Rev. Rachel Lewis Cooley
Final Project: Sermon
“Prisons – Poverty - Congregations”
Vanderbilt Divinity School, Nashville TN
May, 2021
John 7:53 - 8:11
53 Then each of them went home, 8 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 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. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 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. 7 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.” 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 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. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” (NRSV)
Will you pray with me:
God of mercy and justice,
You are the one who sent us Jesus to show us the way of compassionate love. We come with humility and gratitude, that we would be so loved by you. You have acted throughout history to move humans, limited as we are, toward ways of your mercy and justice. Your Spirit is still speaking. May it fall afresh on us today, that the words of my mouth, the meditations of all of our hearts may be pleasing to you, and may move in your love and generosity. May we encounter your Spirit in our reflections, and may we be spurred to a flurry of ideas—ideas that become actions toward another way, your way, that we may live more fully in your kin-dom, and with all its good creatures.
In the name of your son,
Amen
This story could probably be counted among some of Jesus’ “greatest hits.” “Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone” is oft repeated, not only in churches, but in broader society. The story is often explored as a critique of moral righteousness that claims it is upstanding, and therefore able to judge and punish others. It is sometimes used to ponder Jesus’s opinion on adultery. It is otherwise seen as an example of Jesus showing mercy to an ostracized and “sinful” woman.
But we need to know more about the original context to understand the deeper message of Jesus here: that we must refuse vengefulness and judgement to punish, and that in God’s mercy and justice for struggling, never-meant-to-be-“perfect” humans, there is another way: a way of compassionate love.
It is odd that the religious leaders present no evidence to prove the woman’s guilt to Jesus, such that they and he could be said to adjudicate the law rightly. It is also unusual that they do not bring the man accused, or any spouses along, for in the Mosaic law in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, both parties involved in adultery are subject to death, and the focus is mostly on the violation of property of the cuckolded husband.[1] Verse 6 explains these oddities, however. These religious figures aren’t interested in “doing justice” according to their legal system: they’re interested in trapping Jesus because he threatens their power and their way of doing things. They’re focused on vengefulness and defensiveness, both in response to Jesus and the mercy he teaches, and against this unnamed woman caught in the crossfire.
Are vengefulness and defensiveness part of our “criminal justice system” too? Are we not all driven by them sometimes?
In his book Just Mercy, lawyer and advocate for those abused by US courts and prisons Bryan Stevenson arrives at the conclusion that all of us are “broken,” in his words. In a moment of despair, when a man struggling with mental illness would be legally put to death that night by the state of Alabama, and all appeals to save him had failed, Stevenson sees his brokenness, too, and his common humanity with all people in their pain and struggle. “We have all hurt someone and have been hurt,” he says, “We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent.”[2] He thinks of many of his clients, “broken by mental illness, poverty, and racism… torn apart by disease, drugs and alcohol, pride, fear, and anger… judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice.”[3] All are part of a broken system, where “we’ve legalized vengeful and cruel punishments… allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others…” and “submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us who brokenness is most visible.”[4] Stevenson had seen children, particularly non-white children, thought of as “super predators,” subjected to harsh punishments including life sentences before they’re even thought responsible enough to drive, vote, or drink in the eyes of the state.[5] He worked for individuals struggling with mental illness in prisons where more than 50% of those on the inside have a diagnosed mental illness—nearly 20% of them serious—and where guards are not trained to understand their conditions let alone how to support their health.[6] And all of this in a country where being a person of color radically increases your chances of being arrested, convicted, and harshly sentenced, such that 1 in 3 black men “born in this century is expected to be incarcerated.”[7]
Stevenson saw the impacts of this “criminal legal system,” as we might call it because “it’s criminal, and it’s legal, and it’s a system,”[8] on hurting and struggling individuals far more up close and personal than most of us in congregations do. It’s much more comfortable to hide people “whose brokenness is most visible,” as Stevenson says, away in courthouses and then jails, where they are out of sight and out of mind. It would take more effort to respond differently to pain and hurt, to seek to facilitate true rehabilitation, and support for each along their journey. But the truth is all of our journeys will include pain and things we aren’t proud of. And we can seek to live together as though “each of us is more than the worst things we’ve ever done.”
