John 8:2-11
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.”
This is a story about stones. About who throws them… Who carries them… And who
refuses to live by them.
Today’s story starts with bad news. We can imagine Jesus in the middle of teaching, about justice and mercy and healing and courageous love, because that’s what Jesus teaches… when he is interrupted by a spectacle.
A woman is hauled in. Maybe she is crying. Maybe she’s defiant. I suspect she is mostly terrified. And the religious leaders set up the moment. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. The law of Moses commands us to stone such women. What do you say?” Podcasters are there to capture the gotcha moment.
And right away, you can feel it, stones in their hands. There is more bad news. The woman has no defense. No explanation. If she was abused or coerced or desperate, no one says it. No one speaks for her. And then there is the glaring absence. Where is the man? If she was
caught in flagrante dilecto, there must have been a man. But his name is missing, along with the humiliated husband. Redacted. This entire story was nearly redacted from the New Testament. This story was well known but did not appear in early manuscripts because, according to St. Augustine, there was fear it would appear to condone women’s adultery.
So it is important to realize that the question posed by the Scribes and the Pharisees is not really about justice. It is about power. And it becomes clear, the only man they are truly after is Jesus. This is a trap.
If he shows mercy, he is soft on sin. If he enforces the law, he is dangerous to Rome. So choose, Jesus. Justice or mercy? Compassion or faithfulness? Pick a side.
But Jesus does an amazing thing: he refuses the question. And instead, he does something
remarkable. He bends down… and starts writing in the dust. It is the only thing we are ever told that Jesus wrote. We don’t know what he wrote. But we know what he does. He goes down. Down into the dust. Down into the humus, the place where life begins and returns.
They are holding stones – hard, fixed, ready to condemn. And Jesus writes in dust – soft, shifting, alive. He does not inscribe their accusation in stone. He does not make their judgment permanent. He simply refuses the lines they are drawing in the sand. He straightens up and says, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then he bends down again. Finger back in the soil.
And slowly, I imagine you could hear it, Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Stones hitting the ground. One by one, beginning with the elders, they walk away. Until there is no one left. Just Jesus… and the woman.
“Where are they?” he asks. “Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
As I sat with this story this week, it felt tender. Because we know this world. We live in a time where stones are everywhere. We have perfected stoning – we just don’t call it that anymore. The internet throws stones. Headlines throw stones. Comment sections erupt into battles of trolls and people become targets. And sometimes it’s not public at all. It’s the email that lands like a blow. The text that pelts you. The meeting where you are on the business end of a zinger. We know what it is to feel the sting of a stone.
And we also know what it is… to hold one. Because there are voices in our world that profit from this. The author Amanda Ripley calls them “conflict entrepreneurs”— people who inflame division because outrage gets attention, and attention gets power.
And they frame the question the same way the scribes and Pharisees did: You can either throw stones… or stay silent. That’s it. Choose your stone. But Jesus shows us another way.
Not throwing. Not avoiding. But interrupting. Stepping into that space between accusation and dignity and refusing to let stones define the moment.
Bryan Stevenson, the lawyer who represents people on death row, is a hero of mine. I quoted him just a few weeks ago. He tells a story about a woman who used to sit quietly in the courtroom. Week after week, she was there.
Finally, he asked if she was related to the defendant. She said no. She said that years earlier, she had sat in that same courtroom during the trial of the boys who killed her grandson. In the middle of her grief, another woman sat next to her… and simply held her. Let her lean on her. And then about a year later, she came back. And whenever someone was overwhelmed, she would sit next to them… and let them lean. She said, “With all this grief and violence… I decided I was supposed to be here to catch some of the stones people cast at each other.”
To catch the stones. Stevenson says, “Maybe that is our calling.” In a world full of stones
- we don’t have to throw them. We can catch them.”
I saw something like that this week. Several of us were there when a new adolescent behavioral health center opened in Chantilly. There was a ribbon cutting out front on the grass.
My new puppy was there, ready to cut the ribbon or break any sticks or chew people’s shoes if that would be needed. One of the leaders spoke about growing up with mental health struggles – not knowing where to turn, and turning against herself instead. Until a group of people took their collective heartbreak… and built a place where the stoning could stop. Where healing could begin. Where bad news… turned into good news.
And I suppose I have had stones on the brain this week. Friday marked six years since we said goodbye to my mother. The smell of fresh mulch and daffodils takes me right back – to those hospice days that were so long and all too short. To the cemetery with no real gardens – just rows of stones and plastic flowers. During COVID, when people couldn’t come to the
funeral, so friends dropped off painted stones on my porch with my mom’s name on them. I still see them every time I leave the house. They were given in love.
But this week, something shifted. Because I realized I was carrying other stones too. Stones not just of grief… but of grievance. Stones for the oncologist who didn’t call back fast enough. Stones for the doctor who prescribed surgery like a Hail Mary pass. Stones for the system that made everything so hard. Stones for people I didn’t want to forgive.
And if I’m honest – I didn’t want to let them go. Because it didn’t feel like anger. It felt like love. Like I was protecting something sacred. And it turns out – you can carry stones like that for a very long time. You can fill your pockets with them. Ballast in your hands. Your heart. The word grief comes from the Latin gravis – it means heavy.
And even if you never throw a stone… you can still live your whole life weighed down by them. Hands so full… you cannot receive anything new. Not grace. Not healing. Not even God.
But this year, something began to change. Not all at once. Not because everything was resolved. But slowly, I started to practice letting them go. One at a time.
A moment when I chose not to rehearse the old anger again. A prayer where I named the hurt… and released it. A quiet decision to unclench my grip. Not because those stones weren’t justified. But because I wanted to be lighter. I wonder how many people in this world are weighed down by stones like these.
I started to see that in God’s story – stones are never weapons. Jesus said even the stones cry out in praise. In the Old Testament, they are altars of remembrance. Jesus calls himself the rejected stone who becomes the cornerstone of a new way of life. And ultimately the biggest stone, the one used by the state to keep down trouble makers like Jesus, it rolls away in the night… to make space for resurrection. And somehow, in all of it, Jesus kept kneeling down near me, near every weighed down person in this world, writing in the dust, where we have drawn lines in the sand, Jesus writes a better ending.
So let me tell you something good. The good news is that God does not make us choose between justice, mercy, and faithfulness. The good news is that in Jesus, they come together. Mercy that refuses to condemn. Justice that interrupts violence. Faithfulness that allows us todrop all the stones of anger and guilt that weigh us down and gives us people to lean on.
So friends, today I want you to hear this. In a world full of stones, drop them. Refuse them. Catch them. Drop them in your own heart. Refuse them in your conversations. Catch them when they are aimed at someone who should not stand alone.
Because when you do, you are standing exactly where Jesus stands. You are kneeling on ground touched by the finger of grace. The stones are still here … maybe a labyrinth for prayer… maybe a new building for healing… maybe the bearer of a beloved name … but either way, you are not carrying them around.