Pre:  This is a very interesting passage, not just in the story itself, but in its placement here in John's Gospel.  Scholars who have gone back and studied the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of John have discovered that the most ancient manuscripts leave this story out.  Some manuscripts put it in a different place in John, a few put it in Luke.  Most are convinced that John is not the author of this particular story, because of the fact that the oldest manuscripts leave it out, and because the language and construction are different from the rest of  John's Gospel. At the same time, the story has such a ring of authenticity, such a sense that this is Jesus in action, that most Bible scholars don't want to leave it out either.    So, you gotta put it somewhere.

 WARNING:  This sermon contains material that may be too graphic for immature audiences.  And a message too potent for casual Christians.  Listener discretion is advised.

A priest and a rabbi are seated next to each other on an airplane.  After a while, the priest turns to the rabbi and asks, “Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?”  The rabbi says, “Yes, that is still one of our beliefs.”  The priest then asks, “Have you ever eaten pork?”  To which the rabbi replies, “Yes, on one occasion, I did succumb to temptation and tasted pork.”  The priest nodded in understanding and went on with his reading.

A little while later, the rabbi spoke up and asked the priest, “Father, is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?”   The priest replied, “Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith.”  So the rabbi then asked him, “Father, have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?”  The priest replied, “Yes, rabbi, on one occasion I was weak and broke with my faith.”  The rabbi nodded understandingly for a moment and then said, “A lot better than pork, isn't it?”(internet)

Ah, the sins of the flesh.  So enticing to the one tempted, and so titillating to all who hear about it.  And so, when we read this story from the Bible an unnamed woman, her male accusers, and Jesus, we jump right to the adultery part.   But the point of this story is not about adultery.   It's about how we deal with sin—and how God deals with us.

Let's talk about the woman and her accusers, and why they brought her to Jesus.   This woman, they say, has been caught in the very act of adultery.   The very act!  Well, that's very interesting!  I thought it took two to tango.  Certainly if they found the woman in the act, they found the man, too.  And the law of Moses was equally harsh on the sin of the man and the sin of the woman.  Both were to be stoned.  What happened to the male half of the adulterous couple?    The story doesn't say.  But we can speculate a couple of things.  Perhaps he got away, being a faster runner than the woman.

Then again, maybe it was a simple case of the old double standard.  And they let the man go.

Or, perhaps the man is a part of a plot to entrap the woman.   Because you see, the accusers are not concerned about sin, or about morality.  They aren't concerned about the Law of Moses, either.   They are asking Jesus a question about the law, but which way he goes with the answer is immaterial to them.  True or false, either way is fine with them.  They don't care about the woman, either.  She is simply the bait in a game of cat and mouse that they are trying to get Jesus to play with them.  The story tells us that the motive of the accusers is to test Jesus, so that they might have a charge to bring against him.    You see, they feel threatened by Jesus, by his words and by his actions.  So, they constantly are on the lookout for riddles and tricks to catch him in some misstatement or misbehavior, so that they could accuse him of some criminal offense and get rid of him once for all.

Their agenda is to discredit and ultimately get rid of Jesus.  Their method is to bring this woman up on charges.   Here's how their scheme is intended to work:  If Jesus says they should let the woman go, they can accuse him of breaking the Law of Moses.   If he says, go ahead and stone her, they can accuse him of breaking Roman Law, which does not allow the Jews to execute any one.  It's the perfect trap.  The insignificant woman is the perfect bait.  Or so they think.

These men are not the first, nor certainly the last, to use another human being for their own purposes.  To treat a human being as being less than human or less than worthy of respect and value.   Less than real.  We've seen it in our day.  Employers misusing and abusing employees.  Husbands misusing wives and wives misusing husbands.  Political leaders misusing underlings.

