August 5, 2025 • 23 mins
When confronted with a woman caught in adultery, Jesus faced a carefully crafted trap. The Pharisees, delighting in their judgment, expected him to either condemn her according to Mosaic law or reveal himself as a false teacher by showing mercy. Instead, Jesus turned their trap against them with eight powerful words: "Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone."
This sermon examines how easily we slip into the role of the Pharisee, justifying our judgment of others while overlooking our own failings. Four warning signs reveal when we've crossed into unfair judgment: being more upset with others' sins than embarrassed by our own, cutting off those who disagree with us, bonding with others by critiquing common enemies, and manipulating moral frameworks to justify predetermined outcomes.
The physical sensations of judgment work both ways - when judged, we feel tightness and isolation; when judging, we experience anger and negativity that oozes from within us. This reveals the heart issue at the core of judgment. St. Augustine described the conclusion of this story as "misery and mercy left alone" - the woman in her misery meeting Jesus, the embodiment of mercy. Rather than condemning her, Jesus commissioned her with "Go and sin no more."
How might our communities transform if we examined our own hearts before picking up stones to throw? As we receive communion, we remember not only Christ's mercy toward us but also our unity with one another. The question remains: Do we judge, or do we show mercy? Choose today to embody love that never gives up, never loses faith, and endures through every circumstance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And then I just want to acknowledge all the pain in
the room today.
I think it goes without sayingthat there's not only physical
pain but there's emotional pain.
I think we're all kind ofcarrying different struggles
with us into today's moment andI think that should just be
named and just put out there,especially as we're talking
about a very difficult sermonseries over the past couple
(00:21):
weeks and into the next coupleweeks as well.
The Pharisee in me.
So not only are we dealing withall of our struggles and all of
our pain, we also have toexamine ourselves and we have to
shine a mirror into our lifeand see what God has to say and
what Scripture has to say aboutthe Pharisee in all of us too.
It's no easy job to do, but I'mexcited to, at today, talk
(00:43):
about John, chapter 8, verses 1through 11, which is it's going
to be a good, very good passage,but it's also a very
challenging passage.
Because what happens?
Just to give you someintroductory remarks before we
even dive in, the Phariseesbring a woman who's called an
adultery before Jesus and theyexpect Jesus to condemn her and,
(01:06):
like I said, they expect him to.
He doesn't do it, he showsmercy, he turns the situation
around on itself very quickly.
But one of the things I want toname just from the beginning is
I just want to name the factthat this passage has been used
multiple times to focus more onthe woman's adultery than the
Pharisees' judgmental hearts.
(01:27):
That has plagued kind of theChristian culture in our world
and I just want to name thatfrom the very beginning.
Even as you look in your Bibletranslations you get to this
passage.
The heading of the passage isgoing to say the woman caught in
adultery, when really moreaptly it should say the
Pharisees try to condemn a woman.
That should probably be a moreappropriate heading as we kick
(01:49):
off today.
But I am thankful for theopportunity to anchor this story
and in this moment at MadisonChurch in a fuller sense, to
call out the Pharisee in me, tocall out the Pharisee in us,
rightfully balancing thispassage A blend of mercy and a
blend of accountability,Accountability against the
(02:10):
Pharisees specifically.
So let's dive into the passageJohn, chapter 8, verses 1
through 11.
We'll throw it up there on thescreen and then I'll also read
it out loud for us here rightnow.
It says this in verse 1.
Jesus returned to the Mount ofOlives, but early the next
(02:36):
morning he was back.
It says this in verse 1, womanwas caught in the act of
adultery.
The law of Moses says to stoneher.
What do you say?
They were trying to trap himinto saying something that they
could use against him, but Jesusstooped down and wrote in the
dust with his finger.
They kept demanding an answer.
So he stood up and said allright, but let the one who has
(03:00):
never sinned throw the firststone.
Then he stooped down again andwrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this,they slipped away, one by one,
beginning with the oldest, untilonly Jesus was left in the
middle of the crowd with thewoman.
Then Jesus stood up again andsaid to the woman when are your
accusers?
Didn't even one of them condemnyou?
No, Lord, she said.
(03:22):
And Jesus said Neither do I Goand sin no more'" For me.
I couldn't ask for a betterOrdination Day passage for me,
because it's so delicatelybalanced.
We have a story embodying thegospel and a story that
challenges our own hearts.
It challenges our hearts of sin, where Jesus showed us mercy.
(03:43):
But really, if we really seethe emphasis here, it's
challenging the Pharisee in us,Our hearts of judgment, Our
hearts of gossip, Our hearts ofhasty disapproval for one
another.
That's where this passage istaking us today and that's where
I want to spend most of ourtime today, Uncovering the
judgmental Pharisee in our ownhearts.
(04:03):
So here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to take some time andI'm going to explain the
Pharisee's goal in this passagevery quickly and we'll see how
Jesus responds.
But the weight of the effort isgoing to be where we find
ourselves, excusing our ownjudgmental behavior instead of
modeling Jesus's mercy, andthat's a difficult question for
us to ask ourselves.
(04:24):
It's an extremely difficultquestion to ask ourselves, but
this is the question I'll poseto us how often do we overlook
our own sin and refuse to showgrace to others?
How often do we choose tooverlook our own sin and refuse
to show grace to others?
So let's dive in with thePharisees' goal.
(04:44):
The Pharisees' goal from thebeginning is to condemn both the
woman and Jesus.
That is their goal.
