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John 8:1-11 - But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" ¹¹ "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

This passage is awesome. This account of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery shows us Jesus at his wisest, his humblest, his godliest. This is pure genius, sheer grace, compassion, and authority.

This summer we’re looking at different interactions in the gospel with Jesus, and this morning is the classic passage of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus is teaching in the temple courts, and the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, set a trap for Jesus because they want to be able to discredit him as a man of God. This is their plan – they bring to him a woman caught in the act of adultery. “Caught in the act of adultery” is exactly as it sounds - in order to convict someone of adultery, two witnesses would have to see the act happen and agree with each other on their interpretation of what happened. As you can imagine, this almost never happened. Almost surely, this is a setup. Furthermore, notice what the law says, in Leviticus 20:10 - 'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife-- with the wife of his neighbor-- both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. But of course, in this account, only the woman is brought before Jesus. Jesus is being set up by the religious leaders.

So, Jesus is being set up, with this woman as the unfortunate pawn. And here is the dilemma – will Jesus respect the law and have her stoned? Or will he pardon her, let her off the hook, and so dishonor and disobey the law of Moses? He seemingly can’t have it both ways. If he has the woman executed, all of his talk about compassion, about the weak and lowly coming to him, will go right out the window. “Come to me all you who are weary, and I will have you stoned?” But if he lets her go, then what kind of teacher is he, picking and choosing which laws to follow? After all, she did commit adultery, and according to the law, she does deserve to die.

This dilemma is a common dilemma for churches and for Christians, for the two options seem to be in contradiction. Either you can uphold morality, and trample on people as a result, or you can be compassionate, and trample on the law. How can you show both justice and mercy? How can you neither encourage sin nor condemn the sinner?

Every generation has its issues and examples; in our day and age, a good example charged with lots of emotion is homosexual behavior – if it is indeed contrary to God’s law, then what are your two options as a church or a Christian? Disregard the law and welcome people as they are, or uphold the law and trample on people. Are those your two options? “Welcoming and affirming” or “closed and condemning”?