Jesus and Women | The God of Missional Justice

Few stories have flowed over the pulpits of churches all across the world than the one given in John 7:53-8:11. Jesus is spending time teaching in the temple when a woman that has been caught in adultery is brought to him to receive his judgment. The scene is tense and seemingly simple. Here is a woman that has broken the law and she deserves, according to the law, punishment. That punishment should be death by way of stoning.

But this passage reveals much about Jesus Christ. I am afraid that for all of those sermons on this passage far too many of them miss the point of the text: Jesus is the just judge. Period. He is the beginning and end of the law. He wrote it. He will defend his people from those who attempt to usurp his authority. Jesus moves in to display what is true and right in places where deep wrongs are occurring.  In short, Jesus is the face of God's justice.

Let's see a few reasons why this is true.

JESUS KNOWS THE HEARTS OF MEN

There a few key verses in the Gospel of John. One of them is 2:23-25. Here Jesus is declared to keep from trusting himself to the Jewish leaders because he is fully aware of what is in the hearts of men. For an answer to what is in the hearts of men read chapters 3 & 5-12!

This is also a wonderful example of the hearts of these Jewish leaders (called scribes and pharisees). Jesus clearly perceives their intentions. They want to place Jesus in a lose-lose situation. They do this by pitting the Roman law (it was unlawful to put other to death) against the Mosaic law (it was commanded to put one guilty of adultery to death). This is not the first or last time that these leaders try to pull this trick. Their point is to gather a "charge" by which Jesus may be arrested. It seems on the face that this woman is on trial but it is actually Jesus.

A HALF TRIAL IS NO TRIAL

But even though Jesus perceives that he is the one that is on the hook. He addresses the sin of this woman. He cuts to the heart of the issue. He cuts to the heart of the men. He reveals what is in their hearts. 

First, there was a crime of adultery. But adultery takes two. There is only one standing here, the woman.

Second, it was against the law to bring someone to punishment without a trial. They are not searching for justice but rather they are conducting a lynching.

Third, Jesus cut to the issue by calling the bluff. To kill this woman without proper proceedings and having the man present is to break the law. This would make everyone taking place in the lynching guilty. So, Jesus says in essence, "anyone who wants to be guilty of this sin throw the first stone."

Game, set, match.

USING THE LAW TO BREAK THE LAW

This interaction with Jesus and the Jewish leaders is paramount for how we see Jesus. How he reveals the Father's justice. How he deals justly with all of his children, even the lawbreakers! Jesus reveals this amazing truth of the gospel as he comes face to face with a woman, a nameless, faceless woman.

The bigger sin in this passage was not adultery. It was using the law to break the law. Using the justice system to commit injustice. This is still common among us and as the people of Jesus Christ we must still stand with the afflicted. 

Jesus never forgave this woman (at least as far as we know). This passage is not about forgiveness (my apologies to 95% of the sermons preached on this) this passage is about justice. This passage is about the Father's heart and the Son's willingness to stand next to the guilty in the face of injustice.

There are many ways we could take this one simple truth.

Instead of trying to exhaust them I will simply say, the justice system is not our standard of justice.

Jesus alone is our measure of what is just.

Jesus and Women | The God of Missional Grace

The narrative of the Samaritan woman is a story of a broken heart and a broken soul. She represents a broken people living in a broken land. John 4 shares how Jesus makes his way into all of this brokenness and displays one of the millions of reasons why we can say that God is a missional God.
 
In perhaps one of the most well known portions of the Bible Jesus makes his way into a land that was expressly avoided by good Jewish people. He was not afraid to go into places of need, places that other people avoided. Why would he go there? Simply, because God loves Samaritans. Not because they deserve love but because God is a God of grace. How ironic that a people who celebrated God choosing them would try to withhold him from others. How much more ironic that many try to do the same today.

