Celebration Praise, Bridestowe,
Sunday Next Before Lent, 10/2/2013
I invite you to take a stone; to grip it your hand. And while your mind is on this, if you like, to close your eyes for a moment or two.
We are approaching Lent - and this Lent is an opportunity for you and I to ask ourselves, why am I carrying a stone?
Reading: John 8:1-11
1Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They 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. 7When 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.’ 8And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’
It’s a familiar story, of the woman surrounded by a mob of angry men, all gathered round her each with a stone in their hand. Jesus, saving her from stoning by challenging the enraged men, saying, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ (John 8:7)
Why were they carrying a stone?
If we look at the way of the world, if we are ruthlessly honest about ourselves, we must acknowledge that, just like these angry men who Jesus met, each and every one of us carries a stone.
Jesus understood that we all carry around inside us resentment, angry feelings, accusations, a thirst for vengeance. We are full of these things because we are driven by our desires, and when we can't get what we want, in our frustration and anger we have to blame someone else.
We see this all the time with children. In a room filled with toys, the one toy a child desires is the one toy another child is playing with. What will that child do to get the toy he wants? Fight for it, or go to the mother and accuse the other of taking it, so that the mother takes it from the other child and gives it to him.
We like to think that we adults are above such childish behaviour. And yes, we're more subtle than children, but the truth is we are still just as full of desire for what the other person has. Think of the power that advertising has over us. It makes us want what other people have got - all the time. The advertising industry is huge - precisely because those who run it know that more than anything else, we are ruled by our desires.
But what has this got to do with me and the stone I am carrying? Here's a story to help us make the link.
My cousin got a new 4x4 car last year. He loves his car, and he often talks enthusiastically about its powerful engine and comfortable seats. I now find that his constant comments about my little muddy Hyundai - which on steep hills slows down almost to a stop - are more and more annoying. I wish I could afford a 4x4, but I won't admit to him - or to myself - that the reason I desire a 4x4 is envy. If I admitted that it would damage my bruised self-image even more - it would show me up as being petty, slavishly imitating my cousin.
So, I convince myself that the reason I want a 4x4 is because 4x4s are more enjoyable to drive and more practical. The real reason I want a 4x4, of course, is because I want what he's got.
However, since I can't afford a 4x4, I become resentful towards my cousin. I won't recognise why I'm resentful. I may say to myself that he's ‘arrogant’ or that he doesn't show me the respect I deserve. While there is much about my friendly cousin that I used to like, increasingly I resent him. And I find myself more and more full of anger, resentment; a thirst for vengeance builds up inside me. I find myself carrying a stone. [1]
I'm not the only one carrying a stone. In fact, everyone else is too. You and I and everyone, we are all carrying a stone. Even though we don't realise it most of the time we all carry anger, resentment, in us. We're always cultivating a thirst for vengeance. Even though we might be shocked if we realised it.
Take a look at the stone in your hand a moment, and think on this.
Now, with each of us carrying a stone, or stones, with the potential for violent vengeance which this threatens, our world is in danger of falling apart. We don’t want that. We need to stick together, but our deep-down desires threaten to pull us apart. How awful it is to see small children fighting on the floor over a toy they both desire, their friendship falling apart. How terrible it would be if I harmed my cousin - if our family fell apart - just because deep deep down I want what he's got.
This is the age-old problem which has faced people everywhere. How can we stick together, given that we are always liable to develop rivalries that threaten to destroy bonds of loyalty or even lead to violence?
The ‘solution’ to this problem is that we find a scapegoat. If we can agree that one person is responsible for the growing hard feelings that threaten to destroy a community, then we can restore peace by killing or expelling that person.
Scapegoating is the way we subdue the resentment, angry feelings, and thirst for vengeance that are the consequence of our rivalries. If we can blame someone else for what is wrong with us, if we can punish them or get rid of them, then things between us will be right again.
Who is the scapegoat? In general, scapegoats are peripheral members of a community who can be abused without much fear of retaliation by family and friends. They are usually seen as ‘abnormal,’ and they may have distinctive physical or psychological characteristics, such as a limp or an inclination towards psychotic delusions. Whatever their specific characteristics, all primal (’primitive’) cultures accuse people of being ‘witches’ who cast evil spells and give rise to discord or natural disasters. When a community experiences a crisis, as hostility grows or natural disaster strikes, the mob [...] finds and accuses one or more ‘witches,’ whom the mob then exiles or kills. Remarkably, with eradication of the ‘witches,’ people generally feel much better, confirming their conviction that the ‘witches’ were responsible for the crises. Feuding tribe members, united in their hatred of the scapegoat, feel better towards each other. [2]
So, in our examples, if a third child enters the room - an outsider coming in - then the two previously fighting children will unite against him or her, to protect what they’ve got against the newcomer.
