Hello my friend Dr. Brad Miller here with the Daily Bible Refresh.

This is your daily reading of the Bible from a progressive point of view.

In a bit I will read the New Testament lesson selected from the Revised Common Lectionary for this very day.

The reading is understandable.

I use the message version relatable.

Please listen to the points to ponder and applicable with action steps you can take.

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Here's today's reading and we're reading today

from the Gospel of John, chapter 7, verses 53 through 8:11 from the Message but they cut him off.

Are you also campaigning for the Galilean?

Examine the evidence.

See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee.

Then they all went home to throw the stone.

Jesus went back to Mount Olives and he was soon back in the temple again.

Swarms of people came to him and he sat down and taught them.

The religion scholars and Pharisees let a

woman in who'd been caught in the act of adultery.

They stood in plain sight of everyone

and said, teacher, this woman was caught

red handed in the act of adultery.

Moses in the law gives orders to stone such persons.

What do you say?

They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the dirt.

They kept at him, badgering him.

He straightened up and said, the sinless among you go first.

Throw the stone.

Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.

Hearing that, they walked away one after

another, beginning with the oldest.

The woman was left alone and Jesus stood up and spoke to her.

Woman, where are they?

Does no one condemn you?

No one, master.

Neither do I.

Said Jesus, go on your way from now on.

Don't sin.

Well, my friend, thank you for showing up today.

I'm glad that you did in this passage, and this one is really a powerful passage from John's Gospel.

It's famous story of the woman caught in adultery.

And if you spend any time in church at all, you've probably heard a sermon about this.

But let's slow down and contemplate this just for a second because I think there's a couple points here that we just might be missing.

Let's set the scene.

Jesus is teaching in the temple.

Crowds everywhere, religious scholars and Pharisees come

dragging in a woman.

The text says she was caught red

handed in the act of adultery.

They stood right in front of everyone

in plain sight, exposed, humiliated.

And they say, Moses says to stoner, what do you say now?

Jesus doesn't take the bait.

He bends down, starts riding into the dirt.

They kept badgering him and they finally stands up and delivers one of the most powerful sentences ever spoken.

The sinless one among you go first.

Throw the stone.

Then he bends down, starts writing again.

And one by one, they, starting with the oldest, they walk away.

Then this extraordinary moment happens.

And Jesus looks up at the woman who moments ago was staying in the center of a mob, humiliating, and says, woman, where are they?

Does no one condemn you?

And she says, no one, master.

And Jesus says, neither do I go in your way.

From now on, don't sin.

Let's go a little deeper in this.

Let's go into a couple points to ponder.

Notice who's missing from the story.

The text says she was caught in

the act of adultery in the act,

which means by definition, there was another person involved.

So where was the man?

Where was the guy?

He's nowhere.

He's absent from the story completely.

The religious leaders didn't drag him into the public square.

They didn't put him on display.

They chose her.

And that tells us something critical.

This was never really about sin.

This was about power.

This was about using a vulnerable person as a prop in a religious and political game.

They weren't interested in justice.

They were interested in trapping Jesus.

And she was just a convenient tool.

So I think about this kind of a lot these days, about the injustices are happening in our world and people being blamed and made a spectacle of.

In my cancer podcast, I talk with people who are already dealing with the hardest things imaginable.

Sometimes they tell me that there's some layers of judgment that they face to on top of it.

People questioning their faith, their lifestyle, their choices.

When religion gets weaponized against vulnerable people, it stops being about God and starts being about control.

And Jesus saw straight through it and he stood between the powerful and the powerless.

And that should tell us a little something about we're supposed to be standing, what we're supposed to be doing as well.

Second point to ponder.

Jesus didn't ask for her story, her defense, or her confession before offering grace.

He didn't say, well, first tell me your side.

He didn't say, if you're truly sorry, then I won't condemn you.

No, he just said, neither do I. I don't condemn you.

Grace comes first.

The invitation to new way of living came after grace, not as a condition of it.

Now, I've been married for greater than 34 years and I've got three grown kids, two little granddaughters.

They fell my heart.

And one of those thing all those years of family life have taught me is that nobody is that people don't transform because you shame them.

Nobody ever got loved into wholeness by first being humiliated.

People change when they encounter the unexpected.

Undeserved grace.

That's what Jesus offered this woman.

Not a transaction.

That is, I'll forgive you if you clear up your act, but a gift that opened up the space for something new.

So here's an action tip for you this week.

I want you to think about whether you're holding a stone in your own hand right now, ready to pound somebody with it.

Probably not a literal one, but, I mean, is there a person or group that you have been judging?

Someone you've mentally placed in the center of a square to humiliate?

Maybe it's someone whose choices you don't understand, or someone the wider culture has made it easy to look down upon.

And I want you to consciously set that stone aside.

Not because that person needs your permission to be free, but because carrying that stone is doing something to you.

Put it down.

If you want to go further, replace the judgment with one act of genuine kindness or empathy toward that person or someone like them.

We're going to pray here in just a minute.

Before we do, just a reward that we have a great gift for you.

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You pick it up at our website, Voice of God daily.

Here's our prayer.

God, we confess that sometimes we're the ones holding the stones.

We don't always drag people into public squares, but we judge quietly.

We whisper.

We distance ourselves from people who make us uncomfortable.

Forgive us from the times we've used your name to justify that.

Thank you for Jesus who bends down in the dirt instead of joining the mob, thank you that your grace doesn't wait for us to get our lives together first.

And for anyone listening today who feels like they're the ones standing in the center of the circle, exposed, humiliated, shamed, bracing yourself for the stones that are coming, would you speak those words over again?

As Jesus said, neither do I condemn you.

And for all of us, give us the courage to drop whatever we're carrying and walk away from circles that destroy and make us more like the one who kneels in the dust to write in the dust.

Amen.

My friend, I am delighted you chose to join me for today's reading.

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My name is Dr. Brad Miller and I'll be right here tomorrow with your Daily Bible Refresh.

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