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Has no one condemned you?
Mar. 12th, 2016 02:17 pmThe text that I am preaching on tomorrow is the one set by the Roman Catholics rather than the one set for the Revised Common Lectionary. No matter. The story of the woman caught in adultery is one that all of us can imagine being part of.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says,
The story we have just heard in the Gospel is probably, along with those of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, one of the best known and best loved of all the stories Jesus is said to have told.
Whose heart can remain stony hearing the tale of a woman, caught in adultery, being brought before Jesus to be condemned to death? Not mine.
We usually imagine ourselves in the persona of the woman, someone who has sinned, who knows she has sinned, and knows the penalty for her sin. We then live to enjoy the forgiveness of God and God’s grace in our lives, turning us from sin to eternal life.
This is a feel-good, warming place to be in, isn’t it? As the hymn says, “I come with joy, a child of God,/forgiven, loved, and free…”
I daresay that we never imagine ourselves in the places of those who brought the woman to Jesus. Oh no. We are definitely not part of that mob. We didn’t catch the woman in the act, we didn’t see her as the way we could entrap Jesus into condoning sin or condemning her to death, we weren’t filled with unholy glee at the thought of watching the woman be buried in the ground up to her neck and then killing her by throwing rocks at her.
No, that’s not us. Not at all.
Just wait a minute.
One of the attributes I’ve found almost universally in the places I’ve worked or in which I’ve lived is a gossipy, gleeful pleasure at the misfortune of others. We say to ourselves or to our neighbours, “He is getting what he deserves.” about someone else who is caught out in some transgression, or perhaps “She’s no better than she deserves” about an acquaintance who keeps bad company and reaps the consequences.
I accuse myself of these sins, and leave it to you to decide whether to accuse yourselves of them too.
In this story we are not the woman, about to die. We are not Jesus or the disciples, forgiving the woman and saying those immortal words, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”
No. We are the mob. Full stop.
We are the ones who snooped around the woman until we caught her with her lover.
We are the ones who dragged her away to Jesus.
We are the ones who filled our pockets and satchels with stones on the way.
We are the ones who massed before Jesus, demanding that Jesus agree to kill the woman.
Yes, we are.
Don’t try to deny it.
We don’t know what Jesus was writing on the ground when the question was put to him. Some speculate that he was writing the names of those he recognised in the crowd. Others think that he was writing the words from the Book of Daniel said to have appeared on the walls of King Belshazzar’s banquet hall: Mene, mene, tekel upharsin, or “You are weighed in the scales and found wanting.”
Jesus then looked up and addressed each one of the crowd: “Let you who is sinless cast the first stone.”
You’re a member of the mob, and Jesus tells you, personally, “If you are sinless, throw the first stone.” You are taken aback. You look around, waiting for a scribe or a priest to take a stone out of his pocket and throw it at the defenseless woman. Then you’ll be free to do likewise.
No one throws anything.
One by one, your fellow members of the crowd drop the stones they were planning to throw and silently return the way they came.
No one in the crowd can confess to being sinless, least of all you. You take the stones from your pocket, let them slip to the ground, and follow the crowd as it slinks back to town.
So you don’t hear what Jesus says to the woman when the crowd has disappeared, but we do.
“Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go away and don’t sin any more”
Can anyone, hearing that, doubt that their sins are forgiven? Can you?
Can you do what Jesus asks, and go and sin no more?
And so, may we forego all condemnation of others, and realise our own sinfulness, forgiven by our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom must be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and praise both now and evermore. AMEN.
13th March 2016 Fifth Sunday of Lent
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10:00AM.
First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21
2nd Reading: Philippians 3:8-14
Gospel: John 8:1-11
“…Has no one condemned you?…”
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10:00AM.
First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21
2nd Reading: Philippians 3:8-14
Gospel: John 8:1-11
“…Has no one condemned you?…”
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says,
If anyone thinks that Christians regard…sexual sin as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me...they are the animal self and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course it is better to be neither!
The story we have just heard in the Gospel is probably, along with those of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, one of the best known and best loved of all the stories Jesus is said to have told.
Whose heart can remain stony hearing the tale of a woman, caught in adultery, being brought before Jesus to be condemned to death? Not mine.
We usually imagine ourselves in the persona of the woman, someone who has sinned, who knows she has sinned, and knows the penalty for her sin. We then live to enjoy the forgiveness of God and God’s grace in our lives, turning us from sin to eternal life.
This is a feel-good, warming place to be in, isn’t it? As the hymn says, “I come with joy, a child of God,/forgiven, loved, and free…”
I daresay that we never imagine ourselves in the places of those who brought the woman to Jesus. Oh no. We are definitely not part of that mob. We didn’t catch the woman in the act, we didn’t see her as the way we could entrap Jesus into condoning sin or condemning her to death, we weren’t filled with unholy glee at the thought of watching the woman be buried in the ground up to her neck and then killing her by throwing rocks at her.
No, that’s not us. Not at all.
Just wait a minute.
One of the attributes I’ve found almost universally in the places I’ve worked or in which I’ve lived is a gossipy, gleeful pleasure at the misfortune of others. We say to ourselves or to our neighbours, “He is getting what he deserves.” about someone else who is caught out in some transgression, or perhaps “She’s no better than she deserves” about an acquaintance who keeps bad company and reaps the consequences.
I accuse myself of these sins, and leave it to you to decide whether to accuse yourselves of them too.
In this story we are not the woman, about to die. We are not Jesus or the disciples, forgiving the woman and saying those immortal words, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”
No. We are the mob. Full stop.
We are the ones who snooped around the woman until we caught her with her lover.
We are the ones who dragged her away to Jesus.
We are the ones who filled our pockets and satchels with stones on the way.
We are the ones who massed before Jesus, demanding that Jesus agree to kill the woman.
Yes, we are.
Don’t try to deny it.
We don’t know what Jesus was writing on the ground when the question was put to him. Some speculate that he was writing the names of those he recognised in the crowd. Others think that he was writing the words from the Book of Daniel said to have appeared on the walls of King Belshazzar’s banquet hall: Mene, mene, tekel upharsin, or “You are weighed in the scales and found wanting.”
Jesus then looked up and addressed each one of the crowd: “Let you who is sinless cast the first stone.”
You’re a member of the mob, and Jesus tells you, personally, “If you are sinless, throw the first stone.” You are taken aback. You look around, waiting for a scribe or a priest to take a stone out of his pocket and throw it at the defenseless woman. Then you’ll be free to do likewise.
No one throws anything.
One by one, your fellow members of the crowd drop the stones they were planning to throw and silently return the way they came.
No one in the crowd can confess to being sinless, least of all you. You take the stones from your pocket, let them slip to the ground, and follow the crowd as it slinks back to town.
So you don’t hear what Jesus says to the woman when the crowd has disappeared, but we do.
“Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go away and don’t sin any more”
Can anyone, hearing that, doubt that their sins are forgiven? Can you?
Can you do what Jesus asks, and go and sin no more?
And so, may we forego all condemnation of others, and realise our own sinfulness, forgiven by our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom must be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and praise both now and evermore. AMEN.