If my cousin and I can find someone else to focus our negativity on, then that will bring us together and things will seem all right between us again. So we go to the football match together and vent our spleen against the opposition or the referee; so we go to the pub together and ‘put the world to rights’ - in conversations in which we unite against others in agreement that they are the source of our problems - immigrants, taxmen, Muslims.
This isn't reasonable behaviour. But it is the way that all communities work. Though of course it is an unconscious act - if we realised we were doing it then it would lose its power, and would not work.
We Christians do this, perhaps over coffee in church, or in house groups, solving the problems of our own disunity by scapegoating others - and like the religious crowd did to the woman caught in adultery, we Christians often tend to pick on people of different gender or sexuality as our scapegoats. Drive the adulteress out of the temple and all will be well. Drive the gays out of the church and all will be well.
It's not hard to think of other examples of scapegoating and how all this plays out. The classic example is the Nazi scapegoating of the Jews, blaming the Jews for Germany's humiliating defeat in World War I and the suffering in post-war Germany. Some people have said, ‘All of Nazi Germany went mad,’ but this avoids the real explanation. What happened in Nazi Germany happens everywhere - scapegoating one individual or group of individuals in order to restore peace and a sense of well-being to ourselves. [2]
In our country we find a number of scapegoats being regularly trotted out. It’s their fault that things are going wrong - the asylum seekers, dole cheats, single mothers, druggies, paedophiles, pakis, queers - the names we give them. They’re often the most vulnerable people in our community.
That is why we are all carrying a stone.
And that is why the crowd was gathering around the woman caught in adultery.
Take a moment again to grip that stone in your hand - and, prayerfully, think on these things.
It's easy enough to find a scapegoat.
It's easy enough to imagine the accusations against the woman snowballing within the crowd that day, going something like, ‘I hear she is a sinner’; ‘Yes, I saw her with such-and-such, even though she is married’; ‘I hear she hates her husband’; ‘She must have been committing adultery’; ‘The Law says you must punish adultery by stoning’; ‘Then she must be stoned’; ‘Yes, she must be stoned’; and the agreement spreads quickly. [3]
A scapegoat has been found.
Some of us know ourselves what it feels like to be a scapegoat - when a group of people turn on us, for no good reason, misrepresent us, accuse us of something we haven’t done, punish us, expel us, cast us out. We don’t realise we’re doing it but we make scapegoats every day, even here, in our homes and villages and churches. Lent is a time to accept this and reflect on it before God.
When Jesus challenged the crowd to produce someone without sin to cast the first stone, he was demanding that someone from the crowd step forward to take responsibility for the violence which was brewing. Now, people are very reluctant to take this step, and so in this story we find that nobody came forward to cast the first stone.
Why this reluctance to admit and take responsibility for the accusation and the wrongdoing?
Maybe a fear of standing out from the crowd - and risking the crowd turning on you.
Maybe a lingering sense that the person you are accusing is guilty, and ought to be punished.
Well, note how Jesus dealt with the woman caught in adultery, the one who the crowd had isolated and marked out for punishment. He told her, ‘Go and sin no more.’ She had sinned, she had done wrong in the eyes of the law. He made that clear. And in so doing took the same position as the crowd with the stones in their hands. It was right: she had done what they were accusing her of. But what was wrong was the way they were dealing with it.
Refusing to carry a stone to use against her, refusing to condemn her, Jesus forgave the woman's sin, before she asked for forgiveness or even expressed repentance or regret.
He didn't demand her repentance. If he had then it would have prompted her to start looking for excuses for her behaviour, trying to justify her actions. ‘I’m sorry I did this but my husband is cruel to me’, ‘I know it was wrong but I was just looking for comfort’, and so on... But when Jesus forgave her, he let it be known that God loves her unconditionally, even if she had sinned. So she didn't need to find excuses for her behaviour, and she could then freely admit her sinfulness, the first step towards overcoming it. [3]
Unconditional forgiveness is everywhere in scripture: remember Peter asking Jesus, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.’ (Matt 18:22). In other words, always forgive him, without resort to retribution.
