as we go. Have a blessed celebration and we look forward to seeing you soon.

00:18:47:51 – 00:18:48:37
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.