Then each of them went home, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
-John 7:53-8:11 NRSV
Unsuitable Places
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery,” announce the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus remains in the temple. We are told in two separate exchanges with the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus carries on with the task at hand undeterred by their “testing”; serenely writing in the sand, sending them on their way, stones to throw in their hands. And for a third time, Jesus straightens up and says to the woman, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? … Neither do I condemn you. Go your way.” It’s as if there was no place for the scribes and Pharisees concern to land; nothing for it to stick to.
Somehow in my mind’s eye, I can see a similar exchange with Mary, Jesus’ mother, had she not been his mother and had they found themselves in another time and place for similar rumors and accusations surely were thrown at Mother Mary.
However, this is not a recorded story we hold; what we did receive is this story. One more account of the scribes and the Pharisees, in which Jesus not so subtly proclaims, “You’re missing the point … this could have been my mother and out of a similar story I entered the world, full of shock and scandel … and yet that night the stars shone their brightest.”
As the glowing candles around the advent wreath grow in number, and the days continue to shorten this Season of Advent, may we find new ways to make room in our hearts for this wee babe to arrive again and remind us that God’s Love is the sort of love that seems to arrive in the most unlikely, unexpected, and perhaps “unsuitable” places.
The Rev. Stephanie Jenkins
Rector
St. Andrew’s, Lawton