September/October 2001

Embarrassed by Grace

by John Lane

Now we've gotcha! That's what the scribes and Pharisees must have thought when they asked Jesus a hard question.

The scene was the courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem. A mob had burst in on Jesus, carrying a bag of stones and dragging behind them a woman they had allegedly caught in the act of a serious sin.

"Teacher," they said, "this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" (John 8:4-5). No wonder they thought, We've gotcha!

How could Jesus safely answer their question? If he said, "Yes, go ahead and kill her," what would happen to his reputation for grace and forgiving love?

On the other hand, if Jesus said, "No, don't kill her," he would be going against what the law required (Leviticus 20:10).

Neither answer would do.

We've gotcha now!

But they didn't.

What happened next has become one of the most poignant and powerful stories of grace in the New Testament. Pausing for a moment, Jesus said, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Another pause and now the gotcha is reversed. He had them. "At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first."

Jesus said to the woman, "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and leave your life of sin."

Now I have a question for you: Do you like this story?

"Of course," you say. "What's wrong with it?"

It might surprise you to know that many of the earliest New Testament manuscripts don't eveninclude this story. Only one included it. Two others left blank spaces where it could go, but they intentionally left it out. Later New Testament manuscripts include the story, but they weren't quite sure where to put it.

What's the problem here? What is it about this story that so troubled the earliest compilers of the New Testament?

While there were several concerns about this account, one reason was that many early Christians were acutely embarrassed by this phenomenal display of God's grace. For example, St. Augustine described the story as "dangerous" because it seemed to imply that Jesus didn't take sin seriously enough.

What about you? Are you comfortable with hanging this portrait of a gracious, forgiving God on the wall of your faith? How does it fit your views on capital punishment, for example, or abortion?

As we look at this story from different angles and let the light move across it, it becomes richer, deeper. Maybe, as we think about the story, we can hear Jesus asking four critical questions that are profoundly relevant today.

· Isn't human life worth more than rules?

People can fall in love with rules to a point where rules are more important than the people the rules are supposed to serve. The Pharisees were champion rule makers. They had invented rules for almost every conceivable situation. Somewhere in the process, however, they forgot that the rules were designed to bring people closer to God, to enable them to live rich, full lives.

Jesus always operated under the premise that every adulterer, every murderer, every cross-bound thief was his own child, his own brother or sister, and their lives were more important than any set of rules.

· Who is righteous enough to judge this woman?

Frequently, Jesus spoke of the peril of quick judgment. "Do not judge," he said simply. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:1-3).

"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7).

Even the most saintly among us have far too many memories to declare themselves qualified here. What a narrow line there is between sainthood and sinfulness, and what experience of grace keeps us on one side or the other!

Adolf Hitler's greatest ambition as a youngster was to study at the Art Institute in Vienna. In his late teens, he applied for entrance. But he was turned down. Rejected!

How might the history of the last century been changed had the committee approved his application?

What small hinges history turns on! What narrow lines there are between triumph and tragedy, between saints and sinners. There isn't a single person reading this article who couldn't, in the privacy of their own minds, describe in vivid and painful detail a stupid, awful mistake they've made in the past -- but they got away with it. No one saw. They escaped the consequences. Their reputations remained intact. They were luckier than they deserved.

· Who knows enough about this woman to judge her?

Who are her parents? Is she married? Does she have any children? Has something gone terribly wrong in her life? Incidentally, where is the man involved in all this?

Why should we know all this? the accusing faces demanded. Didn't you hear? She was taken in adultery -- (and here the lips purse, the eyes harden) -- in the very act!

Jesus doesn't say it, but he must have wondered: Whose word are you taking? Surely this whole committee didn't catch her in the very act! Someone has reported this to you, haven't they? And you believed them. But you don't know enough firsthand to justify killing this woman.

The utter audacity of gossip! Do we ever know enough to slander, to condemn another?

Some people go about equipped with their little bags of stones, waiting for a target. Maybe they won't throw the first stone.

But gossip is always a matter of throwing second, third and fourth stones. And first stones, for that matter, seldom do the killing. The killing is usually done by the throwers of the second stones, the carriers of the story.

In the act, did you hear? In the very act!

· Doesn't anybody here believe a person can change?

It's one of the characteristics of Jesus most appealing to me, the part of the picture I like best. Jesus had, and has, enormous faith in our God-given ability to change, to start over.

He believed the lost sheep could be found, the prodigal son would come to himself and return home. He believed Zacchaeus could come down out of his tree, that a woman caught in adultery could begin again, clean and fresh.

But be sure to note that Jesus didn't say:

Oh, for goodness sakes, why are you picking on her? Taken in adultery? What difference does it make? We're all adults here. It doesn't matter.

Jesus never even came close to saying that because he knows it does matter. It mattered then, and it does today, too, and all the timid, muted ethics that come out of the religious or secular world don't alter that the least bit.

We're good at inventing new jargon and arguing that in our enlightened day we are freed from old inhibitions. Today, we have alternate lifestyles. We vociferously profess ultimate control over our own bodies. We do our thing.

And those indiscretions -- all those shoddy little shortcuts in ethics that enable us to do whatever we please -- they don't matter.

However, down in the hidden crevices of the heart, when the despair drives us crying among the tombs of guilt, we know it does matter. It matters a great deal.

But people can change. You can change. You can put all this behind you and start over. "Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin."

In the late nineteenth century, a controversy erupted among educators about a new American invention. For decades, students had used lead pencils in doing their school work.

But in 1880, a technological breakthrough came. For the first time, manufacturers began attaching rubber erasers on the ends of pencils.

This had never been done before, and many educators opposed the use of this newfangled pencil on the grounds that it encouraged students to make mistakes. "Let them avoid errors in the first place, and they won't need an eraser."

Put more simply, Jesus insisted on an eraser on the pencil of life. Old errors can be erased and new beginnings made.

That's our picture of Jesus. Look at it again. A hostile crowd with bags of stone, a miserable woman crying among the tombs of guilt and Jesus.

· Isn't her life worth more than a rule?

· Is anyone here sinless enough to condemn her?

· Does anyone here know enough to condemn her?

· Does anyone here believe she can change?

The accusers melt away, and as they do, into the circle of forgiveness and new beginning comes a child of God, brought back by the loving grace of Jesus Christ. 

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