In Samaria, Jesus comes to an interaction with a woman that has come to the well at midday. She comes at a time of low social interaction around the well. She is about to be surprised. The interaction with Jesus displays at least two things: One, this woman is deeply affected by sin and shame. She had been married many times before and she was still not done (she lived with another man). These attempts at "fixing" her deepest needs with these poor substitutes had taken its toll on her life. The second display is the need for a better reality. She needed something more real that what she thought was real. Relationships are real. They cause hurt and pain and longing and despair. Relationship without foundation and purpose becomes a cheap alternative to the real thing. Reconciled relationship with the Father of all things is what makes real, become real. She interacted with Jesus over her sin and shame and water. She found grace that addressed all of these. She found a satisfaction for her real thirst.

The grace of Jesus Christ doesn't stop with this woman. Even the confused disciples needed the missional grace of God. Why? Well, because they did not understand mission...at all. So Jesus explains to them the mission that he is on. They got it. Well, maybe not right away but in the book of Acts we find Peter and John back in Samaria, back among these people, preaching, laying hands on them, and praying for them to know the love of Jesus by grace through faith. They were unaware at the time that they met this Samaritan woman how this missional grace would change their future. But eventually they got it...by God's grace we will too.

Finally, the missional grace of God becomes contagious. Grace is like that. This woman declares that she is known. She calls the people that she purposely avoided to come to know the one that knows her. What good news! You are known. Really known. Known by grace. Known for all of your faults...failures...shame...guilt...and yet...grace. Grace that moves toward you. Grace that steps into your mess. This grace is overwhelming to those that know the depths of their failure. This grace is life-giving to those that have failed at life.

Here, with this woman that is not known by name... not pictured or described... just a nameless, faceless woman, the savior of the world declares his mission of grace, openly, for the first time. The cosmic purposes of God, that have been millennia in the making, collide here...in Samaria...with this woman...such amazing grace.

When Jesus was moved to mission, even mission to people unlike himself, he did not pack up his stuff and move to a new country. He did not buy a house in Samaria. He did not stop doing all that he had been doing in his life before this time to make room for mission. Why do we?

Why do we feel that mission is moving? Or mission is special training? Or that mission is something foreign and forced? Mission is meeting. Meeting people that God is calling and sharing with them cosmic moments of God's amazing grace. They are your neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers...for now. God's grace transforms us all into his adopted children.

We have people all around us that are broken and seeking to quench an unquenchable thirst with water that will never suffice.

Pray that our hearts are ripped by grace.

Pray that we step out of our patterns and see the people that God is calling all around us.

Pray that we equip and encourage one another to offer living water.

Pray we follow Jesus, the face of the God of missional grace.

Wake Up!

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

-Romans 13:11-12

Paul will turn his discussion of proper response to the argument that he has laid out in chapters 1-8 and supported in chapters 9-11. For the Roman audience, their government did not have the same service or forgiveness (chapter 12) toward people, so they would be in certain conflict with specific issues (especially in dealing with social justice). Paul makes it very clear that the church is to operate within the borders of that existing government, effecting change from within instead of from outside.

In a letter from Pliny (a Roman governor) to Trajan (a Roman Emperor) from around the 2nd century there is a plea for help with the pesky Christians. They will not worship the Roman gods and thereby contribute to the economy by buying sacrifices and souvenirs associated with temple worship. He goes on to say that they meet in the morning before light and worship together by singing a hymn and committing to one another to remain innocent from sin (a list much like the one found in verse 13:13). The governor was perplexed and needed help in ridding the empire of this nuisance. From within this oppressive government, Christianity became the favored religion within two-hundred years.

Christ has called his people to be the change within the government. Not by so much passing laws, as by being the example of what the ethic of those laws are intended to accomplish. People and governments do not change because of the laws that are passed, they change because they see an example of what they want to become and they work to become that. This should bring new meaning of what a Christian government should look like. A group of people that are what they want their government to be. But even if they are not, even if it is as bad as it could possibly be, hold fast!

We are nearer now than we were.

We need to wake up and walk in the darkness with a light of social justice.

We are not called to politics but to action (We should know by now that those are not the same).