Ash Wednesday Sermon 6th Febuary 2008
At this special service, our NSM trainee, Michael Brooks, preaches, based on the readings from John 8:1-11 and Psalm 51:1-18.
May I speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The passage that was read from the Gospel of John, about the woman caught in adultery, is fascinating. There are some who take the view that John’s Gospel is so dissimilar from the other three Gospels, to the extent that John’s Gospel becomes a little suspect, will be interested to know the Gospel text that I have just read is missing from the earliest texts of John’s Gospel. In some versions this passage is placed right at the very end of John’s Gospel. In some early versions of the Bible this text is placed in the Gospel of Luke where it occupies a place at the end of the teaching narrative and before the passion narrative. That it should come at the start of the passion narrative is significant as we commence Lent.
But there is perhaps a problem of the authority of this passage. Let us remember that after the death and resurrection of Jesus there simply was no time for the Gospel’s to be written first to provide a guide for the early church. Imagine an early community of faith, eagerly anticipating the Lord’s return, of whom most were illiterate; writing it all down would have been a low priority! Therefore, the Gospels must have been written as the early church developed in its life of faith, worship and witness. None of the Gospel writers, as far as is known, accompanied Jesus and bore eye witness to all that they wrote. The Gospel writers almost certainly compiled their accounts from the written and oral sources of others. I would like to propose that this episode was so important to the early followers of Jesus that they felt it simply had to be included in the Gospels and so it was included.
The narrative is set in the Temple and there are three parties involved namely Jesus, the woman herself and the scribes and the Pharisees who represent Jewish authority. As for the woman herself, we are told very little. We do not know if she was an habitual adulteress or prostitute. She could have been a woman deserved a lot of sympathy. Could it be that she was married against her will at an early age, perhaps at the age of 13 and had been nothing more to her husband than a bearer of children who did domestic chores. And then maybe she had found someone who loved her for who she was? We do not know, and her few words in this passage give us no clues.
It is unusual that John includes the words ‘scribes and Pharisees’; in no other place in John is the word scribe used. Perhaps the word scribe is used to emphasise the formal record of the proceedings. Perhaps the writer is telling us that the woman’s crimes and sentence would be recorded for all time, as an indelible mark.
The Pharisees seem to have a bad press, and most of us are programmed to think ‘enemy’ when the word ‘Pharisee’ appears in the Bible. There are episodes in the Gospels in which some Pharisees actively help Jesus to escape arrest. It is also likely that the Pharisees enjoyed healthy debate and variation of opinion.
Perhaps we now get a better sense of this narrative. Jesus was teaching in the temple and, as it happened, a woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus. The temple, which had several courtyards, occupied a huge area. It is possible that the Pharisees could have sentenced the woman according to their law without Jesus knowing what had happened. It seems that the Pharisees were either curious about Jesus or perhaps they felt it wrong to have this particular woman stoned to death and wanted some way out of their dilemma. Perhaps they had sensed a forgiving nature about Jesus and that he might be able to help them. Seemingly they could not obey their laws and satisfy their consciences.
So the Pharisees brought the woman to Jesus for his opinion. She was made to stand before all of them. What are we to make of this imagery? It resonates with how Jesus was brought to stand before Pilate and the Sanhedrin, and perhaps to remind us that one day we will stand, alone, before God.
The Pharisees state that this woman was ‘caught in the very act of committing adultery’. There was thus no doubt that she had committed adultery, and the only question was how to respond. The Pharisees quote the sentence required by the law; that she should be stoned to death. In both Deuteronomy and Leviticus it states that both parties who are caught in adultery should be stoned. If the woman was caught, then so presumably was the man! But the practice of Judaism is not and never was not simply based upon what has become known as the Old Testament. It was also based on a body of literature concerned with contemporary and other interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures. The Bible was not acted upon literally, and somehow the Jewish teachers and writers of the law had seen a way to allow the man not to be stoned but yet the woman’s fate remained the same. These double standards are still with us today. A loose woman is called a slag; a man with similar behaviour is ‘just’ a lad having the fun that he is entitled to… By the way, being stoned to death is a very cruel way of killing someone. I do not recommend that you search for this on the internet but if you do you will find that where the sentence is carried out today the victim is placed in a body bag first, presumably to reduce the trauma to those persons who are doing the stoning.
