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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost

October 30, 2023

Invitatory

Lord, open our lips.

And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: John 8:2-11

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 him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. 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 on do not sin again.”

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

This is a story that somehow wandered in. Most Biblical scholars claim that this text was a very late addition to John’s Gospel (centuries later), and that its style and grammar are not in keeping with the early Johannine manuscripts. It is, one might say, an alien presence, without the authority of being part of the original. And while there is much scholarly comment about the nature of the text itself, it’s harder to find critics who address how or why this story was eventually given a place within the Gospel. What prompted its inclusion?

Part of the power of the story is its intimacy. The woman brought to Jesus didn’t steal something that could be returned. She didn’t damage something for which restoration could be made. This wasn’t that kind of crime. She couldn’t explain her actions by stating that she was poor and in need or angry about injustice and therefore in the right. The reasons for adultery are harder to get at. They’re generally not objective but complicated and mysterious and unremittingly subjective. They are exclusively about the persons involved, and thus acutely damning.

Had Jesus been presented with a thief and had he, then, made the same remark about sinfulness, I imagine that many could have thought that they had a qualitatively different character. They would never steal. But given the opportunity, Jesus situated sinfulness in such a way that no one could confidently say that here and in this manner they were immune. Sin is inveigling. And, correspondingly, the text, beautifully, describes the departure of the mob as “one by one.” Each person had to deal with his or her own introspection, and there, deep in the heart of their selves, each one realized a susceptibility that couldn’t be dismissed. So they left; they walked away. They didn’t stick around to forgive the woman and yet maintain the rightness of their judgment against her. They left in person, bodily, as if they felt ashamed of themselves at the same level of intimacy as their accusation against her. And no one was left to judge – except one, Jesus, who chose not to judge.

There are few other stories in the Gospels that convey, with as much succinctness and depth, the essence of the good news that was revealed in Jesus. And it’s fitting, I think, that a story of such grace and clarity, had to come, finally, from outside the recognized canon – in order to be inserted centrally in John’s Gospel. Grace is as mysterious as sin, perhaps more so; it comes unexpectedly, from unexpected places.

It may have taken the church a long time before it could get to the point of conceding this. It’s even harder to act accordingly, and all the more challenging to celebrate grace’s triumph. Think of how incredibly contagious self-righteousness is now in our world. Shouting is hardly intimate. And yet, this grace has the power to quell precisely what’s worst in each of us.

Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

         as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

         but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,

         forever and ever. Amen.