Finding the Love of Your Life
02/15/2004 - Dropping the Stones
In his book Everybody's Normal Till You Get To Know Them , John Ortberg tells her story like this ...
"She had been a young bride with dreams about married life. She had dreamt of having a husband who loved her and cherished her, someone to pray with and worship God with, of having children and raising a family. But somehow things didn't turn out the way she had planned. She was disappointed in her husband and disillusioned in her marriage. Maybe it was his fault or maybe it was her fault or probably it was some of both."
"She was set up to fall for another guy, someone who noticed her, who listened to her, who cared about her. At first it was all quite innocent. But then one day it crossed a line. And soon after that, it crossed another line and then another until finally it crossed all the lines and grew into a full blown affair."
"For a while she kept it a secret. When she was living in one world she'd pretend the other world didn't exist. She kept herself from thinking what this might do to her kids or her life. She kept herself from thinking about how this was damaging her soul."
"The first time she lied to her husband about where she was going so she could be with this man, her heart started pounding, her face flushed, and she was sure that her husband could sense that she wasn't telling the truth. But eventually she became such an expert at deceiving her husband and her children that she could lie without showing it at all."
"The first time she went to the synagogue and heard the Scriptures read after sleeping with this other man, she was sure everyone could read the guilt on her face. She thought they would all find out. She thought God would strike her dead with a bolt of lighting and she vowed to break off the relationship."
"But no one found out. There was no lighting bolt. God didn't do anything. So she didn't do anything to break off the affair. Now she's able to go to the synagogue and hardly think about her affair at all. She doesn't think much about God, either. She tries to think about other things during the prayers."
"Then came the fateful night. She was with the man like she had been with so many nights before when the bedroom door swung wide open and in walked a group of men who had been outside watching and waiting for the perfect moment to seize her. She screamed. She cried. She begged for mercy. But got none."
"Now she'd give anything to go back in time, to cross back over those lines and undo the whole thing. But she can't. You can never go back. Just like in the garden, her eyes were opened and she saw herself naked and ashamed and wanted so desperately to hide, but there was no place to go. She would have killed herself right then and there if they had let her. But they don't. Instead, they wrap her up in a bed sheet and take her to Jesus."
This morning we continue our series called Finding the Love of Your Life with a teaching I've called "Dropping the Stones." The love that we're out to find in this series is that agape kind of love that the New Testament talks about, that unconditional, self-sacrificing love that Jesus said is the mark of his followers.
I've asked you to look at this series as a sequence of love lessons. Lesson number one was that all of us are slightly irregular, we all come "as is," every one of us carries a mat. Lesson number two was that all of us "as is" people were created for community. We need each other. It's not good to be alone. Lesson number three was that the community we were created for has the incredible power to heal our lives. And last week's lesson, lesson number four, was that community starts with being real, being authentic. And today's lesson is that authenticity must be followed by acceptance.
Our story today is found in John 8. So if you have your Bible turn with me to John 8:1-11. Now in some of your Bibles you may see a note that says, "The earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11." And that's true. Yet on the other hand, most of the manuscripts we have for the New Testament include this story.
So let's look at John 8:1-5, But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
Like the paraplegic we looked at in Mark 2, this woman is taken to Jesus by a group of men while he's teaching a large crowd of people. Only this time she's not being carried by friends on a mat, instead she's being pushed and shoved by enemies wrapped up in a sheet. She's brought to Jesus not to be healed, but to be humiliated and then stoned to death by her accusers.
They want to shame her publicly for what she has done, but even more than that, they want to trap Jesus in front of an audience. Verse 6 says, They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
The Jewish law was very clear about what was required to press charges against someone caught in the act of adultery. Circumstantial evidence wasn't enough. One person's word wasn't enough. The act had to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Which means that for some time this woman had been under surveillance. She was being watched. The bedroom was bugged! Perhaps this group was hired by her husband, or maybe even included her husband. We don't know.
But we do know that the punishment for adultery was death by stoning. Leviticus 20:10 says, If a man commits adultery with another man's wife-with the wife of his neighbor-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
And we also know that it takes two to commit adultery. But where was the man? He wasn't brought to Jesus, just the woman was. Maybe he escaped or maybe they let him go. Who knows, he might have been part of the whole setup.
So they think to themselves, "We've got Jesus now. If he shows her mercy, we can get him for being soft on sin. If he says, 'Stone her,' the crowd will think he's cruel and turn against him. Besides, that'll get him in deep weeds with Rome since the Jews don't have the authority to execute anybody. Only Rome does."
So here's this woman, standing center stage, wrapped in a bed sheet, trembling with guilt and fear, wishing she could die, and convinced she's about to. But her accusers don't even see her. All they can think about is, "We've got Jesus now." They stand there, with stones in hand, waiting for the word to fire.
Have you ever picked up a stone, ready to heave it at somebody in judgment? I certainly have. And maybe you have too. These weren't bad guys. They were religious, church going, upstanding, voting citizens. At one point these teachers of the law and Pharisees had even dedicated themselves to spend their whole lives serving God. They started out with hearts that were soft and warm. But over time something happened. All their knowledge of Scripture and tradition filled them with pride and arrogance and a disdain for all those who couldn't live up to their standards and were less committed to God than they were. And their once soft, warm hearts froze rock solid.