The Pharisees are back at itagain and if we remember over
the past couple weeks and wherethis sermon series has taken us,
the Pharisees are kind of thesereligious leaders.
They're kind of the teacherswhen it comes to how to apply
the text to the individual andthe community as a whole.
(05:06):
And then you have thesereligious teachers called
scribes, and we see them both atplay here.
But Pharisees in their namemeans separated or set apart.
So from the very beginning thePharisees' name in and of itself
shows this kind ofholier-than-thou title Already.
We kind of hear it as we seetheir name.
(05:26):
And what they try to do time andtime again is they want to
challenge Jesus and call him outfor being a blasphemer.
They want to say he's not areal teacher of the law, In fact
he's blaspheming the law andwe're going to take that and
accuse him with it and arresthim with it, Leading up to John
chapter 8 and John chapter seven.
The Pharisees had just tried toarrest Jesus.
They commissioned a coupleofficers and they said hey, go
(05:49):
arrest Jesus.
And the officers come back andthey say sorry, I couldn't do it
.
No one talks like this, but wedidn't really have grounds to
arrest him.
And so here they are again,trying a different way to get
Jesus to say something that theywould finally have the means to
accuse him.
So what they're doing isthey're attempting to put Jesus
in a catch-22 type situation,which is an unwinnable situation
(06:12):
because the rules arecontradictory.
In our day and age, we findourselves in our own catch-22s.
I think one of the most popularone is if you've ever applied
for a job.
It says in order to apply forthis job, you need X number of
years of experience.
But you can't get X number ofyears of experience unless you
get the job.
That's a catch-22.
I think we experience it inmuch more deeper ways too
(06:37):
Internal catch-22s.
I want to speak up for myself.
I want to advocate for myselfbecause I'm unhappy.
But if I speak up and Iadvocate for myself, then other
people are going to be mad at meand then I'll be unhappy too.
So I'm just going to stay quietand not advocate for myself,
and I'll stay unhappy too.
It's a deeper catch-22.
I won't go too deep into thatsermon series right now, but
(07:00):
another time.
For sure.
I would love to talk about thata little bit.
But in our passage we have acatch-22 that has life and death
implications.
Jesus doesn't fear thiscatch-22.
He's going to turn it around onitself.
He sees this through heaven'seyes.
He sees the situation throughheaven's eyes.
If he condemns the woman and hefollows the law, she dies and
(07:21):
he's not the merciful leaderhe's been preaching.
If he ignores her sin, thenhe's not a true teacher of the
law.
The Pharisees want Jesus tocondemn this woman.
They know he won't, though.
They know he won't, and as soonas he goes against what is
written in the law, they'llfinally have the means to accuse
him.
They can finally charge himwith something.
(07:42):
This is the catch-22.
But what I want to point out too, is how the Pharisees delighted
in their judgment.
In this moment, they're reallyhappy that they've come up and
crafted the scenario.
See, we know that adulterywould take two people in order
to make that sin happen.
Right, but they've singled outjust the woman for this charge.
She's made into the other inthis scene.
(08:04):
She's othered, she's made instrange, she's obscene, she's
the one that's not like us.
They thrill with their owndisapproval.
There's a heat of the moment.
They caught her in the act.
They say a rush to judgment.
They have a hasty certaintyabout the situation.
What should happen?
They have a hasty certaintyabout the situation and what
(08:28):
should happen, without stoppingto first examine their own lives
too.
I ask us today not to make thesame mistakes that the Pharisees
did.
So let's take a moment.
Let's do the work of shining amirror onto ourselves and
letting the light shine into ourlife, See where we might be
trapped in that ourselves.
So this is where we're going tospend the next phase of this
the Pharisee in me, the judgerand the condemner.
(08:51):
That's where we're going tospend most of our time.
I think at some point each of uscould walk up here.
I could give you a microphoneand you could tell me about a
time where you have been createdand labeled the other.
I think every single one of uscould do it.
You're either being judged forwho you are or more aptly to
this story you were severelyjudged for a mistake that you
(09:12):
made, and I think that we allknow what it looks like when you
walk into a room and you seethese judgmental eyes.
You hear the laughs of thosewho are finding commonality as
they cherish their disapprovalin you, as they're bonding over
their disapproval in you.
We even feel a physicalsensation in those moments too,
when we are isolated or we feela tightness in our chest.
(09:34):
We feel a sense of anxietyabout even going to work or
walking into a room.
We feel a sense of depression,that isolation.
We know these feelings too well.
But let me ask a more difficultquestion when is the last time
we judged or condemned or evengossiped about someone in the
name of our own morality?
And that's a really toughquestion to ask ourselves.
(09:56):
But make no mistake about it,the Pharisees were religiously
correct with their accusations.
According to their moralframework, they were correct,
but it was their judgment andcondemnation that Jesus fully
rejected.
Here's what I fear.
I fear that many times we thinkthat our judgmental views or
(10:17):
even our gossip are justifiedbecause of a moral reason.
I think we are strugglingtogether around really positive
conversations.
There are really positiveconversations out there about
creating boundaries and holdingeach other accountable and
accountability insideorganizations.
I think those are reallypositive topics.
I think we're strugglingthrough them.
But what does it look like whenthat sweeps away and strays
into judgment and condemnation?
(10:38):
That is a difficult questionfor us to ask ourselves.
So I put together a fewthoughts that might highlight
when we are straying into unjustjudgment or condemnation.
Warning sign number one you aremore upset with someone else's
sin than you are embarrassed byyour own.
You are more upset with someoneelse's sin than you were
embarrassed by your own.
