Sermon Notes

8 1-2 Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them. 3-6a The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him. 6b-8 Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. 9-10 Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?” 11 “No one, Master.” “Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
56 Abraham—your ‘father’—with elated faith looked down the corridors of history and saw my day coming. He saw it and cheered.” 57 The Jews said, “You’re not even fifty years old—and Abraham saw you?” 58 “Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.” 59 That did it—pushed them over the edge. They picked up rocks to throw at him. But Jesus slipped away, getting out of the Temple.

John 8:1-11 is perhaps the most enigmatic text in the Gospel of John. It was not included in manuscripts of John before the 4th Century CE, and according to one biblical scholar, “it floated in antiquity,” appearing randomly in Luke’s Gospel, and in some copies of John, but was not universally accepted as canonical for at least two hundred years. However, regardless of when this pericope appeared in early Christian texts, or where it was included in the Christian Canon—some manuscripts insert the story after Luke 7:36; 7:44; or 21:38 —the narrative of the woman caught in adultery resonated with Christian tradition. Once this text was accepted as “gospel” it became one of the most venerated New Testament texts and enjoyed numerous afterlives in visual art, literature, poetry, and contemporary culture.
Beyond its canonical context and cultural reception, this narrative invites Christians to consider how God’s love—as expressed in Jesus’ actions—challenges the dominant societal norms of “justice.” Capitalist society demand that crimes require retribution and punishment, not forgiveness and restoration. However, God’s all-encompassing, never-failing, cosmos-embracing love insists that those who profess Jesus as Lord enflesh ways to restore those who have strayed from divine expectation, not punish them and “throw away the key.” What was “right” by the Mosaic law was that Jesus sentence this woman to death. However, Jesus demonstrates God love and instead, releases her to a restored life. In preventing this woman’s stoning, Jesus ultimately invites his own. But that is the length he is willing to go to demonstrate that God’s Law is Love not punishment and retribution.

At the end of John 7, Jesus’ popularity is becoming a great concern for the Pharisees and other religious leaders. After their encounter with Him on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles/Booths, they send the Temple guards to arrest Jesus and bring Him to them. However, the guards return testifying that they couldn’t stop Jesus,“ ...for no one has ever spoken the way this Man does (John 7:46).” While the Pharisees and Chief priests are debating what they should do about Jesus, Nicodemus interjects into the conversation. This Nicodemus is the same man who had previously come to Jesus “by night” (John 3) and was convicted by that vigorous discussion. However, when Nicodemus was given the chance to testify on Jesus’ behalf, he chooses neutrality and stands on principles of fairness. He says, “It really isn’t fair for us to be talking about this until we’ve heard this Jesus for ourselves (John 7:51).”
At that point in the narrative, the Pharisees and Chief priests ask Nicodemus if he is also from Galilee to underscore the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures say the Jewish Messiah will not come from Galilee. This is where the lesson text picks up.

1-2 Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them. 3-6 The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.
In the first verses of the lesson text, John provides the reader with a glimpse into the nasty inhumane behavior of the Jewish religious leaders. The scribes and Pharisees, who desperately desired to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people, stoop to disgusting levels of trickery and unethical behavior. They have entrapped a woman in an adulterous situation, waited for her to be in a position of complete vulnerability, and then rushed in, seized her and brought her to Jesus.
Please note: In Second Temple Jewish society, adultery is deemed to have occurred if a woman is married or engaged. Because she belongs to her husband or her betrothed. Thus, adultery is a property rights crime. If the woman is not married, this situation is not considered adultery.
So the religious leaders entrap her, rush in, seize her, and bring her to Jesus. Imagine the feeling of being exposed. Imagine having your deepest secret paraded for the whole world to see. Imagine the public spectacle and private shame of your personal affairs being exposed for the sole purpose of embarrassing and humiliating you. This is what the Pharisees and religion scholars do to this woman. She has been objectified and is reduced to a parody of humanity. She has no name and we do not know who she is…she is only known by this act of adultery.
Now, these religious leaders could be given the benefit of doubt if had they brought both the man and the woman to Jesus. The claim was that this woman was caught in the act of adultery. Thus, it begs the question, “Where was her partner? What happened to the guy who was with her?” However, they do not bring the sexual partner as is explicitly required by the Law. If it is determined that adultery has occurred, then both the man and the woman are supposed to receive the death penalty as noted in Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:24. While Leviticus does not indicate how death is to be enforced, Deuteronomy 22:24 states, “you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death.”
However, by Jesus’ time, Roman law expressly forbids death by stoning. This is why the religious leaders ask Jesus, “Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?“ Thus, without the sexual partner, or a witness to testify to the woman’s guilt—and in light of the Roman prohibition against stoning—it is clear that this situation is a set-up devised by the religious authorities to entrap Jesus into doing something that would arouse retribution from the Roman government.
Further, when reading this pericope intertextually with the Book of Susanna—an apocryphal Old Testament text where a woman is falsely accused of adultery by two corrupt religious leaders—one wonders if there is actually a sexual partner at all. It is possible that this whole scenario is an elaborate ruse devised solely to entrap Jesus into saying something that will incriminate him with the Romans. If Jesus upholds Mosaic law and advocates killing the woman, He would lose favor with the listening people put himself at odds with Roman authority. If He defends the woman, he would be in opposition to Mosaic Law, and the Pharisees are justified in labeling him a heretic and a blasphemer.
Regardless of who her partner is, the religious leaders bring this woman to Jesus to use her, humiliate her, and perhaps even kill her, in their effort to humiliate and destroy Jesus. They objectify her, they reduce her to a “type”, as in stereotype of a “sinful” women, and they victimize her as a casualty of a patriarchal system where men (the Scribes and Pharisees) seek power over another man (Jesus) at the expense of a woman.

