MORE THAN RULES
JOHN 8:1-11
Big Idea: The hand that wrote God’s law in stone writes your sin in the sand.
NOTE: The idea for this sermon was inspired by the Not a Fan series developed by Kyle Idleman.
1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 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." 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 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. 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."
Take a look at the photo that is being projected on the screen. That is my 7th grade football team photo! I am in there somewhere along with a lot of my friends. {I will mention a few friends & some quick descriptives}.
Now this photo was a big deal to us … WE WERE ON THE FOOTBALL TEAM!!! And I … was a linebacker! Never mind that I seldom played I still envisioned myself as the next Dick Butkus!
There is one more important point to my story … we were the “B” team. But we were still excited because WE MADE THE TEAM!
That’s a big deal in Texas. This whole “Friday night lights” scenario is alive and well there. There were a few junior high schools that funneled into the same High School and we were a class 5a school with over 4,000 students. Our football stadium rivals some division II college stadiums and the thought of someday being on that team was euphoric!
For most of us. But not for the one I will call … Eddie. You see, for Eddie to be on the “B’ team was failure. His dad had imposed some very high expectation … even rules on Eddie and being a “B” team player was not acceptable. Either the coaches were idiots (Which Eddie’s father was going to fix) or Eddie was not applying himself (Which Eddie’s father was going to fix). This was not just a football issue – this applied to every aspect of Eddie’s life. He was expected to excel in school. Nothing short of valedictorian would suffice his dad. The problem was … Eddie could not keep his dad’s rules. He was, in fact, a “B” teamer and he was in fact a “B” student. There was nothing wrong with either but there was to Eddie’s dad.
After a few years this began to take its toll on Eddie. By the time we were in the eleventh grade Eddie was sullen, turned inward, depressed and dark. He simply could not measure up to his dad’s standards.
There are a number of ways that people respond to unreasonable and imposed expectations. Some self-medicate. Some cheat. Some rebel. And there are two other ways that people can respond to “rules” that are impossible to keep which remind me of the story in John 8:1-11 … the story of the woman caught not keeping her Father’s high expectations … I mean the woman caught in adultery.
Some in this story responded to these rules (which they could not keep) by MASQUERADING AND OVER COMPENSATING … they pretended they were keeping them perfectly and that others should/could too. The other way … Eddie’s way and this woman’s way … they RESIGNED TO BEING FAILURES.
Now please understand – in this instance the real problem is not “the rules of the Father.” The problem is the way some understood them. Both then and now. Some saw keeping the rules to be the end game … all that mattered. But the rules were designed to draw us to God and reveal Him. The rules were a map that leads to a destination they were not the destination itself. I will speak of this more in a moment.
+++++++++++++
Jesus was in the temple with the people of God sharing God’s truth when His teaching is interrupted by an angry mob that bursts onto the scene. That mob is also made up some who claimed to be God’s people – the religious leaders of His day. Being pushed along on the crest of the mob is this woman, and perhaps she is dressed in nothing but a bed sheet as she is shoved to the dirt on the ground in front of Jesus. One of the religious leaders gives the accusation to Jesus and says, “We found this woman in bed with a man that was not her husband. The Law says we stone her. What do you say?”
This was a pushy move by these religious leaders. They use the rules to try to trap Jesus. Rules can do that to us; turn us into an angry mob of sorts. We might not form together and parade a sinner around town, but we’ll huddle in whispering circles and drop someone’s name who isn’t keeping them or we will outright reject them.
This woman is looking down—humiliated, guilty, and ashamed. She’s been caught breaking the rules, and this may be the day that breaking a rule costs her everything.
Have you ever felt like that woman? A lot of us have.
Have you ever felt like that angry mob? I hope not but it is easy to do what they did. We can see other’s sin and rationalize ours. We can see a speck in their eye and not see the beam in ours.
I am actually encouraged by the way Jesus responds to both the mob and the woman. He kneels down and He begins to write something in the dirt. The picture of Jesus doing this is breathtaking to me. This is the hand of God … that hand that wrote those first “rules” on the stone tablets and gave them to Moses is now writing in the sand (or dirt)… in the sand … making a way to bring pardon and forgiveness for breaking those same rules! Those stone tablets were considered by these religious leaders to be immovable so now, whatever Jesus writes, it’s in the sand.
Remember, we don’t know what he was writing.
Maybe he was writing down the scripture references and the charges being brought against the woman. If so … I think it is relevant that he is writing in the sand.
Maybe he was writing other passages in the sand. Passages like Psalm 140:
1 Deliver me, O LORD, from evil men; preserve me from violent men,
2 who plan evil things in their heart and stir up wars continually.