(10:59):
Surprisingly, this is actuallywhat happened during the
stanford prison experiment, ifyou're if you're not familiar
with the stanford prisonexperiment.
In 1971 there was this group ofvolunteers.
They said I will sign up to gointo a simulated prison for a
social experiment.
The volunteers were randomlycategorized into guards and
randomly categorized intoprisoners.
And what happened was almostvery quickly, the guards became
(11:22):
abusive.
They started doing sleepdeprivation.
They put the prisoners intostress positions, they took away
their food.
But I think what you would beshocked to hear is that in some
of the interviews afterwardswhere the guards are saying,
people are asking guards, whydid you go that hard?
Why did you really go afterthem like that?
(11:44):
They actually blame theprisoners for their actions
Instead of taking accountabilityfor themselves.
They blame the prisoners fortheir actions.
They said this, they calledthem weak.
They called the prisonerstroublemakers.
They called them lazy anddidn't want to follow the rules.
Some guards went as far to saythe prisoners deserved it.
So even after the experiment isover and they're acknowledging
(12:05):
these painful results, theguards felt like they were
justified because of the otherperson's behavior.
They were more upset about theprisoner's behavior than they
were embarrassed by their own.
And time and time again we seeJesus call this out in the
Pharisees.
Most famously, we hear this inMatthew, chapter 7, Jesus'
Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 7, 3 says this and whyworry about a speck in your
(12:25):
friend's eye when you have a login your own?
Why are you looking at someoneelse when you haven't taken the
time to look inside first?
In our passage today, what dowe see Jesus say?
He says let the one who hasnever sinned throw the first
stone.
And then he bends down to writein the sand and we actually
have a couple texts of thecopies of the gospel of John
(12:46):
from the 10th century, that kindof add on that.
What he's writing in the sandare the Pharisees' sins.
Now, truly, we don't know whatJesus is writing.
He might just be ignoring that.
We're not truly sure.
But what we do know is this heasked them to consider their own
lives before they condemnsomeone else.
And if we find ourselves in asituation where we are ready to
go after another person withoutfirst taking a hard look in the
(13:07):
mirror, then we might beslipping down a slope of unfair
judgment.
All right, warning sign numbertwo you tend to cut off those
who disagree with you.
Now, there are certainlymoments where cutting off people
is the appropriate action to do.
Anytime we're discussing abuseor harm, you must create a safe
space and you need to cut offpeople in those situations.
(13:29):
But in the context of today'smessage, what we're talking
about is maliciously tending tocut people off because they
disagree with you.
Just because they have adifferent view, maybe they made
a mistake.
When you cut someone off, youwere condemning them as hopeless
.
That's what I want to get afterhere.
It's certainly easier this way.
It's a challenge to sit at thetable where there are discomfort
(13:50):
and tension, but sometimes thatis the call.
Sit at the table where thereare discomfort and tension, but
sometimes that is the call.
The most famous examples of thistype of behavior were back when
religious leaders couldexcommunicate those who weren't
being a good churchgoer.
One of our most famous exampleswould be the Protestant
reformer Martin Luther.
He was excommunicated from theCatholic Church because of his
own views, his own teachingsaround justification, Because he
(14:17):
pricked against the system andthe power structure.
He was socially and physicallyostracized.
And again, in essence, when youcut someone off, you are
labeling them as hopeless.
You're saying you can't behonest with someone, you don't
have restoration orreconciliation in mind.
In our passage today, Jesus doesnot write the woman off as
hopeless.
He does not cut her off.
Instead, Jesus stood up againand said to the woman where are
(14:40):
your accusers?
Didn't even one of them condemnyou?
No, Lord, she said.
And Jesus said neither do I Goand sin no more.
Jesus doesn't condemn her, hecommissions her.
Jesus doesn't condemn her, hecommissions her.
He shows mercy, he has a senseof restoration in mind.
Go, go into all the world.
It's the same kind of word weget when we get tasked with a
(15:02):
great commission.
And as I was talking to Stevenabout this, uh, the sermon in
the past couple of weeks, hebrought up a really good quote
that I want to throw up therefrom Dorothy Day.
It says I really only love Godas much as I love the person I
love the least.
I really only love God as muchas I love the person I love the
least, and this is probably theone that I struggle with the
(15:24):
most Right now.
If I wanted to, I could tellyou the people I love the least
in life.
I could tell you.
I know exactly who they are.
Are you watching?
But that is a challenge for usright To know exactly what is
inside our own lives before wego condemn someone.
(15:46):
Warning sign number threebonding with others by
critiquing a common enemy.
Now, uniting over a commonenemy is a tale as old as time.
So even in the Air Force theytried to get our training
officers to yell at us, make ourlives miserable.
So what do we do with ourbunkmates?
We're like this person really,man, they're aggravating me.
They're really awful.
(16:06):
They're mean.
They're not even good at theirjob.
They forced us to rely on eachother for our needs and it was
magical.
You unite really quickly whenyou have a common enemy in mind.
And I bring that up because Ithink many times we feel
justified, because we feel likethe other person is judging us
first.
We feel like we need validationfor our judgmental feelings so
(16:28):
that we know we are right.
It's the other person's faultthat we're doing this anyway.
Now, sure, it's fun.
It's fun to hear the teasometimes and you've got to vent
a little bit, especially aboutpainful work situations.
But usually we know when we aretrying to change someone else's
perception about another personand that's when we're slipping,
slipping down the slope, whenyou're trying to change someone
else's perception about anotherperson, you're slipping.