In verse 6 it states that the Pharisees were trying to test Jesus. This might contradict what I have said earlier about the ‘friendly’ Pharisees, but we do not know if this testing was really the case or something the writer had conjectured. We do not know in what sense the word ‘test’ is used. Certainly Jesus does not accuse the Pharisees of trying to trick him, and the Pharisees could have asked an abstract or hypothetical question. Jesus’ resolution of this dilemma is practical, he asks whoever is without sin to cast the first stone; and it was customary for the witnesses of a crime to start the stoning. When all had gone Jesus then talks to the woman. He asks where her accusers are, which is not a question the woman could have answered unless the accusers had told her. If this had been so then Jesus would have heard the exchange. Jesus also asks ‘Has no-one condemned you?’ which would also have been visibly apparent. Jesus then tells the woman that he does not condemn her but he does condemn the adultery of which she has been accused by telling her not to sin again.
Before discussing the topic of sin and forgiveness in general, I should briefly like to make a comment about adultery. I recall a clinic that I drive past on my way home from work. What would have once been called a Venereal Disease Clinic now has the more upbeat title of a Sexual Health Clinic. If the teaching of Jesus on sexual ethics were practised, and by that I mean chastity before marriage and fidelity within it, such ‘Health’ clinics would not be needed. It would appear that even the NHS is colluding with the media to create a safe and healthy image for adultery.
The ‘Woman caught in adultery’ is such an important text that had to be included in the Bible because of the contrast and the marking of how the old has been superseded by the new. Judaism had placed its hope upon a well-defined set of rules, or law, the keeping of which led to salvation. To deter misconduct, and to prevent the pollution of society by wrong doers, severe punishment was there for those who did not live by these laws. Jesus had understood the hopelessness of this approach. Jesus did not condemn the woman, and we do not even know if she was repentant about what she had done. Jesus did not, however, dismiss the law when he told her not to sin again. So there is forgiveness but no licence to behave just as we wish.
As we now come to this season of Lent, which commences today on this Ash Wednesday, we recall that it is a time of preparation for Easter. Some of you may recall that I preached here last Ash Wednesday, and if I push my luck you may even recall that I spoke about repentance! Later in this service many of us will receive the mark of the Cross on our forehead to symbolise the start of this season of repentance. Jesus calls us to repent. He started his teaching with the phrase ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’. The Greek word for repent is metanoia and this word means a complete change of heart and mind. At this time of Lent we could perhaps think of where we are now, where we once wanted to be, and where we think God is calling us to be. I would like to think that the woman caught in adultery had become a follower of Jesus and perhaps had been a member of that early group of believers who gathered to form a community that believed in the risen Lord. Jesus had, after all, intervened and prevented her from being stoned. She would have been aware that Jesus had not condemned her, in other words she knew that nothing that she had done would exclude her for all time from a relationship with God. She would have been mindful that she had been told to change her ways. And so it is with us, that we can count ourselves as members of the community that Jesus founded. We are reminded in this story that we are told to consider how this must impact on how we conduct ourselves, and make changes accordingly.
This desire for renewal was apparent in the writer of the Psalm that we read tonight, that was written after David had recognised his adultery with Bathsheba.
He writes:
‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.’
David asks that God will re-create a clean heart within him, and then restore the joy of salvation and the sustenance of a willing spirit. We who are believers in Jesus Christ know that we can be in the presence of God, and experience the joy of salvation, whilst the re-creation of a clean heart is work in progress. Let us praise God for this act of forgiveness through Jesus.