The only way to reconcile with our brother or sister without resorting to violence is to genuinely reflect God's unconditional love and forgiveness. Forgiveness is more than a strategy; it is what our faith calls us to do. [3]
How would you define forgiveness? How would you describe how you can see forgiveness at work in the world? Well, how about this for a description of forgiveness: forgiveness is the refusal to retaliate. Forgiveness is the refusal to seek revenge. Forgiveness is the refusal to repay someone for their wrong-doing.
Just as God unconditionally forgives our own violence and destructiveness, as disciples of Christ and children of God, we are similarly called to forgive. We are called to refuse to retaliate, to seek revenge, to repay.
Look again at the stone in your hand, and consider whether there are people in your life who you need to forgive, in this way.
Lent is an opportunity for you and I to ask ourselves, why am I carrying a stone? And Lent is an opportunity to turn towards Jesus, the one who can help us to release our grip on those stones, to let go of them, drop them to the ground. Jesus, ‘the stone that the builders rejected’ who became ‘the chief cornerstone’.
Those words are from Psalm 118.22, and Matthew, Mark and Luke each brought them into their re-telling of a parable of Jesus, the parable of a man who planted a vineyard, leased it to tenants and went to another country, and whose tenants refused to pay their share of the produce of the vineyard, instead beating, and killing those who came to collect the rent. Finally the man sent his beloved son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. [4]
This story encourages us to see Jesus as the scapegoat, the outsider, the peripheral one, the one who could be sacrificed for the good of the wider group. As far as the tenants saw it, if the son could be killed then the land would belong to the tenants again - as it had before the vineyard owner had bought them out in the first place.
And Jesus was indeed the scapegoat - the one who was sacrificed by the mob for the good of the wider group. The High Priest Caiaphas justified the crucifixion in exactly these terms, advising the Jews that it was better to have one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish (John 11.50). If the son could be killed then the religious establishment would have control of the people again.
But there is a crucial difference between the parable and the crucifixion story.
The everyday truth in the parable that Jesus told was that the Father, the vineyard owner, would retaliate against the death of his son by coming and destroying the tenants and giving the vineyard to others. The eternal truth about Jesus the crucified victim is that the Father did not retaliate against the death of his son by coming and destroying the perpetrators of his crucifixion. At Calvary, God refused to retaliate.
The crucifixion did two things: it opened people’s eyes to the reality of the scapegoat mechanism; and it demonstrated God's unconditional love and forgiveness to the world.
The crucifixion opened people’s eyes to the way that Jesus was accused, condemned, mobbed and murdered - he, the innocent victim.
And the crucifixion opened people’s eyes to the way that the Father and the Son refused to retaliate, but instead offered forgiveness without condition, to all.
On that day when Jesus entered the crowd about to stone the woman caught in adultery, he opened the crowd’s eyes to their own sin, and so they let the woman go free, as he said ‘Go and sin no more’.
At the crucifixion the criminal on the cross beside Jesus had his eyes opened to Jesus’ innocence, when he said, ‘We have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And in those moments Jesus set the man free, telling him ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’.
Lent is a time for fasting, for giving-up, for focussing on God. But God is not in the slightest bit interested in whether we give up chocolates or cigarettes or drink - or even time or money - for Lent, while our state of heart and mind remains unchanged. He's after something deeper.
At Lent we must reflect on the stone in our hand - our jealousies, the accusations we place on others, the means by which we scapegoat them. We must see these things in the light of Jesus the crucified victim on the cross.
We must learn to accept that God unconditionally loves us, and in response, let God help us towards a place where we can unconditionally love all other people. If we can only drop the stone we carry, then we can begin to live generously and lovingly towards others.
Prayer time:
Reflect on the stone in your hand - your jealousies, the accusations you place on others, the means by which you scapegoat them.
Consider Jesus the crucified victim on the cross.
Pray for acceptance that God unconditionally loves you.
Pray for God to lead you towards a place where you can unconditionally love all other people.
You are unconditionally loved and forgiven.
If you can drop the stone you carry then you can receive God’s forgiveness; begin to live generously and lovingly towards others.
That stone in your hand - loosen your hold on it now, open your fingers around it, release it, let it drop ... to the floor.
Notes
I've preached versions of this sermon on various Ash Wednesdays in the past.
[1] My rewrite of Stephen R. Kaufman, Christianity and the Problem of Human Violence, section 3, on the All Creatures website.
[2] ditto Kaufman, Christianity and the Problem of Human Violence, section 6.
[3] ditto Kaufman, Christianity and the Problem of Human Violence, section 66.
[4] Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12.1-11, Luke 20.9-18
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