(16:50):
Look at the Pharisees in thispassage.
They were thrilled to havecaught this woman in the act.
They had consulted each other,planned and affirmed one
another's hatred for her and forJesus' message.
Now they could both condemn thewoman and Jesus together.
So this is a really goodreminder that just because other
people agree with us doesn'tmean we aren't unfairly judging
someone.
Just because we got numbers onour side doesn't necessarily
(17:12):
make us right.
The Pharisees were the majorityhere.
That did not make them right.
We are wise to remember thesewords from James 4, 11, and 12.
Do not speak evil against eachother, dear brothers and sisters
.
If you criticize and judge eachother, then you are criticizing
and judging God's law, but yourjob is to obey the law, not to
judge whether it applies to you.
God alone, who gave the law, isthe judge.
He alone has the power to saveor destroy.
(17:33):
So what right do you have tojudge your neighbor?
So what right do you have tojudge your neighbor?
All right, warning sign numberfour you know the outcome you
want and you use a moralframework to justify it.
One of the best examples in thiscategory is the concept of
(17:53):
slavery and the reality ofslavery in America.
For hundreds of years,enslavers used the Bible to
justify the outcome that theywanted.
They took stories like thecurse of Ham in the Old
Testament and then they tookpassages from the New Testament
about slaves obeying yourmasters to justify the outcome
they already had in mind to keepslavery going.
(18:15):
They took their own moralframework and they manipulated
it for their own purposes.
They discarded the portionsthat didn't work for them and
they somehow pretended it wasGod's intention to have a person
owned by another person.
In our passage today, it comesdown to how the Pharisees are
weaponizing the law for theirown purposes.
It's about the ends they wantand they're going to use the law
(18:36):
in a certain way to make surethat judgment passes.
It's not about their pure lovefor the law.
They're speaking to the creatorof law by speaking to Jesus.
What they really want is theirown outcome when they
collaborate one on and when theyhave justified and in our own
lives I think we feel guiltyabout wanting an outcome, so we
seek to justify it too.
So we start to look and see andlisten if there's a moral
(18:58):
reason for our desire and thatoutcome that we want.
The problem is is that oncewe've already predetermined an
outcome we've likely alreadyjudged and condemned the moral
framework part really doesn'thave much of a play.
I think it's helpful to go backto Matthew 7 in the Sermon on
the Mount.
It says this Do not judgeothers and you will not be
(19:19):
judged, for you will be treatedas you treat others.
The standard you use in judgingis the standard by which you
will be judged.
It's almost like a judgmentkarma.
Every time we go and judgesomeone else, we should be
thinking that someone's judgingus, likely in the same way, or
God is judging us.
And I think, for all four ofthese warning signs that we have
(19:42):
, we experience them physicallyin a different way too.
So when we are the target, wefeel that tightness in our chest
, that depression and thatisolation, but when we have a
judging and condemning heart, wefeel this anger, we feel this
darkness, we have this sense ofbeing trapped in negativity
that's like oozing out of us.
I think we can recognize thatphysical sensation too.
(20:02):
At the end of the day, it's aheart issue.
I could stand up here and I cangive us 10 more prescriptive
behaviors about how to identifyjudging in our lives and how to
overcome judging in our lives.
But it was the rules and lawsthat stopped the Pharisees from
recognizing their own hearts.
So our job is to look insideand see, even if we have all the
(20:23):
rules right, whether ourintentions are right too.
So let's look at Jesus's modelabout how he responds and what
it means for our life.
We'll move into our last phase.
Here.
It's called to or left miseryand mercy.
To or left misery and mercy.
And so Jesus asked thePharisees to consider their own
sin.
And then they start todisappear.
They're ashamed, and theyshould be ashamed because of
(20:47):
what they just put this poorwoman through.
They are literally saying theywanted her dead.
And when Jesus has theopportunity to condemn her, what
does he say?
Neither do I, I don't condemnher.
That's the gospel, that's thepowerful moment.
St Augustine famously callsthis moment to or left misery
(21:08):
and mercy, the woman being inthe misery of her darkness of
the sin, but really under theweight of the condemnation.
We don't see her try to defendherself in this passage at all,
but Jesus, the embodiment ofmercy, meeting her not in
condemnation but in commission,he did not give up on her, and
it's the same principle that wecan apply to our church
(21:29):
community today.
Now, if you've been to a lot ofweddings, you've heard the
famous first Corinthians 13passage about love at weddings.
Love is patient, Love is kind.
That is a really beautifulthing, and it is amazing for
couples to think about that whenthey're going into marriage.
But it's helpful to rememberthat Paul wrote that to a church
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community for how we shouldtreat and love one another, and
so I want to read that for ustoday as a reminder to love one
another instead of judging andcondemning one another.
It says this in 1 Corinthians13.
If I could speak all thelanguages of earth and of angels
but didn't love others, I wouldonly be a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal.
(22:11):
If I had the gift of prophecyand I understood all of God's
secret plans and possessed allknowledge, if I had such faith
that could move mountains butdidn't love others, I would be
nothing.
If I gave everything I have tothe poor and even sacrificed my
body, I could boast about it,but if I didn't love others, I
would have gained nothing.
Love is patient, Love is kind.
(22:31):
Love is not jealous or boastfulor proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable and itkeeps no records of being
wronged.
It does not rejoice aboutinjustice, but rejoices whenever
truth wins out.
Love never gives up, neverloses faith, is always hopeful
and endures through everycircumstance.