It's easy to walk through life with a stone in each hand. It's easy to harbor judgmental thoughts and an attitude that I'm a little bit better than a lot of people. Churches, if they're not careful, can breed people like that. Valley View could if we're not on our toes. That's why it's so important that we keep growing in the area of compassion to those inside and outside our church community. That's why a baby shower for a non-judgmental pregnancy care center like Birthright is so important. You can't be critical and compassionate at the same time. You can't hold a stone and give a warm embrace at the same time.
But churches can do a great job producing stone throwers. And stone throwers destroy community. In his awesome book called What's So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey tells a story that he heard from a friend.
"A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter - two years old - to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story ... At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I'll never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. 'Church!' she cried. 'Why would I ever go there? I already feel bad enough about myself. They'd just make me feel worse.'"
There's something wrong with that picture. Why is it that in the New Testament women like that would run to Jesus, but today they want to run away from his followers? What would a community of believers look like if nobody in it picked up a stone? That's the community I want to be a part of. But it means I have to drop my own stone first.
So there they stand. This woman waiting to die, her accusers with stones cocked ready to fire and Jesus. "Well, Jesus, what do you say?"
Verse 6, But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. Jesus doesn't say a word, at least not yet. Instead, he starts writing in the sand. This is the only time in the entire Bible we read that Jesus writes something. And he doesn't write it on paper or chisel it in stone where it could be preserved, but in the dirt, where his words will quickly be lost.
Jesus pulls a Columbo. Does anybody here remember Columbo the TV detective played by Peter Falk? You never knew if he was paying attention or not. And it drove people crazy. And so verse 7 says, They kept on questioning him.
What did he write in the sand? Some scholars suggest he was writing the sentence for the crime the woman had committed. It was the custom in Roman law for a judge to first write the sentence and then read it. Others think he was writing the Ten Commandments. Still others believe he was writing down the sins of the stone throwers ... like voyeurism and pride. Maybe he was just doodling! We don't know.
But verse 7 says, 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." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
And while he was bent over with his head down an amazing thing happened. Jesus heard a thud and then another thud and another and another. Stones were dropping, one by one, first from the hands of the oldest and the wisest and then all the way down to the youngest.
Look at verse 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.
What happened? Maybe their hearts started to melt a little bit and they got in touch with their own shortcomings. Maybe they remembered a time in their lives when they needed forgiveness. Maybe the doodles in the dirt exposed their sin. We don't know. But whatever happened, all the stones are dropped until all that's left is Jesus and the woman.
So what's the point of the story? Is it that everybody who breaks the law should go free? No. Is it that it's okay to have an affair? No. The point is that there's no room in Jesus' community for throwing stones. We're all too broken and messed up for that. Each one of us has our own list that needs to be forgiven. You have yours and I have mine. Do you have any stones you need drop today?
Some of you in the counseling field may recognize the name of Paul Tournier. He was a brilliant thinker and writer and some would say the most influential Christian therapist of the twentieth century. Doctors from all over the world would travel to his home in Geneva, Switzerland, to study under him. And one time he said, "It's a little embarrassing for students to come over and study my 'techniques' because they always go away disappointed. All I do is accept people."
In community authenticity needs to be followed by acceptance. We all need to be accepted for who we are and with what we've done. Now I know what some of you are thinking. You're wondering if acceptance is the same thing as approval. And it's not. Acceptance doesn't mean approving of everything everybody does. God doesn't even do that. Instead, acceptance is an attitude of the heart that says, "Whatever it is you're struggling with won't stop me from loving you." That's agape kind of love.
Let me say something else about acceptance. Acceptance doesn't mean that we're bound by God to stay in a relationship, marriage or otherwise, that's abusive or violates vows that were once taken before God and others. That's not what Jesus is addressing here. Instead, he's going after an attitude of pride and self-righteousness that tries to justify rock throwing.
So at the end of the story, the only ones left are Jesus and the woman and a pile of stones. Now Jesus could have been the stone thrower. He had the right. He was perfect. He didn't have list. But he doesn't.
Instead look at verse 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."
Jesus forgives the woman. He doesn't condemn her. But in another Columbo moment he add one more thing, "Don't do it again." He accepts her for who she is and what she has done. But he loves her too much not to say, "Don't do it again. Break off the relationship it's destroying your life. No more affairs."
You see accepting another person doesn't mean we don't confront them or challenge when what they're doing is wrong or hurting themselves or hurting other people. Failing to confront, to speak the truth in love, can be as damaging to community as being judgmental. Jesus accepted the woman in this story, but he didn't excuse her behavior. The same grace that forgave her now calls her to leave behind her life of sin.
It's this kind of radical acceptance that changes lives. Jesus wants Valley View Community Church to be a place where authenticity is followed by radical acceptance, a place where stones get dropped because we're in touch with how broken we are. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. He wants this church to be a place where we can speak the truth in love and help each other from hurting each other and from hurting ourselves.
Last week's lesson was that community starts with being real, being authentic. Today's lesson is that in community authenticity is followed by acceptance.