A Pocket Full of Stones

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 6, 2005

A Pocket Full of Stones
Leviticus 20:10/Deuteronomy 22:22
John 8:1-11

We read first from the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Bible,
the book that was originally called “The Priest’s Manual”,
for the Levites, the priestly tribe of Israel.
Reading from chapter 20, verse 10, we hear these words:
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of a neighbor,
both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.”

We now jump ahead two books in the Old Testament, to Deuteronomy,
the book that was Moses’ final speech,
really his final sermon, to the children of Israel
before they entered the Promised Land
following their forty-year trek through the wilderness.
Much of Deuteronomy repeats texts found in Numbers,
Leviticus, and Exodus,
as Moses reinforced God’s word and God’s teaching to all the Israelites.
Turning to chapter 22, verse 22, we read:
“If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man,
both of them shall die;
the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman.
So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”

Right there in those verses we have the beauty of the Bible:
It is so clear, so black and white.
We read these verses, and we cannot possibly misunderstand,
misinterpret, or miss the point:
Commit adultery, get caught, and die.
How simple is that?

Turning to the Gospel according to John,
we find in chapter 8 a vivid illustration of the law in action.
Reading from verse 1:
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman
who had been caught in adultery.
Throwing her at his feet, they said to Jesus,
‘Teacher this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
In the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman.
What do you say?’
Jesus said to them, ‘The law is clear. We must kill her.’
And saying that, he picked up a rock and threw it at her
striking her in the head.
The scribes and the Pharisees immediately followed Jesus’ lead,
all of them throwing stones at the woman until she was dead.
Then Jesus turned to them and said,
‘Let she who is with sin be stoned,
as Scripture demands.’
(from “If Grace is True” by Phillip Gulley & James Mulholland, 71)

Now those of you who were reading along in the pew Bibles
are scratching your heads, wondering whether I might have read
from a different translation.
Your version was quite different from mine wasn’t it?
In my version, Jesus is faithful to the literal word of Scripture.
But in your version, Jesus seems to pay no attention
to a law that appears not once, but twice in Scripture.

Listen to the story as it in fact appears in the Gospel of John:
“Jesus went to the Mount of Olives [in Jerusalem].
Early in the morning he came again to the temple.
All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.
The Scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman
who had been caught in adultery;
and making her stand before all of them, they said to [Jesus],
‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of
committing adultery. Now in the law
Moses commanded us to stone such woman.
Now what do you say?’
They said this to test him,
so that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened 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 and wrote on the ground.
When they heard it, they went away, one by one,
beginning with the elders;
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, ‘neither do I condemn you.
Go your way, and from now one do not sin again.’"
(John 8:1-11)

Do you hear the difference between the two versions?
In the first version I read, which is fiction,
Jesus is obedient to the law, obedient to Scripture:
The Bible says it, and that’s it.
But the problem is that that way of looking at things
is completely devoid of mercy and forgiveness;
there was neither grace nor love in Jesus’ actions.
And didn’t our Lord Jesus Christ come to teach us of
God’s mercy and forgiveness,
God’s grace, and love?

Had Jesus picked up a stone in one hand and thrown it,
he could have easily waved Scripture in the other hand
and said, “The Bible says we must condemn and punish the sinner!!”
He would have been faithful to Scripture.
An awful lot of preachers do just that every Sunday,
waving the Bible around as though it was a weapon,
a sword to smite evil in the world.
In the Presbyterian Church, a small angry contingent
has been doing just that for the past 10 years,
standing at doorways of churches
blocking entrances to men and women
who are no different from any other child of God
other than the fact that they happen to be gay.
These angry people, so sure of themselves, so self-righteous,
are quick to quote Leviticus and Romans and other passages,
quick to speak and act,
but always without the least interest in or concern for grace.

God wants us to be faithful, yes,
but faithful to his mercy, his forgiveness, his grace, and his love.
God wants us to be faithful to his word,
the word that is Jesus Christ: the Living Word,
the one who reveals God’s love and mercy
his goodness and his grace.
Jesus Christ is the grace of God, the love of God;
Jesus is the Word of God:
the First Word and the Last Word.
Jesus Christ is the one through whose eyes
we should read and interpret the written word of God.

The Pharisees and the Scribes believed themselves to be
men of exemplary faith.
Had there been a Time magazine of Judea,
they would have been on its cover
as the era’s most influential religious leaders.
They were men quick to point out the faults of others,
even as they hid their own faults:
their greed, their hypocrisy, and yes, even their adultery.
Men whose pockets were always filled with stones,
ready to throw them at anyone and everyone
whom they had determined had violated the law.

Are we all that different?
Don’t we walk around with our pockets filled with stones,
Aren’t we all too ready to criticize others;
Aren’t we all too willing to judge others,
Aren’t we all too eager to condemn others?

It is so easy to point out the faults of others.
The harder task is the one we are called to do
by our Lord Jesus Christ.
The harder task is the one that God calls us to do
all year round, but especially during Lent:
We are to turn our focus intently, exclusively, on ourselves.
We are to use the forty days of Lent
as an opportunity for reflection, for a self-examination.
We are to use the forty days of Lent to empty our pockets
of the stones we each carry.
But introspection and acknowledgement of our own need for repentance,
our own need to change is something we tend to resist with all our hearts,
all our minds, all our strength, and all our soul.

Yes, we are all focused on sin,
but our focus is on the sins of one another,
when it should be on our own sins.
What business do we have judging others,
when our Lord tell us not to judge?
What business do we have condemning others,
when our Lord says to a woman who was
clearly guilty of a capital offense,
‘neither do I condemn you'?
What business do we have throwing stones,
when our Lord refrained from throwing stones,
even when the law clearly gave him that right?

Before you come to this table,
empty your pockets,
empty your pockets,
and then look at yourself,
not at others, but yourself.
Acknowledge your sins,
all the ways you have turned from God,
all those things you have said and done,
all those things you should have said, should have done.
God knows our sins, every one of them.
He’s just waiting for each of us to acknowledge them
so that we can turn from them.
His mercy, his forgiveness, his grace, and his love,
are all there, waiting to be poured out on each of us
but first we have to look inward,
first we have to acknowledge our own sins;
First we have to empty our pockets.

Come to this table
and be refreshed, renewed, and washed clean
by the grace of God,
the grace that is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to this table with empty pockets,
and then go
and sin no more.

AMEN