Here, in the next couple ofminutes, we're going to get the
(22:56):
opportunity to partake incommunion.
Today, I want us to rememberthat when we partake in
communion, we not only rememberthe moment that Jesus met us in
our misery and was merciful, butI also want us to remember that
when we take communion, we takecommunion to have communion
with one another, a unity withinthe body of Christ.
So let's not let our heartslead us astray, into the pit of
(23:17):
judgment and condemnation we askourselves today I judge, but do
I show mercy?
But do I show mercy?
Instead, let's be filled withthe love of God, a love that
never gives up, never losesfaith, is always hopeful and
(23:37):
endures through everycircumstance.
And then I just want to acknowledge all the pain in
the room today.
I think it goes without sayingthat there's not only physical
pain but there's emotional pain.
I think we're all kind ofcarrying different struggles
with us into today's moment andI think that should just be
named and just put out there,especially as we're talking
about a very difficult sermonseries over the past couple
(00:21):
weeks and into the next coupleweeks as well.
The Pharisee in me.
So not only are we dealing withall of our struggles and all of
our pain, we also have toexamine ourselves and we have to
shine a mirror into our lifeand see what God has to say and
what Scripture has to say aboutthe Pharisee in all of us too.
It's no easy job to do, but I'mexcited to, at today, talk
(00:43):
about John, chapter 8, verses 1through 11, which is it's going
to be a good, very good passage,but it's also a very
challenging passage.
Because what happens?
Just to give you someintroductory remarks before we
even dive in, the Phariseesbring a woman who's called an
adultery before Jesus and theyexpect Jesus to condemn her and,
(01:06):
like I said, they expect him to.
He doesn't do it, he showsmercy, he turns the situation
around on itself very quickly.
But one of the things I want toname just from the beginning is
I just want to name the factthat this passage has been used
multiple times to focus more onthe woman's adultery than the
Pharisees' judgmental hearts.
(01:27):
That has plagued kind of theChristian culture in our world
and I just want to name thatfrom the very beginning.
Even as you look in your Bibletranslations you get to this
passage.
The heading of the passage isgoing to say the woman caught in
adultery, when really moreaptly it should say the
Pharisees try to condemn a woman.
That should probably be a moreappropriate heading as we kick
(01:49):
off today.
But I am thankful for theopportunity to anchor this story
and in this moment at MadisonChurch in a fuller sense, to
call out the Pharisee in me, tocall out the Pharisee in us,
rightfully balancing thispassage A blend of mercy and a
blend of accountability,Accountability against the
(02:10):
Pharisees specifically.
So let's dive into the passageJohn, chapter 8, verses 1
through 11.
We'll throw it up there on thescreen and then I'll also read
it out loud for us here rightnow.
It says this in verse 1.
Jesus returned to the Mount ofOlives, but early the next
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morning he was back.
It says this in verse 1, womanwas caught in the act of
adultery.
The law of Moses says to stoneher.
What do you say?
They were trying to trap himinto saying something that they
could use against him, but Jesusstooped down and wrote in the
dust with his finger.
They kept demanding an answer.
So he stood up and said allright, but let the one who has
(03:00):
never sinned throw the firststone.
Then he stooped down again andwrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this,they slipped away, one by one,
beginning with the oldest, untilonly Jesus was left in the
middle of the crowd with thewoman.
Then Jesus stood up again andsaid to the woman when are your
accusers?
Didn't even one of them condemnyou?
No, Lord, she said.
(03:22):
And Jesus said Neither do I Goand sin no more'" For me.
I couldn't ask for a betterOrdination Day passage for me,
because it's so delicatelybalanced.
We have a story embodying thegospel and a story that
challenges our own hearts.
It challenges our hearts of sin, where Jesus showed us mercy.
(03:43):
But really, if we really seethe emphasis here, it's
challenging the Pharisee in us,Our hearts of judgment, Our
hearts of gossip, Our hearts ofhasty disapproval for one
another.
That's where this passage istaking us today and that's where
I want to spend most of ourtime today, Uncovering the
judgmental Pharisee in our ownhearts.
(04:03):
So here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to take some time andI'm going to explain the
Pharisee's goal in this passagevery quickly and we'll see how
Jesus responds.
But the weight of the effort isgoing to be where we find
ourselves, excusing our ownjudgmental behavior instead of
modeling Jesus's mercy, andthat's a difficult question for
us to ask ourselves.
(04:24):
It's an extremely difficultquestion to ask ourselves, but
this is the question I'll poseto us how often do we overlook
our own sin and refuse to showgrace to others?
How often do we choose tooverlook our own sin and refuse
to show grace to others?
So let's dive in with thePharisees' goal.
(04:44):
The Pharisees' goal from thebeginning is to condemn both the
woman and Jesus.
That is their goal.
The Pharisees are back at itagain and if we remember over
the past couple weeks and wherethis sermon series has taken us,
the Pharisees are kind of thesereligious leaders.
They're kind of the teacherswhen it comes to how to apply
the text to the individual andthe community as a whole.
(05:06):
And then you have thesereligious teachers called
scribes, and we see them both atplay here.
But Pharisees in their namemeans separated or set apart.
So from the very beginning thePharisees' name in and of itself
shows this kind ofholier-than-thou title Already.
We kind of hear it as we seetheir name.
(05:26):
And what they try to do time andtime again is they want to
challenge Jesus and call him outfor being a blasphemer.
