The Subject of Shame
Speaker Notes
John 8:1-11
8.1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Job 13:26
26 For you write down bitter things against me
and make me reap the sins of my youth.
Letters in the Sand by Peter Marshall
His keen glance rests upon the woman's accusers one by one.
Then He writes in the sand at their feet - letter after letter.
…
They cannot watch without trembling.
…
Looking into their faces,
Christ sees into the yesterdays that lie deep in the pools of memory and conscience.
He sees into their very hearts, and that moving finger writes on . . .
Idolater . . .
Liar . . .
Drunkard . . .
Murderer . . .
Adulterer . . .
There is the thud of stone after stone falling on the pavement.
…
One by one, they creep away - like animals - slinking into the shadows . . .
shuffling off into the crowded streets to lose themselves in the multitudes.
Danny Yamashiro works as a Chaplin at M.I.T.