“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.”

(Matthew 7:1-2)

This story of the woman taken in adultery whom the Pharisees brought to Jesus for judgment is a disputed passage of scripture. The record of the whole incident is completely left out of the oldest Bibles. The most reliable ancient manuscripts of the New Testament do not include it. When this passage does appear in holy writ in some of the less ancient manuscripts sometimes it is found at the beginning of the 8^th chapter of John’s gospel and sometimes at the conclusion of the 21^st chapter of Luke’s gospel. The textual critics haven’t known what to do with this disputed passage.

Most competent New Testament scholars agree, however, that this story is a genuine fragment of the abundant gospel material which was not included originally by either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, but its authenticity and priceless value was known to a later scribe who inserted it on the margin of his copy of the gospel by way of illustration, and that is the manner by which it got into the Bible. For it has come down to us part and parcel of all the best versions of scripture. All students of the life of Christ agree that there is no passage of scripture about Jesus, about what He said and did, which has come down to us more indelibly imprinted with the genuine hallmark of His spirit.

Now by a strange trick of circumstance this passage of the woman taken in adultery has been disputed, not only by the textual critics, but also by practicing Christians. Numbers of professing Christians have not known what to do with the story. It is a scriptural passage whose teaching is left out of the living of many. Some church members have found no place for the principles of conduct it recommends in the Bibles of their behavior. Christians have not known what to do with it. It is a disputed passage.

For one thing we have disputed the relevancy and authority of this passage in the realm of our practical morality. The obvious elementary lesson of the little story is that one should beware of indulging in harsh judgment of one’s fellows, if for no better reason than that soon or late such a practice will embarrass or entrap one. Certainly this much was clear even to the Pharisees who came up with bitter condemnations of the sinner and retreated with red faces.

The record states that a group of Pharisees, men who were the highly respected religious leaders of the city, dragged before Jesus a woman who hid her face under the upraised arm to shield it from a gaze of the curious crowd. “Here is a woman,” one of them said to Jesus, “caught in the very act of adultery. The law of Moses commands that she be stoned to death. Now, Teacher, what do you say should be done with her?” And Jesus, looking upon the angry men, replied: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

How many of us have disputed or denied this teaching of Jesus to beware of harsh judgment in our daily conversation? Why, harsh judgment is our stock and trade. We are hard as nails on the other fellow. We judge his acts, his words, even his motives at the judgment bar of our personal tastes or convictions or prejudices or ignorance — it makes little difference which.

In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us straight out that in our harsh judgments on others we unwittingly pass judgment on ourselves: “Judge not,” He says, “that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

For one thing, harsh censure of others proves us ignorant of ourselves. No one of us is faultless and we may rest assured that if we launch forth on a lengthy recitation of the shortcomings of another, whoever’s listening to our denouncing will be busy mentally cataloguing the same or similar faults we are censuring — all to our credit — and wondering all the while why we don’t get wise to ourselves. The Pharisees were bold enough with their condemnations of the poor woman’s sins till Jesus turned the spotlight of conscience on their own transgressions and that made cowards of them all. When we judge others we are judging ourselves and the first and most obvious judgment is one of the most humiliating of all — the abundant proof of our ignorance of our own sinful selves. There is no fool like a self-righteous fool. For, without one single exception, the world’s most saintly and beautiful characters who have lived most nearly sinless lives, have invariably been the very ones who were most charitable in their judgments of others.

Harsh judgment is also generally unjust. Most of us labor under the misconception that readiness to accuse another is really a guarantee of personal rectitude. But readiness to hurry others off to perdition is a poor proof of piety. The good Bishop in “Les Miserables” said that he “always examined the ground over which a fault had passed; for truly to comprehend is to pardon. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we visit with harsh blame may be but the unsteady motion of a man whose best limb is withered. Alas, that we should forget this! It is pitiful to strike in the dark and learn afterwards that we were striking a wounded creature.”

Then again, for most of us this story of the woman taken in adultery is a disputed passage of scripture in that we dispute the clear teaching of the passage on what the real business of religion is. It was as religious leaders, zealous for the sacred law, that the Pharisees brought the erring woman before the Master. They appealed to Jesus as a religious teacher to settle a religious question: “The law of Moses bids us stone an adulteress. What is your judgment in this matter?” The great business of religion, as the Pharisees saw it, was to rebuke and pass judgment on the sinner.