They want to say he's not areal teacher of the law, In fact
he's blaspheming the law andwe're going to take that and
accuse him with it and arresthim with it, Leading up to John
chapter 8 and John chapter seven.
The Pharisees had just tried toarrest Jesus.
They commissioned a coupleofficers and they said hey, go
(05:49):
arrest Jesus.
And the officers come back andthey say sorry, I couldn't do it
.
No one talks like this, but wedidn't really have grounds to
arrest him.
And so here they are again,trying a different way to get
Jesus to say something that theywould finally have the means to
accuse him.
So what they're doing isthey're attempting to put Jesus
in a catch-22 type situation,which is an unwinnable situation
(06:12):
because the rules arecontradictory.
In our day and age, we findourselves in our own catch-22s.
I think one of the most popularone is if you've ever applied
for a job.
It says in order to apply forthis job, you need X number of
years of experience.
But you can't get X number ofyears of experience unless you
get the job.
That's a catch-22.
I think we experience it inmuch more deeper ways too
(06:37):
Internal catch-22s.
I want to speak up for myself.
I want to advocate for myselfbecause I'm unhappy.
But if I speak up and Iadvocate for myself, then other
people are going to be mad at meand then I'll be unhappy too.
So I'm just going to stay quietand not advocate for myself,
and I'll stay unhappy too.
It's a deeper catch-22.
I won't go too deep into thatsermon series right now, but
(07:00):
another time.
For sure.
I would love to talk about thata little bit.
But in our passage we have acatch-22 that has life and death
implications.
Jesus doesn't fear thiscatch-22.
He's going to turn it around onitself.
He sees this through heaven'seyes.
He sees the situation throughheaven's eyes.
If he condemns the woman and hefollows the law, she dies and
(07:21):
he's not the merciful leaderhe's been preaching.
If he ignores her sin, thenhe's not a true teacher of the
law.
The Pharisees want Jesus tocondemn this woman.
They know he won't, though.
They know he won't, and as soonas he goes against what is
written in the law, they'llfinally have the means to accuse
him.
They can finally charge himwith something.
(07:42):
This is the catch-22.
But what I want to point out too, is how the Pharisees delighted
in their judgment.
In this moment, they're reallyhappy that they've come up and
crafted the scenario.
See, we know that adulterywould take two people in order
to make that sin happen.
Right, but they've singled outjust the woman for this charge.
She's made into the other inthis scene.
(08:04):
She's othered, she's made instrange, she's obscene, she's
the one that's not like us.
They thrill with their owndisapproval.
There's a heat of the moment.
They caught her in the act.
They say a rush to judgment.
They have a hasty certaintyabout the situation.
What should happen?
They have a hasty certaintyabout the situation and what
(08:28):
should happen, without stoppingto first examine their own lives
too.
I ask us today not to make thesame mistakes that the Pharisees
did.
So let's take a moment.
Let's do the work of shining amirror onto ourselves and
letting the light shine into ourlife, See where we might be
trapped in that ourselves.
So this is where we're going tospend the next phase of this
the Pharisee in me, the judgerand the condemner.
(08:51):
That's where we're going tospend most of our time.
I think at some point each of uscould walk up here.
I could give you a microphoneand you could tell me about a
time where you have been createdand labeled the other.
I think every single one of uscould do it.
You're either being judged forwho you are or more aptly to
this story you were severelyjudged for a mistake that you
(09:12):
made, and I think that we allknow what it looks like when you
walk into a room and you seethese judgmental eyes.
You hear the laughs of thosewho are finding commonality as
they cherish their disapprovalin you, as they're bonding over
their disapproval in you.
We even feel a physicalsensation in those moments too,
when we are isolated or we feela tightness in our chest.
(09:34):
We feel a sense of anxietyabout even going to work or
walking into a room.
We feel a sense of depression,that isolation.
We know these feelings too well.
But let me ask a more difficultquestion when is the last time
we judged or condemned or evengossiped about someone in the
name of our own morality?
And that's a really toughquestion to ask ourselves.
(09:56):
But make no mistake about it,the Pharisees were religiously
correct with their accusations.
According to their moralframework, they were correct,
but it was their judgment andcondemnation that Jesus fully
rejected.
Here's what I fear.
I fear that many times we thinkthat our judgmental views or
(10:17):
even our gossip are justifiedbecause of a moral reason.
I think we are strugglingtogether around really positive
conversations.
There are really positiveconversations out there about
creating boundaries and holdingeach other accountable and
accountability insideorganizations.
I think those are reallypositive topics.
I think we're strugglingthrough them.
But what does it look like whenthat sweeps away and strays
into judgment and condemnation?
(10:38):
That is a difficult questionfor us to ask ourselves.
So I put together a fewthoughts that might highlight
when we are straying into unjustjudgment or condemnation.
Warning sign number one you aremore upset with someone else's
sin than you are embarrassed byyour own.
You are more upset with someoneelse's sin than you were
embarrassed by your own.
(10:59):
Surprisingly, this is actuallywhat happened during the
stanford prison experiment, ifyou're if you're not familiar
with the stanford prisonexperiment.
In 1971 there was this group ofvolunteers.
They said I will sign up to gointo a simulated prison for a
social experiment.
The volunteers were randomlycategorized into guards and
randomly categorized intoprisoners.
And what happened was almostvery quickly, the guards became
(11:22):
abusive.
They started doing sleepdeprivation.
They put the prisoners intostress positions, they took away
their food.
But I think what you would beshocked to hear is that in some
of the interviews afterwardswhere the guards are saying,
people are asking guards, whydid you go that hard?