Let us pray that the will of God, and our correct responses to God’s forgiveness, will always and forever prevail in our lives.
Amen
May I speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The passage that was read from the Gospel of John, about the woman caught in adultery, is fascinating. There are some who take the view that John’s Gospel is so dissimilar from the other three Gospels, to the extent that John’s Gospel becomes a little suspect, will be interested to know the Gospel text that I have just read is missing from the earliest texts of John’s Gospel. In some versions this passage is placed right at the very end of John’s Gospel. In some early versions of the Bible this text is placed in the Gospel of Luke where it occupies a place at the end of the teaching narrative and before the passion narrative. That it should come at the start of the passion narrative is significant as we commence Lent.
But there is perhaps a problem of the authority of this passage. Let us remember that after the death and resurrection of Jesus there simply was no time for the Gospel’s to be written first to provide a guide for the early church. Imagine an early community of faith, eagerly anticipating the Lord’s return, of whom most were illiterate; writing it all down would have been a low priority! Therefore, the Gospels must have been written as the early church developed in its life of faith, worship and witness. None of the Gospel writers, as far as is known, accompanied Jesus and bore eye witness to all that they wrote. The Gospel writers almost certainly compiled their accounts from the written and oral sources of others. I would like to propose that this episode was so important to the early followers of Jesus that they felt it simply had to be included in the Gospels and so it was included.
The narrative is set in the Temple and there are three parties involved namely Jesus, the woman herself and the scribes and the Pharisees who represent Jewish authority. As for the woman herself, we are told very little. We do not know if she was an habitual adulteress or prostitute. She could have been a woman deserved a lot of sympathy. Could it be that she was married against her will at an early age, perhaps at the age of 13 and had been nothing more to her husband than a bearer of children who did domestic chores. And then maybe she had found someone who loved her for who she was? We do not know, and her few words in this passage give us no clues.
It is unusual that John includes the words ‘scribes and Pharisees’; in no other place in John is the word scribe used. Perhaps the word scribe is used to emphasise the formal record of the proceedings. Perhaps the writer is telling us that the woman’s crimes and sentence would be recorded for all time, as an indelible mark.
The Pharisees seem to have a bad press, and most of us are programmed to think ‘enemy’ when the word ‘Pharisee’ appears in the Bible. There are episodes in the Gospels in which some Pharisees actively help Jesus to escape arrest. It is also likely that the Pharisees enjoyed healthy debate and variation of opinion.
Perhaps we now get a better sense of this narrative. Jesus was teaching in the temple and, as it happened, a woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus. The temple, which had several courtyards, occupied a huge area. It is possible that the Pharisees could have sentenced the woman according to their law without Jesus knowing what had happened. It seems that the Pharisees were either curious about Jesus or perhaps they felt it wrong to have this particular woman stoned to death and wanted some way out of their dilemma. Perhaps they had sensed a forgiving nature about Jesus and that he might be able to help them. Seemingly they could not obey their laws and satisfy their consciences.
So the Pharisees brought the woman to Jesus for his opinion. She was made to stand before all of them. What are we to make of this imagery? It resonates with how Jesus was brought to stand before Pilate and the Sanhedrin, and perhaps to remind us that one day we will stand, alone, before God.
The Pharisees state that this woman was ‘caught in the very act of committing adultery’. There was thus no doubt that she had committed adultery, and the only question was how to respond. The Pharisees quote the sentence required by the law; that she should be stoned to death. In both Deuteronomy and Leviticus it states that both parties who are caught in adultery should be stoned. If the woman was caught, then so presumably was the man! But the practice of Judaism is not and never was not simply based upon what has become known as the Old Testament. It was also based on a body of literature concerned with contemporary and other interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures. The Bible was not acted upon literally, and somehow the Jewish teachers and writers of the law had seen a way to allow the man not to be stoned but yet the woman’s fate remained the same. These double standards are still with us today. A loose woman is called a slag; a man with similar behaviour is ‘just’ a lad having the fun that he is entitled to… By the way, being stoned to death is a very cruel way of killing someone. I do not recommend that you search for this on the internet but if you do you will find that where the sentence is carried out today the victim is placed in a body bag first, presumably to reduce the trauma to those persons who are doing the stoning.
