With the Gentleness of Jesus

John 8: 1 – 11

 

[Begin by offering breath prayer – God’s lifegiving love in, then breathed back out into the world.]

 

The familiar story of the woman caught in adultery is not part of the original written text of John’s gospel. This is a good reminder of how the bible we read today came to be – there were multiple versions of the earliest gospel accounts circulating among early Christian leaders. In addition, there were stories that were part of an oral tradition or perhaps written in alternate texts or letters. Those stories might have been handed down from witnesses to followers over time and therefore they eventually got worked into one of the gospel accounts. As the work began to standardize the writings that would be the basis for the early church, fragments might be taken from one writing and worked into a spot to meet an editorial need.

So….to be clear, there were a lot of human hands involved in shaping what appeared in the agreed upon “canon” – the final list of texts that make up the scripture we know today.  Most of the canon was settled by the early 5^th century in the common era.  

 

Scholars believe this to be true of this story for a couple of reasons – one is that the word used to reference “scribes” in this story is only used in this one location through all of John’s gospel. And throughout John’s gospel, Jesus is pretty directly critical of the religious leaders. Here he takes a different route.

 

When such insertions happen, it’s worth asking why. Why did leaders of the day believe this story needed to be part of the story told in the gospel of John?

 

I think this is a story about our shared sinfulness and God’s radical grace – all acted out in a scene where the authorities are looking for Jesus to reinforce the Law as they understand it. Instead, he gently side-steps their hopes. And he does it all in a very non-violent way.

 

First, he bends down and begins writing in the dirt. We don’t know what he is writing, but let’s just take the social cues here. He disengages from dialogue with them. He cuts eye contact. He doesn’t argue with them. He doesn’t contest points of law. 

 

Can you imagine them continuing to pester – seeking a higher ground, striving to be RIGHT while proving the woman WRONG. 

 

But Jesus won’t go there. He won’t go head to head with these folks. Instead he offers a simple challenge, let anyone among you without sin cast the first stone.

And he returns to what he has been writing on the ground.

 

And one by one they walk away. 

 

Now all this time, the woman has been there, presumably quaking. And Jesus asks her if anyone has condemned her. 

 

Can you imagine her straightening up, looking around, taking a shaky breath.  “No one, sir.”

 

And Jesus says, then neither do I. Go and sin no more.

 

There is a gentleness to this story. 

It is not as if everyone is found blameless – not at all.

But instead, everyone is found sinful.

So that no one might hold that over the other.

So that no one might use their power over.

So that everyone shares in the human condition.

 

There is a gentleness in this story…an acknowledgment, a challenge, a release. None of it violent. None of it retributive. 

 

Go and sin no more.

 

This week, I felt a little bit like I was doing two or three jobs and neither very well.  I was in Pittsburgh, attending the Northeast Jurisdictional Conference of The United Methodist Church, stuck in a ballroom with no natural light and mediocre WIFI. I serve as a reserve delegate, so I have had to stay informed about all the legislative and governance things and I only sit with the delegation and vote when someone else has to be absent. There is a lot of paying attention (kind of) and waiting. 

 

So, while waiting this week, I tried to keep up with as much as I could with the other vital stuff that supports our shared work here at Faith.  But you know how it is when you are away, right? You can get some things done, but often not the way you want. Especially if you are also trying to pay attention to something else.

 

By the end of the week, feeling like I was stretched thin and not really succeeding at anything or making any real difference, I felt the questions and doubt seeping in. When questions and doubts seep in, I am less likely to be confident in the God-given gifts and belovedness of others. I get cranky. I get judgy. 

 

Maybe you have had the same experience. A swirling dialogue in your spirit that sounds something like this: Am I really any good at this? Why can’t I get anything checked off my to-do list? Do I really belong here? Does any of this work matter? Did he really just say that to the Bishop? Why are they acting that way? Do they really think they can say that? How unaware can a person be?

 

And then I became aware of the Holy Spirit nudging me back to this week’s fruit – gentleness.

 

The Holy Spirit’s nudge was about the gentleness of God – the God who created me and called me, the God who loves me even with my deep flaws. The God who loves me when I fail to see the God-blessedness of others right in front of me.

 

The Holy Spirit’s nudge was about the need to be gentle with myself as God is gentle with me so that I can be gentle with others.

 

Throughout this series, in my own preparation, I keep coming back to the reminder that we are waiting on the Spirit’s work in us, ripening the promised fruit of the Spirit. We are not striving to enact a particular way of being. We are called to trust Paul’s council, we are to be led by the Spirit so that the Spirit might work in us.

 

So I can’t necessarily strive for gentleness. But this week the Holy Spirit has reminded me of the way God’s gentleness surrounds me, of the ways I can be open to that, the ways I might share it.

 

Now, I don’t want to water this down. Jesus was addressing SIN. He was addressing the universality of SIN. Sin is at its root, a separation from God. And time and time again in the story of the big God family, God shows up to our human sinfulness with a kind of gentleness – corrective,  comforting, forgiving. God shows up with GRACE.

 

And when we are plugged into that gentle grace, we are better able to treat one another with that gentle grace.

 

When I am at my best, my most self-aware, when someone says something harsh or someone hurts me, I have the space to think about the ache or the absence in that person that is causing them to act out in that way. I am able to think about what is pressing on them, missing from their lives that causes them to not be gentle…with themselves…with others.

 

I think the world lacks gentleness. And I think that we lack gentleness in part because we do not receive the grace and love, expressed as deep gentleness, that God has for us. I think we find ourselves in starkly divided times in part because we don’t accept that we are fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who delights in us.

 

I think that the horrible incident of gun violence that occurred yesterday - targeting former president Trump and ending the life of one bystander and critically wounding two others - echoes our failure as Christians in the world to embrace God’s gentleness, to dwell in God’s gentleness, to observe the way the Spirit calls gentleness forth in us, to cultivate gentleness as a way of disagreeing with one another.

 

I think that we live in a world where gentleness gets buried by aggression. Aggression we encounter, aggression we enact. And layer upon layer, like lead paint, it builds up with a toxicity that changes us.

 

Come Holy Spirit. Come and help us to feel the embrace of a gentle God.

So that we might breathe that gentleness out into the world.

 

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

May it be so.

Amen.

  

 

Today’s prompt:

Offer forgiveness. Spend some quality time with a special animal. Dance in the rain. Look up at the moon and wish on a star. In what ONE way will you be gentle with yourself and renew your soul this week?