Why did you really go afterthem like that?
(11:44):
They actually blame theprisoners for their actions
Instead of taking accountabilityfor themselves.
They blame the prisoners fortheir actions.
They said this, they calledthem weak.
They called the prisonerstroublemakers.
They called them lazy anddidn't want to follow the rules.
Some guards went as far to saythe prisoners deserved it.
So even after the experiment isover and they're acknowledging
(12:05):
these painful results, theguards felt like they were
justified because of the otherperson's behavior.
They were more upset about theprisoner's behavior than they
were embarrassed by their own.
And time and time again we seeJesus call this out in the
Pharisees.
Most famously, we hear this inMatthew, chapter 7, Jesus'
Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 7, 3 says this and whyworry about a speck in your
(12:25):
friend's eye when you have a login your own?
Why are you looking at someoneelse when you haven't taken the
time to look inside first?
In our passage today, what dowe see Jesus say?
He says let the one who hasnever sinned throw the first
stone.
And then he bends down to writein the sand and we actually
have a couple texts of thecopies of the gospel of John
(12:46):
from the 10th century, that kindof add on that.
What he's writing in the sandare the Pharisees' sins.
Now, truly, we don't know whatJesus is writing.
He might just be ignoring that.
We're not truly sure.
But what we do know is this heasked them to consider their own
lives before they condemnsomeone else.
And if we find ourselves in asituation where we are ready to
go after another person withoutfirst taking a hard look in the
(13:07):
mirror, then we might beslipping down a slope of unfair
judgment.
All right, warning sign numbertwo you tend to cut off those
who disagree with you.
Now, there are certainlymoments where cutting off people
is the appropriate action to do.
Anytime we're discussing abuseor harm, you must create a safe
space and you need to cut offpeople in those situations.
(13:29):
But in the context of today'smessage, what we're talking
about is maliciously tending tocut people off because they
disagree with you.
Just because they have adifferent view, maybe they made
a mistake.
When you cut someone off, youwere condemning them as hopeless
.
That's what I want to get afterhere.
It's certainly easier this way.
It's a challenge to sit at thetable where there are discomfort
(13:50):
and tension, but sometimes thatis the call.
Sit at the table where thereare discomfort and tension, but
sometimes that is the call.
The most famous examples of thistype of behavior were back when
religious leaders couldexcommunicate those who weren't
being a good churchgoer.
One of our most famous exampleswould be the Protestant
reformer Martin Luther.
He was excommunicated from theCatholic Church because of his
own views, his own teachingsaround justification, Because he
(14:17):
pricked against the system andthe power structure.
He was socially and physicallyostracized.
And again, in essence, when youcut someone off, you are
labeling them as hopeless.
You're saying you can't behonest with someone, you don't
have restoration orreconciliation in mind.
In our passage today, Jesus doesnot write the woman off as
hopeless.
He does not cut her off.
Instead, Jesus stood up againand said to the woman where are
(14:40):
your accusers?
Didn't even one of them condemnyou?
No, Lord, she said.
And Jesus said neither do I Goand sin no more.
Jesus doesn't condemn her, hecommissions her.
Jesus doesn't condemn her, hecommissions her.
He shows mercy, he has a senseof restoration in mind.
Go, go into all the world.
It's the same kind of word weget when we get tasked with a
(15:02):
great commission.
And as I was talking to Stevenabout this, uh, the sermon in
the past couple of weeks, hebrought up a really good quote
that I want to throw up therefrom Dorothy Day.
It says I really only love Godas much as I love the person I
love the least.
I really only love God as muchas I love the person I love the
least, and this is probably theone that I struggle with the
(15:24):
most Right now.
If I wanted to, I could tellyou the people I love the least
in life.
I could tell you.
I know exactly who they are.
Are you watching?
But that is a challenge for usright To know exactly what is
inside our own lives before wego condemn someone.
(15:46):
Warning sign number threebonding with others by
critiquing a common enemy.
Now, uniting over a commonenemy is a tale as old as time.
So even in the Air Force theytried to get our training
officers to yell at us, make ourlives miserable.
So what do we do with ourbunkmates?
We're like this person really,man, they're aggravating me.
They're really awful.
(16:06):
They're mean.
They're not even good at theirjob.
They forced us to rely on eachother for our needs and it was
magical.
You unite really quickly whenyou have a common enemy in mind.
And I bring that up because Ithink many times we feel
justified, because we feel likethe other person is judging us
first.
We feel like we need validationfor our judgmental feelings so
(16:28):
that we know we are right.
It's the other person's faultthat we're doing this anyway.
Now, sure, it's fun.
It's fun to hear the teasometimes and you've got to vent
a little bit, especially aboutpainful work situations.
But usually we know when we aretrying to change someone else's
perception about another personand that's when we're slipping,
slipping down the slope, whenyou're trying to change someone
else's perception about anotherperson, you're slipping.
(16:50):
Look at the Pharisees in thispassage.
They were thrilled to havecaught this woman in the act.
They had consulted each other,planned and affirmed one
another's hatred for her and forJesus' message.
Now they could both condemn thewoman and Jesus together.
So this is a really goodreminder that just because other
people agree with us doesn'tmean we aren't unfairly judging
someone.
Just because we got numbers onour side doesn't necessarily
(17:12):
make us right.
The Pharisees were the majorityhere.
That did not make them right.
We are wise to remember thesewords from James 4, 11, and 12.
Do not speak evil against eachother, dear brothers and sisters
.
