A Vital Conversation About God’s Grace
John 7:52-8:11
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
April 3, 2022
There are times when a face-to-face conversation is the best way to broach a topic. The gospel of John allows us to listen in, sort of like a fly on the wall, as we see Jesus having such intimate conversations with people.
The topic of grace is a frequent theme in the Christian community. We talk about God’s grace and we sing about God’s grace, we’ll sing about grace in few minutes. Grace, the way we’ve learned to describe it is “God’s unmerited favor toward us.” Something we don’t deserve; something that God gives to us based on who He is and not on what we’ve done. Grace is what we are saved by, we call it amazing grace and it is at the core of our faith as believers of Jesus.
But that’s one of the topics that is not easily discussed in our world because our world is not structured around grace, is it? Our world is structured on the culture of earning; we’ve been schooled in the culture of earning. Brennan Manning has a book entitled “The Ragamuffin Gospel.” Brennan Manning was a Catholic priest and late in his life he succumbed to alcoholism and it was a big struggle for him and God set him free. Brennan Manning went around the world talking about the amazing grace of God. In fact, he’s such a believer of grace that reading his book could make us uncomfortable as Christian believers. He is really serious about the grace of God. When he speaks in public, he is known to step up to the podium in this beat up clothes, big bright patches, illustrative of this ragamuffin that God has saved.
Brennan Manning said, “Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory, but denies it in practice. By in large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood or lived. Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not in the house of love.”
See, we find it difficult to understand grace in a culture that constantly says to us that we have to earn what we deserve. We want money? We have to work for it. We want mercy? We need to show that we deserve it. Do unto others before they do unto you. Watch out for welfare lines, and shiftless street people and affluent students with student loans, it’s all a con game. By all means, give everyone what they deserve, but not a penny more. This is our culture; it is a culture of earning. We earn our way through life. We earn our allowances as children, we earn our grades, we earn our degrees, we earn our salaries, we earn respect, we earn our promotions, we earn our awards and rewards. Grace has little to do with the lives we live day to day. So we find it, in practice hard to give grace to others and difficult to receive from others.
We talk about it in theory, we can define it and sing about it, but living it is sometimes a challenge to us.
There is a story in the gospel of John, it begins on the last verse or chapter seven verse 52 and goes through chapter eight, verse eleven. But before we go into the story, in full disclosure, I need to tell you how the story came to us. As we read our bibles, we find that there are footnotes in the bible and in John 7:53 there is a footnote that says, “Most ancient authorities lack 7:53 thru 8:11” and some of your footnotes will give you more detail than that. It means that this passage does not show up in all ancient manuscripts.
The passage doesn’t show up in the gospel of John in the eastern church that was centered on Constantinople for about 1,000 years. It wasn’t until 980A.D. that the Greek manuscripts in the eastern church that the early commentators ever comment about his story.
In the Latin Church, centered in Rome, it does begin to show up and it was widespread in a kind of way. St. Jerome translated the Greek and Hebrew text to a common Latin version in the late 4th century, about 380A.D. and he included this story in the 4th century. But even the manuscripts that do contain this passage shows up in a lot of different ways. Some of them include it in the passage but make it with an asterisk to indicate it is questionable. Some manuscripts included not at this part of the gospel but at the end of the gospel of John after chapter 21, verse 25. Some manuscripts did not include it in John at all, but included in the gospel of Luke. Some following Luke 24:53 at the end of Luke and some following 21:38, that last week of Jesus’ life.
And some manuscripts include it in the gospel of John, but following chapter seven, verse 36, not chapter seven, verse 52. So, by in large, most early manuscripts don’t contain it, so what do we do about this? Is this story that we are to talk about, is it considered scripture? We’ll clearly, I think so otherwise I would not be preaching about this on this morning.
One way to look at it is, as the earliest church struggled to find a way to preserve and maintain this story, as a part of their tradition, as a part of their life because it was clearly an important one to know. And they struggled to put it in John’s gospel or Luke’s gospel, but it seemed to be important to the early New Testament church.
There is a New Testament scholar named Leon Morris, an evangelical scholar from Australia, and in the New International commentary of the New Testament, he wrote and I agree with Morris, he said, “But if we cannot feel that this is part of John’s gospel, we can feel that the story is true to the character of Jesus. Throughout the history of the church it has been held that whoever wrote it, this little story is authentic; it rings true, it speaks to our condition, it’s worth our while to study it.”
Although not as an authentic part of John’s story, the story is very ancient. Most authorities agreed that it is referred to by Papias, a second century Christian writer. It is very likely that this story is not part of the original gospel of John, it seems an authentic story of the early days of Jesus that is preserved as many of the stories of the gospel are preserved. It is a story that deserves our study and our faith.
Now, let’s go back to the story of grace. I think she would never hear the thud of a stone without thinking of the grace of God. She probably was set up by a group of Pharisees who were intent on trapping Jesus statement so they would have an excuse to accuse him. A man who was not her husband had persuaded her to spend the night with him. When morning came she finally found this secret tryst interrupted by a group of religious leaders who stormed in her room without a warrant.