In verse 6 it states that the Pharisees were trying to test Jesus. This might contradict what I have said earlier about the ‘friendly’ Pharisees, but we do not know if this testing was really the case or something the writer had conjectured. We do not know in what sense the word ‘test’ is used. Certainly Jesus does not accuse the Pharisees of trying to trick him, and the Pharisees could have asked an abstract or hypothetical question. Jesus’ resolution of this dilemma is practical, he asks whoever is without sin to cast the first stone; and it was customary for the witnesses of a crime to start the stoning. When all had gone Jesus then talks to the woman. He asks where her accusers are, which is not a question the woman could have answered unless the accusers had told her. If this had been so then Jesus would have heard the exchange. Jesus also asks ‘Has no-one condemned you?’ which would also have been visibly apparent. Jesus then tells the woman that he does not condemn her but he does condemn the adultery of which she has been accused by telling her not to sin again.
Before discussing the topic of sin and forgiveness in general, I should briefly like to make a comment about adultery. I recall a clinic that I drive past on my way home from work. What would have once been called a Venereal Disease Clinic now has the more upbeat title of a Sexual Health Clinic. If the teaching of Jesus on sexual ethics were practised, and by that I mean chastity before marriage and fidelity within it, such ‘Health’ clinics would not be needed. It would appear that even the NHS is colluding with the media to create a safe and healthy image for adultery.
The ‘Woman caught in adultery’ is such an important text that had to be included in the Bible because of the contrast and the marking of how the old has been superseded by the new. Judaism had placed its hope upon a well-defined set of rules, or law, the keeping of which led to salvation. To deter misconduct, and to prevent the pollution of society by wrong doers, severe punishment was there for those who did not live by these laws. Jesus had understood the hopelessness of this approach. Jesus did not condemn the woman, and we do not even know if she was repentant about what she had done. Jesus did not, however, dismiss the law when he told her not to sin again. So there is forgiveness but no licence to behave just as we wish.
As we now come to this season of Lent, which commences today on this Ash Wednesday, we recall that it is a time of preparation for Easter. Some of you may recall that I preached here last Ash Wednesday, and if I push my luck you may even recall that I spoke about repentance! Later in this service many of us will receive the mark of the Cross on our forehead to symbolise the start of this season of repentance. Jesus calls us to repent. He started his teaching with the phrase ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’. The Greek word for repent is metanoia and this word means a complete change of heart and mind. At this time of Lent we could perhaps think of where we are now, where we once wanted to be, and where we think God is calling us to be. I would like to think that the woman caught in adultery had become a follower of Jesus and perhaps had been a member of that early group of believers who gathered to form a community that believed in the risen Lord. Jesus had, after all, intervened and prevented her from being stoned. She would have been aware that Jesus had not condemned her, in other words she knew that nothing that she had done would exclude her for all time from a relationship with God. She would have been mindful that she had been told to change her ways. And so it is with us, that we can count ourselves as members of the community that Jesus founded. We are reminded in this story that we are told to consider how this must impact on how we conduct ourselves, and make changes accordingly.
This desire for renewal was apparent in the writer of the Psalm that we read tonight, that was written after David had recognised his adultery with Bathsheba.
He writes:
‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.’
David asks that God will re-create a clean heart within him, and then restore the joy of salvation and the sustenance of a willing spirit. We who are believers in Jesus Christ know that we can be in the presence of God, and experience the joy of salvation, whilst the re-creation of a clean heart is work in progress. Let us praise God for this act of forgiveness through Jesus.
Let us pray that the will of God, and our correct responses to God’s forgiveness, will always and forever prevail in our lives.
Amen
posted by Parish Administrator at 5:25 am
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