Go and Sin No More
Cartoon by Charlie Baber
7:53 They each went to their own homes, 8:1 And Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he returned to the temple. All the people gathered around him, and he sat down and taught them.3 The legal experts and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. Placing her in the center of the group, 4 they said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery.5 In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, because they wanted a reason to bring an accusation against him. Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger.
7 They continued to question him, so he stood up and replied, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” 8 Bending down again, he wrote on the ground. 9 Those who heard him went away, one by one, beginning with the elders. Finally, only Jesus and the woman were left in the middle of the crowd.
10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Is there no one to condemn you?”
11 She said, “No one, sir.”[a]
Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, don’t sin anymore.
I remember as an undergraduate Religious Studies major learning that this beloved story from the Gospel of John was not, in fact, originally in the Gospel. When you read John 7:53-8:11, your bible will have it in brackets, or a footnote marking its dubious authenticity. As a young student, this was shown as an example of the canonical process and historical criticism: a lesson in learning how the Bible in our hands became compiled across time and councils and editing and decisions. This small story is not found in the critical editions of this Gospel, but as one of my New Testament professors said, “This one was too good to leave out.”
Baber ident 300
History calls this the pericope adulterae, and your average church-goer knows it as that story of “the woman caught in adultery.” Speculative sermons often wonder: why were the pharisees watching this lady so closely? where was the man who was with her? This is not just a story of a sinner at the feet of Jesus, but more importantly, it’s the story of a group of men scapegoating and slut-shaming and happy to ruin a woman to prove a theological point. It’s a lesson in changing the narrative – with Jesus refusing to play the game of the accusers. They want a scriptural judgment that proves this teacher reads the Bible the same way they do. Jesus ignores them and gets down on the ground with the woman they’ve made into a spectacle. They press him, refusing his non-response, and Jesus gets back up to meet them eye-to-eye, choosing a wisdom literature response over a legal one. “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” And he got back down on the ground with the woman, presumably okay with being stoned alongside of her should the crowd choose that direction.
It’s a powerful statement that many of us raised in evangelical circles have clung to for ourselves. When I was wrecked with sin, Jesus placed himself in harm’s way until all my accusers dropped their stones and went away. In Christ, there is no condemnation. The wounds of the enemy won’t stick to the soul who clings to Jesus. There’s a reason this story was too good to leave out. Then it ends with a curious phrase, typically remembered as “Go, and sin no more,” beautiful in the larger context of the Gospel of John, where “sin” is a category of disbelief rather than a handful of bad behaviors. It is the catchy way of saying, “As you live the rest of your life, remember who I am, how I see you, how I’m with you, and in so doing you will remember who you really are.”
That’s an incredibly different message than what the religious authorities were telling that woman, though they were, in effect, saying the same words. For the religious authorities, justified by scripture, also wanted this woman to “Go and sin no more.” For them, it meant her death. She had forfeit her right to be a child of God, and it was their job to end her life. The rest of the body (the people of Israel), must then show their fidelity to God and bring justice to this woman’s husband by punishing her with public humiliation and brutality at the hands of the entire community. It’s right there in the Bible. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. Right, Jesus? Isn’t that what it means to “sin no more”?
This scripture continues to be used as an authority against lesbian, gay and trans persons. It is fairly common to quote “Go and sin no more” to us as a mic drop moment: you can’t say you’ve been saved if you’re going to live a queer “lifestyle”.
So when I’m driving through the beautiful Southern countryside, be speckled with flags (both American and Confederate), giant political signs for a certain president (including “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president”), and no dearth of church signs mentioning sin, hell and/or the devil, I can’t help but feel a certain way crossing a disaffiliated Methodist Church sign that says only “GO AND SIN NO MORE.” I mean, I know they don’t make lower case letters for church signs, but the all caps seems even more imperative. I cannot fully assume the intention behind the message, but I am curious if the intention is more like the religious authorities than that of the messiah who got down in the dirt with the accused.
So in this week of transition from Pride Month to Independence Day, I suppose my invitation to you is to find the scapegoats, the pariahs, the vulnerable and the shamed…and sit with them in their helplessness. When you can, stand and look the accusers in the eye and ask them to cast the first stone, but only once you’ve spent some time down in the dirt first, getting your own hands dirty.