They cared nothing about her and very little about the law in that moment. They only wanted to use her as bait to lure Jesus into a trap. They dragged her through the streets until they reached the temple court where Jesus had already attracted a crowd, was sitting down, in the teacher’s position, teaching the people and they stood her directly in front of him, then they tried to tried to spring this trap. They said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law of Moses he commanded us to stone such women. What do you have to say?” They said this to test him so they might have some charge to bring against him. Now there’s a pretty big irony here; I don’t know if you catch it right away. I don’t think that a woman could be caught alone in the act of committing adultery. Where was the man? Was he part of this plot? If they were truly concerned about the law of Moses, he would be standing along with this.
Here’s what the law of Moses says about this subject. Leviticus, chapter twenty, and verse ten. It says, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. Deuteronomy 22:22 says, “If a man is caught lying with a wife of another man, both of them. The man who had been with a woman shall be put to death as well as the woman. It’s written very explicit in the law and if they were interested in the law primarily, there would be two people standing by him next to Jesus. But as it were they had set him up to trap him. And here’s the trap they hoped to spring: Jesus had a reputation of opening his arms and demonstrating the compassion and grace to all kinds of sinners. He had taken in tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus and invited them into the kingdom of God.
He had touched the lepers and cleanse them and invited him into the kingdom. Groups roughly described by the gospel writers as “sinners” and “prostitutes” came to him and sought God’s grace and forgiveness. They were attracted to the holiness of Jesus’ life and to the grace that he had demonstrated. That was his reputation, he had done that on lots of occasions and these people were regular followers of his. But the law of Moses was clear about this: people guilty of adultery were to be stoned to death; it was a capital offense. And so they bring her before him, guilty, caught in the act, deserving condemnation, execution, according to the law. If he agreed with the stoning he would look, something like the hypocrite about all the other things that he had taught and done. If he disagreed and contradicted the law of Moses, well then they could get him on that charge. So they wanted to squeeze in the tablets the tender hearted laws of God that he was preaching. Rocks on hand, ready to go on his instruction, they were ready for his reply. “The Law of Moses said she is to be put to death, what do you say?”
It is such a dramatic moment. He begins to bend down and begins to scribble on the ground. It’s the only record that we have in Scripture of Jesus writing. We don’t know what he was writing. We don’t know that he was bending over and doing this just to manage his anger for a moment at this injustice and this treatment and waiting to sort of get things ready. We don’t know if he was contemplating how he would reply best.
There is some dramatic interpretation that say that Jesus was wiring down the sins of those people who were gathered around for them to see, to let them know who they were. That would be nice in a movie, but that’s a lot of supposition. But he’s there writing. And they just keep asking, “What do we do? Should we stone her or not?” They kept on pelting him with these questions and finally the scriptures say that “he straightens up, stood 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 on the ground and began to write. He basically affirmed the law of Moses and said, “Yes, you’re right, the law of Moses says that she should be executed, so execute her, but the sinless among of you throw the first stone.” Well they began to reflect on what that might mean and who they were. The silence was pretty deafening and then the silence was broken by the sound of grace. One big rock after another, thudding to the ground. One after another, large stoning-size rocks begin to fall to the ground. One by one, the elders in the group began to withdraw and the young one after them.
The warmth of the grace of God in Jesus’ statement began to melt the frozen hearted accusers and they disappeared into the crowd until after a bit it was just he and the woman standing there before Jesus. All of her guilt, all of her shame, she is standing before the one person in that place that was qualified to stone her, the only one without sin. And that’s when that vital conversation about grace takes place. Jesus stood up again from scribbling in the sand and dusted off his hands and looks at her. He had stood up for her a few moments before her accusers and now he stood up to set her free. “He stands up, and the Scriptures say, “Woman, where are they, the ones who condemn you? Has no one condemned you?”
She must have been trembling. Her heart beating a thousand beats a minute. Sweaty palms and sweaty brow, she was that close to being stoned to death. Jesus asks her to look around and count her accusers. She looks around and surveys the space, she’s surrounded by big rocks but no glaring accusing stares. She says to Jesus, “No one sir.” There is another pause. What’s going to happen next? Is he going to lecture her? Looks down on her for what she has done? Preach a sermon? What does she expect?
But then she hears the sound of grace purer and powerful than a million rocks that had fallen around her. She hears Jesus voice and these powerful words that changed her life. Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you, go your way, and from now on, do not sin again.”
He called her into the kingdom of God. He invited her into the grace of the kingdom, he invited her as he had invited Matthew and Zacchaeus, and prostitutes and other sinners. He invited her to repent, to change her life, to receive God’s grace and kingdom, the life that is truly life. And at that moment, her heart stops and her trembling and wipes the dirt and sweat from her brow with her palms and she walks to a different way of life, a life that would never had been hers had it not been for Jesus in this moment. She walks away and leaves behind her guilt, and her shame and her condemnation and walks away free, uncondemn by God. Now that was brief conversation, but is a vital conversation. It was about this intense subject of grace, about how God regards us as sinners and how God in grace offers us as sinners.