How many of us there are who claim to follow Jesus, and yet in spirit are of the Pharisee’s sect. Our real business as church people, as we see it, is to “view with alarm” present day social conditions and condemn the glaring sins of our contemporaries, as though the church could reform the world by rebuking.

I must confess that in earlier years I thought the great calling of the minister of God was to condemn evil and by preaching righteousness make people perfect. Experience has tempered this view until I’ve come to see the vocation as one in which a person offers up his life to be used by God in helping people take the broken pieces of their lives — broken by sin and suffering and circumstance and sorrow — and, in penitently offering that sorry mess up to the glory of God, feel and know that they are whole again. I’ve come to understand what St. Paul meant when he said “we have this treasure in earthen vessels,” that is, base, low, breakable things. I understand more and more my need for the mercy of God to redeem and transform this life of mine.

We’ve all heard of the minister who failed and failed in one church after another, until in despair he went to his best friend, and bearing his soul to his friend asked, “Why am I such a failure as a minister?” And right off his friend answered: “It’s because your gestures are all wrong. Whenever you gesture you always do it with your fist clenched. That’s all wrong. Can you imagine Jesus saying with clenched fists: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest?’ Can you imagine His saying with clenched fists: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not.’ No, Jesus always gestured with His hands outstretched in loving sympathy. And when at last they killed Him and nailed Him to a cross His hands were stretched out in merciful welcome to the thieves on either side of Him.”

What Jesus was trying to show those zealous Pharisees, who in the name of their religion were dooming the poor adulteress, was that the real business of religion is not so much to pass judgment and condemnation on erring sinners but to offer them such love and understanding that their hearts may be melted and changed. In Jesus’ compassionate words, “Go and sin no more,” we see the true mission of the church.

Leslie Weatherhead, the British Methodist minister, said: “I think Jesus’ secret of helping people lay partly here, that He always saw the good in them and acted positively in such a way as to call it forth into such glorious life that the unclean and unholy things withered away, having no room to live. What we so often forget ourselves is that hypocrisy, cruelty, and pride apart, no one has ever helped another in this world by giving him mere disapproval. Even to this woman taken in adultery whom others were ready to stone, Jesus said: ‘Neither do I condemn you.’ That does not mean there was nothing to be condemned.”

Jesus in all His gentleness and mercy did not tell the woman she was innocent. “Go, and sin no more,” is His word for her. Jesus was ever forward to maintain the broad distinction between right and wrong. We must never treat the thief as though he were honest, nor the liar as though he were truthful, nor the proud as though he were humble, nor the miser as though he were generous. We owe such distinctions to the dignity of virtue and they must be maintained forever.

When Jesus said to the woman, “Neither do I condemn you,” He did not mean there was nothing to be condemned. “He meant that there was no need to do further condemning. The woman was condemning herself, and the highest court of authority which ever judges people is the judgment they pass upon themselves in the light of the purity of God.” (Weatherhead)

The voice of Jesus to every one of us is this: “Go and sin no more. There is hope for you. I have room in my Kingdom for you.” This is the good news of the gospel, the preaching of which is the great business of the church. Christ came into the world that He might make an everlasting end of sin. He is the sinners’ only savior. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” He not only bids us sin no more, but He helps us conquer every temptation. Not only does He urge us to rise to heaven, but He puts forth His hand, and gives us the very power He bids us employ.

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

O God, who art a shield and a strong tower of defense to all that put their trust in Thee, draw our hearts to Thee with the power of Thy love. Teach us to be anxious for nothing, and when we have done what Thou hast given us to do, help us to leave the issue to Thy wisdom.

Speak to our hearts when people faint for fear and the love of many grows cold and there is distress of the nations upon earth. Keep us resolute and steadfast in the things that cannot be shaken, abounding in hope and knowing that our labor is not in vain in Thee.

O Thou who understandest the frailty of the human heart, hear our prayers for those who have been unfortunate in life, those who are bruised in body and in spirit, those who suffer and look in vain for relief, those whose hearts are pierced through with great sorrow, those who wait long hours in vexing uncertainty, knowing not what to hope or pray for dear ones who are in physical or spiritual peril. These all we commend to Thy loving care, trusting in Thy sure promises never to leave nor forsake thine own.

Teach us, O Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest: to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.