last sunday's lesson

One of my favorite stories in the gospels is the story found in the gospel of John, chapter eight, verses one through 11. The story is about a confrontation Jesus has with one of the greatest religious groups of the day, the Pharisees, and how Jesus disarms the situation, humiliates the Pharisees, and shows his compassion towards sinners.

The day before the incident, Jesus taught in the city of Jerusalem, but he (for some reason), slept outside the city walls, at the Mount of Olives, a mountain ridge east of the city, named for the olive trees that pepper its slopes. In the morning, Jesus went to the Temple to teach. The Temple was divided into two sections: the sanctuary, where priests offered sacrifices and incense, and the Temple courts, where people could gather and where Rabbis (religious teachers) would teach. As a renowned Rabbi, and one hailed as a prophet, Jesus accumulated a large crowd as he began to teach. When a prophet speaks, people listen.

The Pharisees are at odds with Jesus. The Pharisees began as a social movement around 530 B.C., but they only lasted till around 70 A.D., vanishing with the fall of Jerusalem under the Roman general Titus. The social movement involved into what is called “rabbinic Judaism”; in essence, the Pharisees held the authority, determining the normative, traditional practice of Judaism in the ancient Mediterranean. The Pharisees’ keys beliefs are very similar to what we Christians hold: they believed in a bodily resurrection, they believed in eternal life, they believed in angels and demons, and they believed in obedience to the commands of God. They also believed that the reason for the Messiah’s slow coming was because of the sins of the people. “Become holier,” the Pharisees said, “and the Messiah will come and deliver us from the hands of the Romans, making Israel the great ruling nation of the world.”

Because Jesus’ beliefs were so similar to those of the Pharisees, some scholars make a very convincing case that Jesus himself was a Pharisee. Some object, saying, “Jesus was not a Pharisee, he was a carpenter.” Yet there is only one reference to Jesus being a carpenter (Mark 6.3), and this verse is vague; the title of carpenter may be regarding Jesus’ father as being a carpenter, not Jesus himself. We know little of Jesus’ childhood, but we can make educated guesses. As a good Jewish boy, he would’ve spent his preteen years studying under a Rabbi, where he would’ve memorized the entire Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The best and brightest of the students (or “disciples”) would be given even more training to one day become Rabbis themselves. In the texts of Jesus’ adult life, Jesus is referred to as “Rabbi,” and he has quite a vibrant following. If Jesus were a Pharisaic Rabbi, this would bring light to the reasons the Pharisees hated him so much and to why the disciples were so eager to follow him (what an honor to be the student/disciple of an infamous Rabbi!).

Why doesn’t Jesus get along with the Pharisees? The Pharisees viewed tradition as equal to God’s explicit commands; some Christian sects make this same mistake today. The Pharisees’ piety was often hypocritical: they did not live up to their own standards, and they clothed themselves in fake piety while condemning those who, like them, did not “measure up.” They had a very legalistic view on salvation (our salvation is based upon us obeying God’s laws and being good people), completely ignorant of their own depraved humanity and the need for forgiveness. The Pharisees were so obsessed with the law that they missed the beautiful realities of God’s mercy and grace (mercy is not getting what we deserve; grace is getting what we do not deserve). Also, they loved looking good before the people more than they loved their God.

Why did the Pharisees hate Jesus? Several reasons. First, if Jesus were a Pharisee, he would be viewed as a turncoat. Second, he blatantly claimed to be God, a blasphemy worthy of death. Third, he stands in opposition to their mission. The Pharisees’ mission is to cleanse the land of its sin and thereby initiate the coming of the Messiah; Jesus develops genuine friendships with the “worst” of sinners (tax collectors, who sided with the Great Enemy, Rome; and prostitutes, whom were viewed as the most wicked of sinners). Fourth, he is seen as “destroying” the Holy Scriptures; rather than saying, “Obey all 600-something commands of the old covenant,” Jesus says, “I complete the law: instead of obeying all those hundreds of commandments, obey these two: love God, and love other people.”