Jesus saw the truth of why the scribes and Pharisees brought the unnamed woman to him in the way they did, with only vengefulness against Jesus and the woman. Jesus threatened their system of laws, and the way things were done with judgement and punishment for those caught in the things they might not be most proud of, the things that they do because of brokenness. Perhaps inequality in the system drives them to acts of desperation: we know nothing about the unnamed woman’s situation in her marriage or with her partner in adultery. Her husband may be abusive, and she’s unable to seek divorce. The adulterous act may have been an assault. Her position as a woman in patriarchal society may have made her vulnerable, but when she expressed agency, men of power felt threatened and sought to condemn her actions.
Jesus doesn't ask the woman the situation, or get caught up in the details, however. Nor does he bother explaining to the religious leaders the ways they’re acting vengefully. He simply refuses to engage in the vengeful system they perpetuate. His writing on the ground was a sign in his time that he refused to engage in dialogue with them, rejecting their questions about her guilt and punishment in this system of fear and hate of vulnerability. Seeing his refusal, they continue to press him, and his response asks them to consider their brokenness, their actions they are least proud of and would not wish to be judged for. He frames it as a question of sin, not necessarily of the Mosaic law specifically. Depending on your definition of sin—perhaps as something that separates you or others from following God’s call—the point is that no human can in good conscience consider themselves perfect or blameless, and thus should not punish others for their shared humanity.
Being “broken,” as Stevenson calls it is actually just part of being human. Perfection does not exist in our lives. We have emotions, biology, situations, that cause us to act in the ways we do, sometimes not for the best of ourselves and others. Sometimes, we can’t even see what is best because of pain or despair, or have been kept from the ability to get it. This is the situation of humans. It’s not that we need to feel guilty about it, or ashamed—nor do we need to hide it away, and punish others when they don’t, or can’t. I would challenge Stevenson’s use of the word “broken,” then, opting simply for the acknowledgment that all are human, and struggling. We can make the choice to recognize our own struggles, and the struggles of others, however, and refute the system of vengeance and fear as Jesus does. In Stevenson’s words: “we can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing,” for our pain is “the basis of our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing…” and “nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.”[9]
Jesus recognizes the shared humanity of the religious leaders and the unnamed woman, and refuses to condemn either of them. He calls them all to humility, and to reflect on their struggles and guilt. He calls them to see their shared humanity, and refuse to condemn one another.
L’Arche intentional communities are Christian communities where people with mental and physical disabilities, called “core members,” live alongside people who care for them, called “assistants.” In some cases, deep relationships where compassionate love abounds form over time, and both caregiver assistants and core member will show vulnerability to each other and support one another to be their best selves, and love even when they are not. Researcher and ethnographer Kevin Reimer describes the “compassionate love” found in some of these relationships in his book Living L’Arche: Stories of Compassion, Love and Disability. Assistant Katherine describers her relationship with Trent, who is, as she describes, “blind and emotionally troubled,” and who was in an institution from the time he was one until he was an adult, when he at some point joined a L’Arche community in the US. Katherine says she and Trent had a connection, and one night while she was giving him his bath, he said “You’re my friend, right?” Hear now from Katherine’s reflections:
“I stopped for a minute. What occurred to me is how many people had bathed this man, complete strangers. How many people didn’t see this sacred life in front of them, just wanted to get the job done. How many times he had to put up with that. What he’s really saying is, ‘Can I trust you? Are you safe? Are you my friend?’ it occurred to me that this man probably lived through hell. Abuse. People being incredibly insensitive to him. Yet he can love. He can still trust. I could never ask somebody to be my friend. I realized that I was in a transforming moment, knowing that I’m more broken than Trent. I could not be this vulnerable. I thought that I was being authentic but realized he was teaching me something that I hadn’t learned. God was really present in that moment.”[10]
