Mercy in the Dust

Isaiah 1:10-17, John 8:2-11

I came to Jerusalem for the festival, like everyone else. Every year when the harvest comes in, we travel up the hill to the city. The roads fill with pilgrims and wagons, children running ahead of their parents. You can smell dates and figs drying in baskets, hear lambs bleating and traders calling. By the time we reached the city gates, the place was packed with pilgrims.
We built our sukkot just outside the temple courts, little shelters of branches and woven palm leaves, roofs thin enough that if you leaned back, you could see the stars. That is what Scripture commands: to dwell in booths and remember how our ancestors wandered in the wilderness and how God sheltered them there.

If you have never seen Jerusalem during the festival, it is hard to explain. The rabbis say, “Whoever has not seen the rejoicing at the place of the water drawing has never seen rejoicing in their life.” I believe it now. Each evening the priests went down to the Pool of Siloam and drew water in a golden pitcher. We followed them back up the hill singing the psalms, thousands of voices echoing through the streets. When the water was poured out at the altar, the crowd roared like a storm breaking over the sea.

And the light. You cannot imagine the light. Four great lampstands rose above the temple courts, taller than a house. When they were lit, the whole city glowed. The elders said there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that did not shine with their light. It was beautiful, glorious even.

But I will admit something. It was hard to sleep. The singing went late into the night. Drums and flutes, dancing and laughter, voices rising and falling like waves. People moved between the sukkot, visiting neighbors, sharing wine, celebrating the harvest. At one point I woke to someone singing nearby, loudly, praising God with such enthusiasm that half the camp must have heard her.

I noticed her then. She was dancing with a group of others, her voice rising above the music. Joyful, certainly, but a bit unrestrained, reminiscent of the prophet Hannah. I remember wondering whether she was filled with the Spirit or filled with spirits. Still, who am I to judge someone’s joy at Sukkot?

The next morning, I went early to the temple courts. Word had spread about a Galilean rabbi who had come up for the festival. He had already stirred quite a conversation in the city. Some said he healed a man who had been unable to walk for nearly forty years. Others said he fed a crowd with almost nothing, just a few loaves and fish, and there were baskets left over. Some even whispered that he had walked across the sea.

Just the day before, during the water ceremony, he had cried out to the crowd, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” That got people talking. So, I went early, hoping to hear him teach.

He was already there in the temple court, seated among the people. And I must say, he spoke differently than the others, not like someone reciting traditions, but like someone who knew the heart of the matter.

Then suddenly there was shouting. A group of teachers of the law pushed through the crowd, dragging a woman with them. I recognized her immediately, the same one I had seen singing the night before. They threw her down in the middle of the courtyard.

“Teacher,” they said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say?”
You could feel the tension in the air. It was a clever trap. Everyone knew it. The kind of question that ruins a rabbi. If he rejected the law of Moses, they could accuse him of blasphemy. But if he supported the execution, the Romans would not look kindly on it, and neither would many of the people. Either way, he would lose.

But something else struck me as strange. Where was the man? The law says both should be brought forward. Yet there she was alone, surrounded by accusers. And surely this kind of case belonged before the courts. Who conducts a trial, and an execution, in the middle of the temple courtyard?

The rabbi said nothing at first. Instead, he bent down and began writing in the dust with his finger. I remembered the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “Those who turn away from the Lord shall be written in the earth.” Perhaps he was only biding his time.

Finally, he stood and spoke. “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” Then he bent down again and continued writing.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then the older men, the ones who had pushed forward so confidently, began slipping away one by one. The younger ones followed soon after. I watched them go and suddenly realized that if the wisest among them were leaving, perhaps it was time for me to go as well.

So, I slipped out of the crowd and made my way back toward the sukkot. But I could not stop thinking about what had happened in the courtyard, about the way that woman had been thrown into the dust, about the silence that followed the rabbi’s words, and about the mercy shown to her when everyone else had gone.

It made me wonder. If that is how he treats someone the world is ready to condemn, maybe that is what God’s love looks like for all of us.

That question is worth holding onto for a moment. If that is how Jesus treats someone the world is ready to condemn, perhaps we are seeing something essential about the way God works in the world.

When we look closely at this story, we discover Jesus speaking to two groups of people: the leaders of the church and the woman they dragged into the courtyard.
To the accusers he says, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” Those words point backward. They reach into the past; into the lives these men have already lived. Before you pick up a stone, look at your own life. Before you condemn another person, remember your own humanity. Remember your own failures. Remember your own need for mercy.

One by one, beginning with the elders, they walk away. Perhaps the older ones understood something the younger ones had not yet learned. Perhaps the longer you live, the harder it is to pretend you have lived without sin.

Then Jesus turns to the woman. “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” These words point forward. They open a future that had seemed impossible only moments before. Jesus does not deny that something has gone wrong in her life, but neither does he define her by her worst moment. Instead, he offers her something new, a future that is not bound by the past.

Do you see what Jesus has done? He treats the woman as the social and human equal of the scribes and the Pharisees. He speaks to them all about the same thing, sin. But he speaks about it in two directions. To the crowd he says, look honestly at the past you have lived. To the woman he says, look toward the future that is still possible. And to both he offers the same invitation: begin again, right here, right now.

The remarkable thing about this story is that mercy is extended to everyone. The woman receives mercy, of course, but so do the accusers. They are given the chance to put their stones down. They are given the chance to walk away. They are given the chance to live differently.

Which means this story is not only about the woman in the dust. It is also about the people in the crowd. It is about us.

Because we have stood in both places. There are moments when we are the ones who have made mistakes, moments when we carry shame and hope someone will show us mercy. And there are moments when we stand with the crowd, when it feels easier to judge than to understand, when it feels satisfying to believe that someone else deserves the stones.
And this is where Jesus introduces something that feels almost unreasonable: mercy.

The Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail writes that “the inconvenience of mercy is that it is hardly ever merited.” Mercy does not operate according to the logic of fairness. It is not earned. It is not transactional. And yet mercy is one of the clearest signs that we belong to God.

Because the truth is this. Every one of us lives by mercy. Every one of us has moments we would rather leave in the past. And yet the good news of the gospel is that our lives are not defined by our worst moment. In Christ, the past does not get the final word. In Christ, the future remains open.

But that does not mean mercy is easy. Mercy means refusing to reduce a person to the worst thing they have done. It means recognizing the humanity of people we disagree with. It means believing that restoration is possible, even when the world would rather punish.

Mercy does not ignore injustice. But it does insist that justice is more than retribution. True justice is rooted in restoration, in reconciliation, in the possibility that relationships and communities can be made whole again. Justice, in the kingdom of God, is faithfulness to mercy.

So, the question this story leaves with us is a simple one. Where are the stones in our own hands? Where are the places where it is easier to condemn than to extend mercy? Where are the places where we have forgotten that the people standing before us are just as human as we are?

Jesus does not pretend that sin does not exist. But he refuses to let condemnation have the final word. Instead, he opens the possibility of a new beginning for the woman in the dust, for the crowd with stones in their hands, and for us.

The good news on this fifth Sunday of Lent is that the kingdom of God is not built with stones of accusation. It is built with mercy that lifts people from the dust. It is built with justice that restores. It is built with faithfulness that refuses to give up on people.

And thanks be to God, that kind of mercy has room for all of us.