Setting

One night the chief priests and Pharisees failed in their attempt to have the Temple police arrest Jesus for saying he was the messenger of God. Jesus spent the night on the Mt. of Olives and at daybreak went to the Temple. As people filed in for morning prayers a crowd gathered and sat with Jesus as he began teaching.

Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees had similar messages but as we’ll see, the means of fulfilling their messages were quite the opposite. The scribes, who were closely affiliated with the Pharisees, were a priestly group of lawyers that advocated strict adherence to the Laws of Moses.
 

The Pharisees were a scholarly class of teachers also known for strict observance of the Laws. They enforced ritual purity and holiness codes, and, because they were very observant, they separated themselves from the marginally observant masses. The Pharisees’ theology promised individual salvation and a life after death for those who followed the letter of the law according to pharisaic interpretation.

2 Sub-plots, 1 Caveat, An Encounter, a Trap, & The Resolution:

Sub-plot #1-- The Pharisees most likely thought that Jesus co-opted their deal about individual salvation and eternal life. Jesus, however, did not demand the same level of strict observance to the letter of the law. In modern parlance, Jesus sounded to the Pharisees like a "bleeding heart liberal": soft on crime, too easy on those whose sexual behavior fell outside the rules, and he hung out with people who were outrageously unclean.

The common people had to choose between Jesus’ more humane approach and the rather tight binding piety of the scribes and Pharisees – for most people, it was not a tough choice.

Sub-plot #2—Sex! Sex is always a good way to trap someone the other side wants to discredit. The Pharisees had lots of rules, written and otherwise, about sex – well, really more about women, but they had trouble distinguishing between sex and women, which made sex and women easy foils for a trap. Theologian Frederick Buechner wonderfully captures the textures of the trap and the stylistic differences between Jesus and the Pharisees: "Contrary to Mrs. Grundy [the Sunday School teacher version of Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoos’ Nest"] sex is not sin. Contrary to Hugh Hefner, it’s not salvation either. Like nitroglycerin, it can be used to blow up bridges or heal hearts.²"

1 Caveat – Arguably, Mel Gibson’s recent movie unfairly demonized the Pharisees. While in this story of the adulterous woman the Pharisees behave with callous self-interest, we must remember that they saw the Hebrew world going to hell-in-a-hand basket and understood that it was their divinely appointed job to strictly enforce the rules, even if it meant turning a person into an object of shame in order to discredit an adversary.

That said, technically according to the Law, the Pharisees were right in charging the woman with the violation that Leviticus (20:10) and Deuteronomy (22:13-24) declare to be a capital offense.

The Encounter--

At just the right moment, as Jesus sat in the Temple teaching a group of people, the scribes and Pharisees…

*forcibly brought a woman into the middle of the crowd,

*made her stand there in full view of everybody, and

*announced to Jesus, "Rabbi, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery."

Picture the scene:

*people sitting on the ground with Jesus – a commotion off to the side…….

*religious leaders push a woman into the middle of this crowd, Jesus stands up, a hush falls over the room…

*feel the woman’s shame as she is made to stand in the middle of the gathering -----

*what was her appearance, having been caught in the midst of sex and dragged to the Temple?

SENSING EXERCISE

Put yourself in the role of each of the characters in this drama – what do you feel, how does your body react, what are your thoughts?

There are at least two things wrong with this picture:

1. The woman has become an object used to test and trap Jesus.

1. And what about the man in bed with her? The Levitic code directs that both the man and the woman in an adulterous relationship shall be executed. Do we have a double standard here or maybe a set-up to complete the trap?

The Trap--

• They demand of Jesus, as a rabbi, "The Law of Moses says that she must be stoned to death. What do you say?"

    ? if Jesus told the Pharisees to follow the Law of Moses and stone her:

all of his teachings about love, grace, forgiveness, mercy and wholeness, and his role as "the friend of sinners" would be forever wiped away. The people who were hanging on his every word and breathing the refreshing and liberating air of an accessible and humane faith would walk away because he would be no different than the Pharisees.

    ? But, if Jesus told them to forgive her,

the Pharisees would accuse him of condoning and encouraging people to break the Law of Moses.

Something strange happened next. Jesus bent over, and made marks in the sand. What was going on? Was he stalling, praying, seething --- what?

SENSING EXERCISE

As you quiet yourself and engage with the exercise you might become aware of anxious feelings. If so, you may offer this simple prayer, "I trust your love, God."  Think of time when you intensely felt your own shame or that of another person.

Picture that time: where you were standing, picture the details of the shaming incident, where were your eyes or the other person’s eyes looking?

Have you ever had the experience of feeling your own shame or that of another so intensely that you could not look into the eyes of the other?

I choose to think that Jesus so profoundly felt and completely shared the burden of shame foisted on the woman that he could not let his eyes meet hers.

Still, the Pharisees and scribes kept pushing for a response. Finally, Jesus’ eyes came up and leveled at them, and I would like to think his eyes moved to meet the woman’s eyes as he said to the men, "Go ahead -- stone her, but only those of you who have never sinned yourselves." One-by-one the accusers walked away, leaving Jesus and the woman facing each other. "No one has stoned you," he said. "Neither do I condemn you. Go and make a new start with your life."
 

SENSING EXERCISE

What do mercy and love feel like inside you when you hear Jesus’ words spoken --- TO YOU: "No one has stoned you. Neither do I condemn you. Go and make a new start with your life."

The Resolution—"The End":

First, Jesus saw through the trap that had been laid for him. The incident was not about the woman and sexuality, it was about authenticity and hypocrisy. To be absolutely certain, Jesus in no way condoned the adultery that is the foil for the story. He knew that it was an act that destroyed relationships and caused great pain. However, if not for the trap, the lovers would have loved uninterrupted. More importantly, Jesus penetrated the objectification and saw the woman for real, and loved her back into wholeness – out of the dark of shame of the Pharisees into the holy light of new life.

Second, what we have here is the action of mercy that grew out of the woman’s shame and objectification by the religious leaders – mercy that came from the agony of the moment, and only secondarily from her sexual relationship that might have been purely sensual or from her deep longing to be known fully and humanly by another. In that moment she had to have searched herself with the thoroughness of God as mercy and love poured over her like the cool waters of a stream on a scorching mid-summer day. She entered eternity in that moment, the eternity of going forward fully alive and making a new start in her life.

So, as the saying goes, How was that for you?!

How does it feel in every cell of your body and to the core of your being to feel Jesus’ unflagging belief in you? How does it feel to experience Jesus seeing you for real, taking you as you are for who you are, and inviting you to "make a new start with your life"? What does the action of mercy feel like when you let go of your internal self-judgment and your self-imposed shame, and let Jesus love you into wholeness; out of your darkness into the Divine light?

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¹Notes on a teaching about the objectification of a woman by the Pharisees.
²Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, pg. 87.