Reporter Barbara Walters tells about visiting Kuwait several years before the Gulf War.  She noticed that at the time the women customarily walked about ten feet behind their husbands.  She returned to Kuwait later and observed that the men now walked several yards behind their wives.  She approached one of the  women for an explanation.  “This is marvelous,” Barbara said.  “What enabled women here to achieve this reversal of roles?”  The Kuwaiti woman replied, “Land mines.”  (Story File, 15.8.1)

No doubt the accusers are thinking that Jesus is stalling while he's scribbling in the dirt.   I think he's just building some dramatic tension, so that no one will miss what he is going to say.   They keep pestering him until finally he stands up, brushes the dust off himself, and fingers the accusers.   “Fine, go ahead and stone her.  But let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

Ah, there's the rub.  And here we brush dangerously close to the heart of the matter.  The one without sin.  This wasn't supposed to be about them, now was it?  They had given him a simple true/false quiz.  But Jesus, as we know by now, has his own agenda.  So he exposes the sin that is hidden behind a façade of pious platitudes.   The sin we might call hypocrisy or self-righteousness.  The sin that pretends not to be sin, by pointing out the sins of others.  Spiritual ventriloquism doesn't fool Jesus.

With this comment, Jesus levels the playing field.  They had felt confident that they were better than this woman.  But Jesus says, sin is sin.  Whether it's the blatant sin of the prostitute or the adulterer, or the “white collar” sin of the Pharisee and the scribe.  Sin, no matter the category, becomes pervasive and controlling in one's life if it is not repented and forgiven.

These men remind me of the young kids who were trying to convince their dad to let them go and see a particular movie.  They insisted that it wasn't too bad—it only used the Lord's name in vain three times in the whole movie.  The video effects were fabulous, and yes, there was a scene where a bunch of people got blown up, but it was just the usual sort of stuff you see.  And yes, there was the suggestion of sex, but they didn't really ever show it.  So, please please please dad, can't we see it?   Dad didn't give an explanation.  He just said no.  Then later in the day, he offered them some brownies that he had prepared.  He explained that he had used Mom's recipe, but had added a special ingredient.  They asked what that special ingredient was.  He calmly replied that he had added dog doodoo to the brownies.  But, he insisted, it was only a little bit.  All the other ingredients were of gourmet quality.  When the kids wouldn't even take a bite, the father acted surprised and assured them that they would hardly notice at all.  He then compared the brownies to the movie that they wanted to see, and explained that no matter what they heard on the advertisements, there were some movies that simply were not good for them to see.  (Story file, 15.9.20)

Sin in our lives is like dog doodoo in brownies.  It doesn't matter if it's a lot or a little, or what kind it is.  Sin ruins the recipe for effective living.
The accusers could walk around with their pious faces and their prayer tassels, but when confronted point blank, not one of them could claim to be without sin.   None of them could throw a stone.   And neither could you, neither could I.

After each of the accusers have slunk away, Jesus and the woman are left alone.   And we quickly find that when Jesus is involved it is far better to be the one who didn't get away, than the one who did.  The ones who got away had their sins exposed.  But the one who didn't get away has the opportunity to start a whole new life.  This woman has nothing to lose.  C.S. Lewis once said, “prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God; the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.”   So, while the accusers turn away, the woman receives grace.
In Jesus’ words to this woman, we learn a universal truth about who we are in God's sight.   We are taken seriously.  Treated as real people.  “Where are your accusers?” Jesus said,  “Isn't there anybody left to condemn you?”.  “Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus said.  “Go and sin no more.”
There is such profound wisdom in the pairing of those two phrases.  No burdens of guilt to carry around like pails of cement; and no getting off the hook, either.   In my experience with people, it seems like most of us tend to deal with sin a little differently.  Either we feel like we are so bad, that God can never forgive us—guilt hangs on us like a suit of armor ten sizes too big.  Or, we get defensive and try to slough off the wrongs we've done as if they were nothing.   I don't need to change.  My bad habits aren't nearly as bad as so and so’s.  But God takes each of us seriously.   God has both the ability and the desire to forgive every sin that any one of us has ever committed.   And God knows that unforgiven sin in our lives spreads like crabgrass.  And in the living of our life it acts like dog poop in brownies.  So, because God loves us, God will always confront sin.

What we take away from this story depends in large part upon which character we are willing to identify with.   Perhaps we identify with the partner in adultery who got away—We think this doesn't apply to us.  We've gotten off scott free so far, never even gotten a traffic ticket.  Why won't this charmed existence just continue on through eternity?

Then again, maybe we identify with the accusers, and we will go away with an acute awareness of having been busted.   Yet, without any real desire to make a change in our lives, we will keep on focusing the blame on others.

The most fortunate among us will identify freely with the woman, the one who didn't get away.  The one forced to face her sin squarely in the eye.  The one uniquely able to feel the burden of sin lifted; and the one who will wake up tomorrow ready to face a new day and a new life.