If you criticize and judge eachother, then you are criticizing
and judging God's law, but yourjob is to obey the law, not to
judge whether it applies to you.
God alone, who gave the law, isthe judge.
He alone has the power to saveor destroy.
(17:33):
So what right do you have tojudge your neighbor?
So what right do you have tojudge your neighbor?
All right, warning sign numberfour you know the outcome you
want and you use a moralframework to justify it.
One of the best examples in thiscategory is the concept of
(17:53):
slavery and the reality ofslavery in America.
For hundreds of years,enslavers used the Bible to
justify the outcome that theywanted.
They took stories like thecurse of Ham in the Old
Testament and then they tookpassages from the New Testament
about slaves obeying yourmasters to justify the outcome
they already had in mind to keepslavery going.
(18:15):
They took their own moralframework and they manipulated
it for their own purposes.
They discarded the portionsthat didn't work for them and
they somehow pretended it wasGod's intention to have a person
owned by another person.
In our passage today, it comesdown to how the Pharisees are
weaponizing the law for theirown purposes.
It's about the ends they wantand they're going to use the law
(18:36):
in a certain way to make surethat judgment passes.
It's not about their pure lovefor the law.
They're speaking to the creatorof law by speaking to Jesus.
What they really want is theirown outcome when they
collaborate one on and when theyhave justified and in our own
lives I think we feel guiltyabout wanting an outcome, so we
seek to justify it too.
So we start to look and see andlisten if there's a moral
(18:58):
reason for our desire and thatoutcome that we want.
The problem is is that oncewe've already predetermined an
outcome we've likely alreadyjudged and condemned the moral
framework part really doesn'thave much of a play.
I think it's helpful to go backto Matthew 7 in the Sermon on
the Mount.
It says this Do not judgeothers and you will not be
(19:19):
judged, for you will be treatedas you treat others.
The standard you use in judgingis the standard by which you
will be judged.
It's almost like a judgmentkarma.
Every time we go and judgesomeone else, we should be
thinking that someone's judgingus, likely in the same way, or
God is judging us.
And I think, for all four ofthese warning signs that we have
(19:42):
, we experience them physicallyin a different way too.
So when we are the target, wefeel that tightness in our chest
, that depression and thatisolation, but when we have a
judging and condemning heart, wefeel this anger, we feel this
darkness, we have this sense ofbeing trapped in negativity
that's like oozing out of us.
I think we can recognize thatphysical sensation too.
(20:02):
At the end of the day, it's aheart issue.
I could stand up here and I cangive us 10 more prescriptive
behaviors about how to identifyjudging in our lives and how to
overcome judging in our lives.
But it was the rules and lawsthat stopped the Pharisees from
recognizing their own hearts.
So our job is to look insideand see, even if we have all the
(20:23):
rules right, whether ourintentions are right too.
So let's look at Jesus's modelabout how he responds and what
it means for our life.
We'll move into our last phase.
Here.
It's called to or left miseryand mercy.
To or left misery and mercy.
And so Jesus asked thePharisees to consider their own
sin.
And then they start todisappear.
They're ashamed, and theyshould be ashamed because of
(20:47):
what they just put this poorwoman through.
They are literally saying theywanted her dead.
And when Jesus has theopportunity to condemn her, what
does he say?
Neither do I, I don't condemnher.
That's the gospel, that's thepowerful moment.
St Augustine famously callsthis moment to or left misery
(21:08):
and mercy, the woman being inthe misery of her darkness of
the sin, but really under theweight of the condemnation.
We don't see her try to defendherself in this passage at all,
but Jesus, the embodiment ofmercy, meeting her not in
condemnation but in commission,he did not give up on her, and
it's the same principle that wecan apply to our church
(21:29):
community today.
Now, if you've been to a lot ofweddings, you've heard the
famous first Corinthians 13passage about love at weddings.
Love is patient, Love is kind.
That is a really beautifulthing, and it is amazing for
couples to think about that whenthey're going into marriage.
But it's helpful to rememberthat Paul wrote that to a church
(21:51):
community for how we shouldtreat and love one another, and
so I want to read that for ustoday as a reminder to love one
another instead of judging andcondemning one another.
It says this in 1 Corinthians13.
If I could speak all thelanguages of earth and of angels
but didn't love others, I wouldonly be a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal.
(22:11):
If I had the gift of prophecyand I understood all of God's
secret plans and possessed allknowledge, if I had such faith
that could move mountains butdidn't love others, I would be
nothing.
If I gave everything I have tothe poor and even sacrificed my
body, I could boast about it,but if I didn't love others, I
would have gained nothing.
Love is patient, Love is kind.
(22:31):
Love is not jealous or boastfulor proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable and itkeeps no records of being
wronged.
It does not rejoice aboutinjustice, but rejoices whenever
truth wins out.
Love never gives up, neverloses faith, is always hopeful
and endures through everycircumstance.
Here, in the next couple ofminutes, we're going to get the
(22:56):
opportunity to partake incommunion.
Today, I want us to rememberthat when we partake in
communion, we not only rememberthe moment that Jesus met us in
our misery and was merciful, butI also want us to remember that
when we take communion, we takecommunion to have communion
with one another, a unity withinthe body of Christ.
So let's not let our heartslead us astray, into the pit of
(23:17):
judgment and condemnation we askourselves today I judge, but do
I show mercy?
But do I show mercy?
Instead, let's be filled withthe love of God, a love that
never gives up, never losesfaith, is always hopeful and
(23:37):
endures through everycircumstance.
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