the    sides

This is part of our e-journey through the gospel of John. Today is from John 8:1-11.

There is an annoying little note in my bible that says this section of scripture isn’t in the earliest manuscripts. I used to avoid teaching or preaching this section of scripture because of that. And partly because the implications of the story made me incredibly uncomfortable. I even had someone challenge me that if it wasn’t in the earliest manuscript, it should NOT be in the Bible.

So I started researching the issue. I discovered that if you took out all the sections in the New Testament that weren’t in the earliest manuscripts, we’d lose .5% of the New Testament. Not 5. but POINT FIVE. None of it having anything to do with theology.

Then after reading the gospels for years, this story so fits what Jesus would do.

Then I finally got to the point of understanding just because it wasn’t in the earliest manuscripts doesn’t make it didn’t happen.

Of course after going full circle I’ve still yet to wrestle with the real implications of the passage. A naked woman caught in the middle of having sex with a man that is not her husband is drug out into the streets and thrown in front of a religious man she doesn’t know for judgment with the whole neighborhood watching.

It’s humiliating. It’s demeaning. It’s demonic. Both the adultery and the kind of self-righteousness that would drag someone else’s struggles into broad daylight.

Do we need to hide sin? No. But dragging it out in front of everybody is equally demonic and hate-filled. That doesn’t lead to wholeness and repentance either.

Jesus never shied away from confronting sin in direct and disruptive ways. He just did it for the point of repentance and redemption. We see him giving them the opportunity to “surrender with honor” if you will.

This situation had none of those marks. It was done to be hurtful, to be damning. And Jesus rebukes that more than the adultery.

I love the fact that Jesus only confronts the woman AFTER everyone else leaves. “Where are your accusers?”

“They are all gone.”

“Neither then do I accuse you. Go AND SIN NO MORE.”

He still reminds her - what you did was wrong. Don’t do it again. But how they treated you was wrong as well.

How we handle brokenness tells more about our theology than any document we could ever write. How we treat other image-bearers of God truly reveals our heart position with Christ.

That is the true litmus test of all congregations - how they treat brokenness.