Stone Throwing and Sexual Exploitation - A Reflection on John 8

Almost twenty years ago, a brothel moved into the building where we had our ministry office.  Our ministry was located on the fifth floor of the five-story walk-up.  The brothel was located on the second floor.  This created an urgent question, how could we be, ‘good neighbors’ in the midst of a morally compromising, awkward, and potentially dangerous set of circumstances? 

How, for example, should a woman, working alone in the evening, respond to the knock on the door and the male voice on the other side saying, “I’m here for my massage…”?  What do you do, when it’s clear that local police are turning a blind eye?  How do you offer help to women who may be being commercially exploited, threatened with jail, deportation, or worse?  

It took ten years before we had any kind of shared ministry understanding of how to help commercially exploited sex workers.  These days, I would know how to be a good neighbor, how to pray, and how to resource the women I met in the stairwell.  Back then, we were stuck.  

The fact that it took years to answer the question of how to love our vulnerable neighbors is a source of grief and disappointment, that came to mind today as I read the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8.  

It’s a well-known story.  Jesus’ opponents come to him, dragging a woman who has been, “caught” in the “very act” of adultery.  They ask him if they should stone her, according to the law of Moses.  The whole story is a set up.  If Jesus tells them to disobey the law of Moses, they will have grounds to dismiss him as a teacher.  If Jesus tells them to stone the woman, they will undermine his popularity with the vulnerable communities who flock to his teaching.  

Jesus draws on the ground.  Afterwards, he stands and says, “the one of you who is guiltless, let that one be first to throw the stone,” and goes back to drawing on the ground.  One by one the crowd leave, until it is just Jesus and the woman.  He asks if any of her accusers has condemned her, and hearing her reply, says, “neither do I condemn you, go and do not sin…”. 

Preachers and commentators on this story emphasize Jesus’ creativity in responding to the trap set for him, and his compassion for the woman.  Too few, in my view, notice the missing adulterous man.  It is not possible for a woman to commit adultery by herself, where is the man she was supposed to be with?  Jewish law required witnesses to put someone to death.  How is it possible that this woman could have been condemned with witnesses, but here the witnesses seem to only have seen the woman?  This isn’t simply a set up for Jesus, the woman too, must have been set up for the purpose of trying to entrap Jesus. 

This kind of lawlessness, that pretends to be righteous on one hand, while turning a blind eye to exploitation on the other, is abhorrent to the God we see reflected in Jesus.  Creative thinkers imagine Jesus, writing on the ground a list of the sins of the men who are gathering around, stones in hand.  I imagine, Jesus simply writing Exodus 20:16, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  The accusers’ witness is false, not because the woman is necessarily guiltless, but because they are actively exploiting a set of circumstances in which she is carrying exclusive moral responsibility for the decisions of others, particularly men. 

It seems to me that the tendency to push blame and responsibility for sexual sin towards the vulnerable hasn’t changed much.  The more I read this story, though, the more I see Jesus providing for the vulnerable, exposing exploitation, and offering hope.  Wouldn’t it be great if followers of Jesus were better at that?  

What do you see in this story?  How does it speak to you?