3 They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's, and under their lips is the venom of asps.
4 Guard me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me fromviolent men, who have planned to trip up my feet.
5 The arrogant have hidden a trap for me, and with cords they have spread a net; beside the way they have set snares for me.Selah
Or maybe he was writing other passages from the Torah … maybe a verse like Exodus 34:6 which is found in the same passage of the second set of stone tablets given by THWH. “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness”
Some commentators speculate that perhaps He was writing the sins of the accusers in the dirt. Let’s assume so for a moment – the dirt, you see, is erasable. It would be very symbolic if he was actually writing their offenses in the sand (as opposed to in stone) wouldn’t it? And it is also very symbolic that it is never disclosed what he wrote. Meanwhile, the religious leaders wait for an answer.
Finally, Jesus looks up at these spiritual leaders and says, “If any one of you is without sin, he can cast the first stone.” And one by one these bullies drop their stones and walk away.
Before we move on can we pause here for a moment? I want you to notice Jesus did not humiliate these men either. He could have exposed their sin – their violation of His rules but, rather, he seized the moment to help them see that they too were moral failures in one way or another and they too could be stoned … he offered them the opportunity to look inside at themselves and tend to their own gardens and he did it in a way that could lead to their restoration.
But now Jesus is left alone with this woman. And perhaps, with a little bit of a smile, he looks up at her and he says, “Is there anyone left to condemn you?” Maybe she thought, “There is still one. There is still one who could condemn me.” And she would have been right. You see – these were HIS RULES! He is the one who influenced the writing the Old Testament after all. And then Jesus says with tenderness, “Neither do I condemn you. You go now and leave your life of sin.” And with that, like the offenses of the religious leaders, Jesus makes a way for her life of sin to be erased as if written in sand.
Jesus knows two things that influence this story:
1. The whole point of “the rules” written in stone was to identify people with YHWH God and help them live a life of holiness
2. No one could keep the rules … no one. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and we all need a path to forgiveness.
You see, God’s Word provides both guidance and commandments. And those commandments, those laws, they are here to protect us. But, if we’re honest, none of us can follow those laws.
Every one of us has fallen short, some of us in more public settings, and others in more private ones. But when we overemphasize following the rules, we can get people thinking we’ve got it all figured out. We can get people thinking they shouldn’t share their struggles with us, because we’re perfect.
Sometimes, Christians can be a lot more like the Pharisees and religious leaders than our Messiah, and end up using the rules to rationalize how we treat others in the church.
I think that’s why Jesus didn’t expose and humiliate the leaders that brought this woman to him. I think he was offering them the opportunity to look inside and see their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I think Jesus wanted them to choose to experience God’s pardoning grace and then to extend that experience to others. He wanted them, to use our words from our current emphasis, to move from fan to follower.
How about us?
• Have we experienced God’s grace in such a way that we see our own culpability and seek God’s restoration?
• Have we let that experience compel us to offer God’s restoration to others in sin or are we still writing things in stone?
• Have we moved from fan to follower?
FANS MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF YOUR FAILURE.
FOLLOWERS MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF GOD’S GRACE
FANS WANT YOU TO WEAR A LABEL.
FOLLOWERS CELEBRATE GOD’S RESTORATION
FANS WANT YOU TO PERFORM FOR YOUR PARDON.
FOLLOWERS MAKE ROOM FOR SECOND CHANCES
It’s not that followers masquerade and pretend there is no offense. They don’t act like it’s not a big deal or that no one has done anything wrong. On the contrary followers know that sin is a huge deal … such a big deal that we humans cannot correct the error; such a big deal that there must be forgiveness. But they also know that the One ho “wrote the rules in stone” is a forgiving God who has forgiven them and seeks to forgive others as well.
Fans – they simply want to wag the finger and make our moral failure bigger that God’s forgiveness.
If we are not careful we will let “rules” be the end all and the end game. God never intended that to be the case. God has always approached His relationship with people as just that … a relationship; a covenantal relationship. The rules help us understand the character of God and what it means to be like Him. But God knows there is a big gap between his character and ours.
Heather King is a writer and commentator for NPR. She is also a recovering alcoholic who has come to faith in Christ. In her blog she writes about her first experiences with the church. It was not an encounter she was looking forward to – she had her assumptions. They were all republicans, they were all boring, they were all hypocrites, they were all out for themselves, and they were all bullies that expected her to become just like them if she was going to have a place at the table.
But what she discovered is that they were all broken people with imperfect pasts (like her) and that the uniting factor was a relationship with Christ that moved them to model and offer that covenantal relationship to others.
Let’s be followers:
• LET’S MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF GOD’S GRACE
• LET’S CELEBRATE GOD’S RESTORATION
• LET’S MAKE ROOM FOR SECOND CHANCES
+++++++++++++++++
This sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