This narrative reminds contemporary Christians that people with evil intentions will go to any lengths to destroy you. They will use anyone, at any time, for any reason if they believe it will serve their nefarious purposes. Further, this “trial” before Jesus and the people is illegal because the religious leaders do not follow the Mosaic Law they say they uphold, and present both the man and woman for punishment. This also reminds us that powerful people will misuse the law, and misrepresent the law, when it is to their benefit.
6b-8 Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. 9 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. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
Based on the presented scenario, there seems to be no way that these charges can be denied. The woman has been caught in adultery, right? However, Jesus turns this deplorable situation on its head. He refuses to treat this woman as a pawn in his conflict with the Scribes and Pharisees. Also, Jesus will not play into their misogynistic or patriarchal games.
This is a note of proclamation and hope for the woman caught in adultery and contemporary Christians. Where else can sinners, mess-ups, and the disgraced turn if not to Jesus? What do the wounded, maligned, and despondent do if they can’t go to Jesus? How will the called out, weeded-out, and left-out, make it if they can’t seek out Jesus?
If we are honest, everyone has been in this woman’s situation at one time or another. It may not have been adultery, but all of us have been caught in something—a lie, a bad habit, a weak moment—and our mistakes are on full view, seemingly in front of the world. Once folk know something negative about you, they likely never let you forget it. Even the ones who say they love us will be the first ones to remind us of our wrongs. But the best thing we can do and the worst thing our enemies can do when we’re caught up in sin is to take it to Jesus.
The religious leaders thought they had Jesus trapped. They set this woman up in order to bring Jesus down! But Jesus stoops down and begins to write with his finger in the dirt. The text does not say what Jesus wrote. Some say wrote a list of sins. Others think he wrote accusations, naming the indiscretions of the accusers one by one. Whatever he wrote, it stopped the Scribes and Pharisees dead in their tracks. Then, he stood up and said, “Let the one who’s without sin throw the first stone at her,” and went back to writing in the dirt. With his statement, Jesus makes it clear that he does not deny Mosaic law. However, he reminds all who are present that everyone falls short of the law. Thus, all are deserving of punishment and in need of forgiveness.
The religious leaders came with blood in their eyes, but they left convicted in their hearts—or at least, they were shamed in the moment. They came to the to trap Him, but they left reminded of their own faults and failures. Rock after rock fell to the ground as they all walked away—from the oldest to the youngest.
When everyone left, Jesus looked up at the woman and asked, “Where are your accusers?” She said, “They’re all gone, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Then, I don’t condemn you either. Go and sin no more.” Jesus’ words to the woman demonstrate that he sees her, not as a sinner, not as irredeemable, not as a person who is forever defined by their mistakes, but as a person who is worthy of redemption and restoration.
56 Abraham—your ‘father’—with elated faith looked down the corridors of history and saw my day coming. He saw it and cheered.” 57 The Jews said, “You’re not even fifty years old—and Abraham saw you?” 58 “Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.” 59 That did it—pushed them over the edge. They picked up rocks to throw at him. But Jesus slipped away, getting out of the Temple.
In the final verses of the lesson text, we jump to the end of John 8 and encounter Jesus’ response to a question the Scribes and Pharisees pose: “Who does Jesus think He is? Does He think He is better than Abraham, our ‘father,’ and the prophets? All these died, so how can Jesus speak of not dying? Who is He claiming to be?” Jesus responds that any glory He seeks for Himself would be of no value. It’s the heavenly Father who’s actively working to glorify Jesus the Son. The one whom they call their “Father” Abraham, saw God in Jesus at work long before their time in first century Palestine. Jesus effectively says he not only knows Abraham—their father—but that he knew Father Abraham he was even born. The Jewish religious leaders don’t rejoice at Jesus’ coming as the Messiah, but according to Jesus, Abraham rejoiced to see that day. Further, the Scribes and Pharisees don’t know God, because if they knew God, they would not have treated the woman caught in adultery like she was an insignificant object, and they would not treat Jesus like he is the enemy.
By this time, Jesus’ opponents are furious. Not only does Jesus speak of living on forever, but he also speaks of his presence in the distant past. There is little doubt that Jesus means to identify Himself as God. As opposed to Abraham’s limited life span, Jesus places his own personhood as an existence that that transcends time. Jesus says he is infinitely elevated above Abraham because he is the, “I Am, that I Am.” The Pharisees and Scribes do not miss what Jesus is saying. He is claiming to be God boldly, audaciously, and unapologetically. Infuriated beyond words, they immediately pick up rocks to stone Him—regardless of the Roman prohibition against stoning as a death penalty. However, it is not time for Jesus to surrender his life. Therefore, John says he simply slips away and leaves the Temple.