The Pharisees wish to get rid of Jesus, and so they devise a plan to either get him killed or at least harm his influence on the people. As he is teaching in the temple courts, the Pharisees bring to him a woman caught in the very act of adultery. They shove through the crowds and throw the weeping, terrified, and no-doubt naked woman before the feet of Jesus, the Great Prophet. As the woman lies there humiliated before all the people and terrified of what is coming (she knows very well the punishment for adultery according to Israelite Law), the Pharisees enact their plan. They toss out a challenge to Jesus, snidely calling him “Teacher” as an act of mockery. “Teacher, we caught this woman in the act of adultery. You know the Law very well, you know what she deserves. But tell us, Great Teacher, what should we do?” That adultery is an immoral act is seen in the 7^th commandment, “Do not commit adultery.” Adultery is not just sleeping with another person; it is when a married person sleeps with someone he or she is not married to (the sanctity of marriage is very important to God). The woman is not necessarily a prostitute; rather, she belongs to a man other than the one whom she was caught sleeping with! The punishment is outlined in the book of Leviticus (20.10): death! How would the adulterer be put to death? He or she would be stoned: thrown over a small cliff, and then bludgeoned by rocks thrown down atop of him or her.

How is this a trap? If Jesus says, “Stone her,” he gives a command that goes against the laws of Rome, who own Israel at the time. The Romans made a law that stated the Jews could not execute anyone unless the criminal violated Temple laws. So if Jesus says, “Stone her,” he is guilty of treason against Rome and worthy of the death of a criminal (death on a Roman cross). But if Jesus says, “Don’t stone her,” he is ignoring the Law of Moses, so very important to the Pharisees. If he does this, this will compromise his patriotic Jewish following and also hack against his presumed identity as a prophet.

How does Jesus respond? He responds very cleverly. He kneels down and begins writing in the dirt with his finger! No one really knows what he wrote, but we can speculate. Late Greek manuscripts say that he wrote out the sins of the Pharisees; being God, he knew the hearts and secrets of all men, and he would’ve known the dark skeletons of the Pharisees’ lives. Others speculate that he writes out the tenth commandment: do not covet your neighbor’s wife or your neighbor’s property. How many of us have not done that? Others think that he is simply wasting time, showing his carelessness at their question. The Pharisees continue to badger him, and he finally stands to give a reply. He says, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” According to the law, the witnesses of the crime were the ones to throw the first stones. The Pharisees, then, have the task to begin the execution. Jesus’ words are a frontal assault against the thick pride of the Pharisees: the Pharisees, so proud of their pious lives, hide their sin. Jesus has shown himself to be a prophet, and they understand that prophets have the keen ability to see inside the hearts of men. The fear of the Pharisees, I believe, is that if they throw a stone, Jesus will begin throwing out his own stones: condemning them with a slur of their own sins, thus breaking apart their pride and influence, two things they prized greater than God.

The Pharisees, cornered and humiliated, slowly begin to trickle away. The older men (who are haunted by their wicked pasts more and have more to lose) leave first; the younger men follow their lead. The Pharisees leave, leaving the woman at the feet of Jesus. The woman, I’m sure, is terrified; “What will the prophet do to me?” she wonders in terror. She knows very well her sin, and she also knows the power of a prophet. The prophet sees the truth of her sin inside her, and the prophet has the unquestionable authority to kill her then and there. He asks her, “Has any man condemned you?” In a shaky, frightened voice, she answers, “No…” Jesus then says, “I don’t condemn you, either. Go and sin no more.” God is severe about sin, but He is also compassionate! A beautiful verse in Romans tells us that while God’s wrath is severe, His mercy and grace is even greater. Jesus has forgiven this woman of her sins (an ability given only to God), and the commanded response is simple: go and sin no more. Thankfully our salvation is not dependent upon our perfect repentance, for repentance is never perfect for anyone.

This great story is thick with theological implications, but I want to use this story as the background for an exploration of the concept of sin.

“What is sin?” Sin is selfishness, greed, over-indulgence, and indifference to God and others in the heart. This internal sin produces the visible manifestations of external sin, such as adultery.

“What sins do we categorize as the ‘big’ sins, those worse than others?” In the Pharisees’ sins, the greatest sins were siding with the Roman government (such as tax collectors) and sexual immorality (prostitution, adultery, fornication). In our culture, the most grievous sins include homosexuality, premarital sex, smoking and drinking (which in and of themselves are not sins at all!), etc. The question begs to be asked, “Which sins anger God the most?” While all sins are the same in the sense that we fall under the same condemnation whether we lie or murder someone, there are some certain sins that just get God all fired-up. When we look at the Old Testament narratives (and the New Testament ones as well!), we see that the sins God spends the most time talking about is idolatry (worshipping someone or something other than God) and social injustice (in big and small ways).

“Why do we rush to point out other peoples’ sins?”
“How do we treat people who fall into ‘big’ sins?”
“How should we treat people who have fallen into ‘big’ sins?”