Katherine and other L’Arche community members, like Bryan Stevenson, are face-to-face with vulnerability and human limitation, indeed have chosen vocations that take them close to it, and have fostered their capacity for compassionate love as a result. They have been transformed in it to recognize their own humanity, and, in the case of L’Arche caregivers, to commit to relationships with core members characterized by mutual support and unconditional love that moves people along a journey to be more truly themselves—to be the version of themselves that they would wish to be. This path of compassionate love is one that refuses hate and denying humanity, like the religious leaders in our text today did, and like the US system of crime and punishment does. All of us may seek to deny the humanity of others and of our own sometimes, though. When we promote systems of judgement and condemnation, or ignore the lives and humanity of people living at the margins with disability, or convictions, addictions, or poverty. When we label someone for “the worst thing they’ve ever done,” calling them “murderer” or “liar,” we deny their full humanity in lives complicated by pain for choices they made or circumstances that impacted them. We also deny the possibility for compassion and mercy. “There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness,” Stevenson writes, “because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us."[11]
Doing so may also cause us to recognize our own vulnerabilities and weaknesses more fully, as Reimer describes the “ambivalent saints” in L’Arche communities do. We might react to the stories of compassionate love from caregivers in those communities with discomfort at their closeness to human vulnerability, and move then to romanticize their actions as “saintly,” while telling ourselves that we could not do the same or be like them, and feeling shame then for our comparative inadequacies. “We have an equally powerful tendency,” Reimer remarks, “to be critical regarding the authenticity of compassionate love and the people who practice it. We are skeptical upon hearing stories of love like those coming from L’Arche.”[12] Reimer’s response is to describe the struggles of the real caregivers in community, where compassionate love does not come easy, but is strived for nonetheless in the reality of everyday life and humanity. “Compassionate love is difficult, messy, and often ugly,” he writes. “It requires sacrifice. It is birthed from strife, misjudgment, and weakness.”[13] Again, like Bryan Stevenson did, we find mercy and compassion from the midst of struggle and admitting weakness. The “ambivalent saints” in L’Arche communities are real people who have chosen the role of caregiver and the path of compassionate love. This does not mean they always follow compassion as a guide perfectly, but they continue to recommit, and in acknowledging their own struggles, they are strengthened for the journey by their own humility and the support of others.
We too can refuse to ignore our shared “humanness:” complete with struggles and graces, gifts and faults. We can refuse to engage in the framing and terms of a “criminal legal system” that only hides brokenness, creates more pain, and represents our vengeance and fear of vulnerability. We can seek to humbly share compassionate love that fosters growth for all. Congregations following the call of Jesus can be places where we admit our struggles, take on the systems that create them, and seek humanity and healing. This will require imagination, and to move in ways inspired by the actions of Jesus and in continually recognizing the fully human people we and others are.
Theologically, we can affirm that “people are just people:” they are not necessarily broken, just human. And in that humanity, they are bound to have gifts and struggles, regrets and joys, biases and friendships. What would it look like for you to live that belief in yoru everyday life? In the life of the church? When interacting with others?
What would it look like for us, as individuals and as a congregation, to refuse to engage with the terms of vengeance and fear, as Jesus did with the religious leaders? When would we need to speak up, as Jesus also did, and what would we say? Could we join with others to protest the death penalty here in TN, where Lee Hall was just killed last week in the electric chair? Could we learn from organizations that work on prison reform or abolition? Could we trace the history of racism from enslavement to mass incarceration and examine the impacts of poverty and prejudice on people?
The church can be a place where we each bring our whole selves, and seek to more faithfully follow Jesus and his call. But are there people with certain identity markers who would not feel radically welcome and loved in their full humanity in this community?
Are there programs and support we could offer to support people along their journey? Can you continually commit to a relationship where both of you will be the full, vulnerable humans you are and in safety and love support each other to more fully realize your calling?
This is the work Jesus calls us to: to face our own vulnerability with humility. To offer mercy to all in their complicated humanness. To walk the path of compassionate love in relationship.
There is an alternative to vengeance and fear, crime and punishment. You need only walk toward vulnerability, with your full heart and mind, strengths and weaknesses.
Amen
Bibliography
O’Day, Gail R. “John.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, edited by Leander Keck, 493-865. Nashville : Abingdon Press, 2001.
Reimer, Kevin S. Living L’Arche: Stories of Compassion, Love and Disability. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2009.
Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2014.