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John 8:2-11
Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
This is obviously a well-known story. In fact, it’s one of the gospel stories that gives us an often-quoted line: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” But strangely, the lectionary just skips right over it when the readings are being taken from the Gospel of John. There’s actually a reason to question the story, because it didn’t appear in the earliest versions of John. So it’s reasonable to question whether we should accept it as an authentic story from the life and teachings of Jesus.
My sense is that we should accept it as authentic, and here’s why I say that:
First of all, even though it wasn’t in the first editions of John, it seems pretty clear that the early church accepted the story as a genuine incident from the life and ministry of Jesus. Not long after the first editions of John came out, later editions appeared with the story in them. What’s more, some of the most well-respected leaders of the early church refer to the story in their commentaries, and none of them express any doubt about whether it was legitimate. At the time the story started appearing, there were almost certainly disciples of the apostle John still alive and active in the church. So if there was any doubt about the authenticity of the story, we would have letters and comments from them questioning it.
Another reason I accept the story as authentic is that it contains “extraneous information.” As you might remember from past Reflections, extraneous information is material in the story that doesn’t seem to add anything to its meaning – information you could leave out without affecting the meaning of the story. In this case, the extraneous information is the part about Jesus writing in the dirt with his finger. We’re not told what he was writing, and you could leave it out without affecting the story’s meaning.
That kind of extraneous information is evidence that the story was remembered and reported by eyewitnesses, and not made up. In an oral culture, eyewitnesses would report that Jesus wrote on the ground, even if they didn’t know what he wrote or why. That’s because they would assume it had some significance that wasn’t apparent to them. Stories that are made up don’t have extraneous information, because those who make them up would see no reason to include it.
But to me, the most important reason to accept this story as authentic is that it seems perfectly consistent with the rest of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus called his followers to try to live holy lives according to God’s law. But he showed little sympathy for the self-righteous – for those who judged and condemned others. And in this story, the judgmental mob winds up drifting away.
Jesus seems to have a genius for getting people to recognize their own sins and failings, as he does in this story. He doesn’t tell the members of the mob they’re sinners – he just puts them in a position to make that judgment for themselves.
And by the way, a couple of New Testament scholars have suggested that the reason this story was left out was that the apostle John’s disciples were afraid that if it became known that Jesus had refused to condemn a woman caught in adultery, other women would tend to be unfaithful. There’s not much evidence for that idea, but it wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened in the history of the faith.
There’s one detail of this story that seems particularly interesting to me – I think it points to the central message Jesus had in mind to communicate. That detail is that after Jesus says, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her,” the crowd of accusers begins to drift away, “the older ones first.”
I can’t help thinking that the reason the older ones left first had a lot to do with the way Jesus worded his challenge to the mob. He didn’t say, ‘Let anyone who hasn’t been caught in adultery throw the first stone.’ In that case, the stones would have started flying instantly. But because Jesus said that the first stone should come from someone who was “without sin,” not a stone flew. Jesus wouldn’t let the mob get away with thinking the woman’s sin was worse than their own. The Bible, and especially the New Testament, is pretty consistent in expressing the idea we don’t get to judge other people’s sins as more serious than our own. (Even though, in fact, we almost all do that.)
Maybe it’s just me, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more and more aware of my own sins. I definitely have fewer delusions of virtue about myself than I used to.
And I suspect that’s what’s going on in this story. We tend to think of the Jewish leadership as a bunch of hypocrites and bad guys, but the truth is that they were people who spent a lot of time studying the scriptures and praying. I suspect that when Jesus challenged them, those who had spent more years in the life of faith were the ones with the greatest clarity about themselves. So the oldest ones were the first to drop their stones and walk away.
It’s sort of human nature to point out the sins of others and say, “Well, I may have my own sins, but at least I don’t do what that other person does!” But Jesus won’t let us do that. In fact, if we read this story and condemn the Pharisees, we’re kind of doing exactly what they did, aren’t we? Judging and condemning others?
It’s only when we become completely sinless – when we become completely Christ-like – that we have the right to throw any stones at all. And of course that’s not going to happen. So we’re set free to focus on doing what Jesus told the woman to do – on trying to break free from the life of sin.
Let’s pray. Lord, forgive us of our tendency to judge and condemn others. Help us to commit our hearts to living Christ-like lives, and breaking free from the clutches our own sins, so that we will be more useful to you. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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