The Old, the New

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

May 20, 2012

Confirmation Sunday

The Old, the New

John 8:1-11

We just heard one of the most powerful lessons in the Bible,

Old or New Testament.

In a little more than two hundred words

we learn what matters to Jesus,

what is important to him.

In eleven short verses,

we learn what should matter to us as Jesus’ followers,

as disciples of Christ,

as we try to model our lives on his.

In one paragraph

we learn mercy,

patience,

forgiveness,

compassion,

and we learn the most important lesson of all:

we learn the importance of living with grace,

even as we live in grace.

At the same time we learn

the folly of self-righteousness,

the foolishness of arrogance,

how wrong it is to be judgmental.

A woman has broken the law;

not just the civil law,

but the religious law,

the Levitical code that binds the community

of the children of God.

and has bound them for a thousand years.

We hear no words of protest from her,

no claims from her

that she is innocent of the charge against her,

the charge of adultery.

We don’t know all the facts,

but in the context,

we can feel confident that she is guilty.

Which leads to the obvious first question:

Where is the man?

Adultery requires two people.

Where is the man the woman committed adultery with?

We don’t know, of course,

but do you suppose the scribes and the Pharisees

told the man to go,

to flee, to run away,

that they were not interested in him,

that they wanted only the woman?

It probably isn’t far-fetched for us to wonder whether

the man might have been a friend

of some of the scribes and Pharisees;

perhaps even a scribe or Pharisee himself.

The man flees and the scribes and Pharisees

then do something unexpected:

They don’t take the woman away

to be judged and condemned;

The men take her to Jesus.

It wasn’t justice these men,

these religious leaders were after.

No, the text makes that as clear as can be:

They wanted to throw the woman in front of Jesus

“to test him,

so that they might have some charge

to bring against him.”

The woman had violated the law,

but that was secondary to the men;

she was being used to trap Jesus.

The scribes and Pharisees assumed

that Jesus would argue with them

to try to free the woman.

They’d seen and heard how friendly Jesus had been

with people of questionable reputation;

surely he would have sympathy for this sinful woman.

                                                     

Jesus of course, knew exactly what they were up to;

Look at how he deals with them.

He doesn’t protest the woman’s innocence;

He doesn’t argue ethics, theology, morals, or the law.

He tells no parable.

He is silent, not even standing to face them,

but squatting down, scribbling in the dust on the ground.

looking lost in thought

before the roiling anger and outrage

of the scribes and Pharisees.

In his silence, Jesus seems to acknowledge

there is nothing to argue.

The Seventh Commandment says very clearly,

“You shall not commit adultery”

(Exodus 20:14)

And the Levitical Code is equally clear:        

“…both the adulterer and the adulteress

shall be put to death.”

(Leviticus 20:10)

“The woman is guilty, and we all know Scripture.

So go ahead men of God:

enforce the law.

Take her to the place of execution

and be done with her.”

Jesus’ silence seems to say all that.

But then Jesus speaks,

almost as an afterthought,

almost as an “oh, by the way,”

“Let anyone among you who is without sin

be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Even from a distance of two thousand years,

we can feel the angry, self-righteous energy

of the scribes and Pharisees

suddenly dissipate with Jesus’ words,

like air let out of a balloon.

Their will collapses,

a house built on a rotten foundation,

as they stand there looking at each other,

dumb, silent,

lost as to what to do, what to say.

By the standards of many churches today,

Jesus should have been the first to pick up a rock

and throw it at the woman,

the first to say,

“We must uphold Scripture.

We must obey the Word of God.

This woman is a sinner

and scripture is clear:

'the adulterer shall be put to death'.”

It is this kind of mindset,

this approach to faith,

faith without grace,

faith without compassion,

faith without mercy,

faith without love,

faith built on judgment

that is causing so many young people

to turn away from church,

to turn away from faith,

to turn away from Christianity.

They see faith practiced

by people quicker to judge and condemn

than they are to accept and embrace;

where the currency of the church is self-righteousness;

where the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees

is enthusiastically emulated

even as it is condemned from the pulpit.

                                   

We want our young folks to grow in faith,

to continue walking with Christ all the days of their lives.

But our young folks know they can choose their church,

they can choose their denomination,

they can choose to believe and be part of a faith community,

or they can choose to walk away and say,

“I don’t want anything to do with that.”

They can walk away nodding in agreement with

Anglican bishop Charles Raven

who once said that, “Christians were the chief obstacle

to his acceptance of Christianity…

the church a poor advertisement for its Lord.”

Our calling is to build a church modeled on

what our Lord teaches us in this lesson:

a church grounded in mercy and forgiveness,

compassion and righteousness,

a church grounded in grace and love.

A church that is a good and faithful advertisement

for our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now our lesson doesn’t end

with Jesus telling the woman to be on her way,

as though what she did was not a sin.

But he doesn’t condemn the woman, either.

Look at what he does:

he gives her new life:

He says to her, “From now on do not sin again,”

letting her know she is forgiven.

And with those words,

Jesus awakens her to the gift of grace and mercy

she received that day

“Go,” he says to her,

“Go and leave your old ways behind;

embrace the new life you’ve just been given by grace.”

We are called to build the church for the future;

a church for all of us,

but especially a church for our young men and women

like those we just welcomed into our membership;

like those who are donning caps and gowns this month and next

for high school and college graduations;

like those who are bringing their children forward

to begin their journey in Christ

through the Sacrament of baptism.

We are called to build a church

of community,

of openness,

of hospitality,

of relationship:

relationship with one another as well as with God in Christ.

We are called to build a church of grace,

where the adulterous woman can find words of welcome

rather than words of judgment;

a warm embrace rather than a cold shoulder;

a bright smile rather than a hostile stare;

a place where she can live fully into the new life given her,

given her by our Lord through grace.

We are called to build a church

where we are all can live more fully into

the lives of grace

we have each been given by God through Jesus.

We are called to build a church where,

even as we read and learn from the Bible together,

we remember that the ultimate lens through which we read,

the final interpreter,

is the Living Word: our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if Christ is love,

if Christ is the grace of God revealed,

then we are to read the written word

as a message of love,

a message of grace,

love and grace we are to share,

share freely, enthusiastically,

leaving judgment to God.

That’s the succinct lesson

we find in our eleven verses in this morning’s text.

John, chapter 8, revealing so powerfully

the grace-filled Word of the Lord.

AMEN