It was a vital conversation because it wasn’t theoretical or abstract about grace. It was concrete, personal. It was about this person caught in this sin, at this time, sin that her religion and her society both condemn. A sin that was a capital sin and yet Jesus offered her grace and forgiveness and the opportunity to begin in life all over again.
What a beautiful conversation. Grace is difficult to grasp in a world that believes in giving people what they deserve.
Jesus stopped an execution. A legal execution of a guilty person, caught in the very act of the sin of which she was accused. He called on the executioners to examine themselves. Which one was innocent? Now, if we had time we could talk about the Pharisees and the condemnation of others and how we need to not to judge and condemn others. But I want to focus on the conversation’s grace dimension, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Somehow, life in the kingdom of God is found in truly hearing and listening out of both pieces of that statement: neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.
“Neither do I condemn you.” Think back about how much time we spend on giving or receiving condemnation on those who are a part of our lives, sometimes from people who ordinarily loves us, but they came with a raised eye brow or a wrinkled face or they’re turning away or by their silence or by their harsh word, pour condemnation for all kinds of reasons. We receive the condemnation of our parents, of our siblings, of our children, of our spouses. We receive condemnation of coworkers, total strangers. Condemnation comes to all of us, we have been on the receiving end at one time or another.
And that’s worse enough, but the condemnation of ourselves that we allow to live rent-free in our heads. Having grown up on a grace-free, earning-focused, condemning world, we carry this with us and many of us carry this, investing most of our day condemning ourselves for one thing or another. It is far too common of an experience. We stand in condemnation over our own lives, never feeling accepted or acceptable to ourselves or to anyone and yet Jesus said to this woman, “I do not condemn you.”
There is a word here about freedom and it is a hard word to hear and receive: that God, does not condemn us. And for those of us who have found faith in Jesus Christ to continue to live in condemnation is an unnecessary way to live.
Hear Paul’s words in Romans, chapter eight, verse one: “There is therefore now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Little further down in that chapter in verse thirty-three and following he says, “Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
That’s what grace is all about. To truly believe in this is to find the freedom that makes the gospel truly good news. That “God in Christ forgives our sins as far as the east is from the west,” the psalmist says. “He separates our sin from us, he remembers them no more,” the prophet Jeremiah says. “He buries them in the depths of the sea,” the psalmist says. There is no condemnation to those who place their trust in Jesus Christ. That’s good news already, but it can be hard to believe and even harder to live in a world that is earning-based.
The story has a second truth is pretty difficult to grasp also: “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more,” Jesus tells the woman. He tells her to repent, to change her mind, to change her life, to brake off this relationship and never return to it again. She’s not to quench her thirst any longer at the well of relationships or pleasure. Her thirst is supposed to be satisfied on God alone. Her life is to change, not in order to receive God’s grace but because she has received God’s grace. This is a hard one for us to grasp because this is not the way our world works. We don’t clean up our lives in order to make ourselves acceptable to God, that’s plain. Jesus tells her here she’s free of condemnation before she has even a slight chance to turn her life around. She is forgiven before she is sent away to change. He doesn’t make it conditional. He doesn’t say, “If you go clean your life up, then I will not condemn you.” He said, “I do not condemn you, now go and sin no more.” It is grace that is supposed to empower and motivate the heart to change. Because we’ve received his grace, then we want to live like forgiven people. Because we have been given a reprieve from a death sentence, we want to live before God in love, in faithfulness. Because we’ve been let off, because we’ve been free, we want to live out of the second chance, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But we who struggle to believe in grace at all, certainly struggle to think that we’re supposed to come to God without first doing something to deserve it. But that’s what makes grace grace. We don’t deserve it. We don’t change our lives in order to quality, we don’t change our lives in order to earn. We change life because God’s love has already been poured out upon us.
Ephesians, chapter two, Paul says this, he says that “once we were dead in trespasses and sin.” I can tell you something about people who are dead: they can do absolutely nothing to bring themselves to life. They can’t try hard enough, work hard enough, they are totally helpless. “And we were,” he says, “dead in our trespasses and sin.” We can’t do anything to deserve life. But Paul goes on in Ephesians, “We were dead in trespasses and sin, but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love which he loved us, even though we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together through Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And he raised us up and sat us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the ages to come, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God, not the result of works so that no one may boast, for we are what He has made us. Created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand to our way of life. The good works, the changed life, is the result of grace, not the cause of it. Grace is the root, the good works, the changed life, is the fruit. We can’t earn it, or deserve it, but we can live out of it and begin to see, by the grace of God, our lives changed.
Well, the story ends there. There is not a second chapter or a footnote that tells us what happened to the woman’s life. That’s always to me, an opportunity to imagination. What do you think that happened to her? What do you think was her future from that point on? I imagine years later, this woman looking at her children in bed at night or kissing her husband goodbye as he leaves down the road, I imagine her smiling with the gratitude of the grace that was shown to her one morning in the temple. I imagine the tears she felt well up every time she heard something heavy fall to the earth around her, a bit of startling, but the sound of grace, like those rocks dropping that day. I imagine a life changed by a necessary conversation about grace.