{"id":2113,"date":"2022-11-07T08:41:17","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T13:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2022-11-07T08:41:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T13:41:17","slug":"the-third-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/07\/the-third-way\/","title":{"rendered":"The Third Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
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Most spouses go through life carrying a mental file folder called Things I Wish I Had Never Said<\/em>.\u00a0
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They include comments made in the heat of an argument, harsh assessments of certain in-laws, and overly honest replies to questions like, \u201cHoney, does my new haircut make me look old?\u201d
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They might even include things you learned at seminary but probably should have kept to yourself.
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Early in our marriage, while I was a still a student preparing for ministry, Mary Sue told me about an especially encouraging Bible study experience. \u00a0As she was reading through the Gospel of John, she had come upon the account of Jesus standing up for the woman caught in adultery.\u00a0 Then he had turned the tables on her accusers.\u00a0 The sheer grace of that famous story had filled my wife with joy.
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\u201cOh, we were talking about that text the other day,\u201d I said, remembering one of my New Testament courses.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s highly disputed, you know.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t appear in the earliest manuscripts.\u201d\u00a0
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It was as if I had flipped the switch on a giant vacuum cleaner and sucked all the joy right out of the room.\u00a0 \u00a0
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John 7:53-8:11 is deservedly one of the most beloved biblical scenes from the life of Jesus.\u00a0 But those 12 verses also happen to be included in a small handful of texts that have left scholars scratching their heads. \u00a0The original New Testament manuscripts \u2013 the so-called \u201cautographs\u201d penned by the original authors \u2013 have long since vanished.\u00a0 What we have today are copies of copies of copies.\u00a0 Many of them are in superb condition.\u00a0 Scholars are generally able to identify the oldest of these manuscripts, which are widely assumed to preserve the words that lie closest to the original intent of the apostolic authors and Gospel writers.
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What do we find in our earliest copies of the Gospel of John?\u00a0 The celebrated story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery is nowhere to be found.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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It\u2019s clear, however, that the early Church knew this story and knew it well.\u00a0 In a few later manuscripts it shows up inserted into the Gospel of Luke.\u00a0 In others it appears in John, but not in the place we nowadays call \u201cchapter eight.\u201d\u00a0 What\u2019s going on here?
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It\u2019s likely that we\u2019ll never know for sure.\u00a0 But a number of scholars have made an intriguing suggestion.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that some of the Church\u2019s earliest scribes \u2013 or maybe just one of them \u2013 thought this story was so radical that it should never see the light of day. \u00a0He simply struck it from the manuscript.\u00a0 If ordinary people found out that Jesus was willing to forgive serious sexual sins, how could the Church ever put the genie of personal holiness back into the bottle?
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Even if the early Church didn\u2019t know quite where to put this story, followers of Jesus have always been persuaded that it represents the soul of his teaching.\u00a0
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That\u2019s why it\u2019s worth taking a closer look at these words over the next four days. \u00a0Here\u2019s the classic text:\u00a0
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At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.\u00a0 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.\u00a0 They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, \u201cTeacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.\u00a0 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.\u00a0 Now what do you say?\u201d\u00a0 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.<\/em>
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But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.\u00a0 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, \u201cIf any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.\u201d \u00a0Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. \u00a0At 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.\u00a0 Jesus straightened up and asked her, \u201cWoman, where are they?\u00a0 Has no one condemned you?\u201d<\/em>
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\u201cNo one, sir,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cThen neither do I condemn you,\u201d Jesus declared.\u00a0 \u201cGo now and leave your life of sin.\u201d<\/em>
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No one doubts that when it comes to fidelity in relationships, our culture is in turmoil.\u00a0 It\u2019s reasonable to assert that half of the couples who made unconditional lifetime promises to each other during marriage ceremonies this past weekend will fail to keep them.\u00a0 The relational failure rate for church attenders is almost identical to that of society at large.
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The response of many churches is to cling to Jesus\u2019 words of assurance: \u201cI don\u2019t condemn you.\u201d\u00a0 Others tend to spotlight his next comment: \u201cStop living like this.\u201d\u00a0 The former congregations generally provide a low threshold for membership, while the latter insist that Jesus has called all of us to get serious about sin and to surgically remove unhealthy cells from the Body of Christ.
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What\u2019s the right way to navigate this passage?
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It may be that for you this is not a theoretical question.\u00a0 You may be personally acquainted with relational wreckage.\u00a0 Right now you\u2019re wondering:\u00a0 Am I going to emerge from this week\u2019s reflections unscathed?\u00a0 Am I going to end up with a few new reasons to shudder when going to church?\u00a0 Or is yet another person representing the Way of Jesus going to let me off the hook and fail to challenge me to live a different kind of life?
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Most important of all: \u00a0Is there actually a Third Way, a strategy that can show us how to restore broken people instead of wavering between the false options of either condemnation or saying, \u201cNever mind\u201d?
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Jesus is the one person in history who has fully embodied that Third Way.\u00a0
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In John chapter eight he encounters a woman who has fallen short of God\u2019s expectations for her life.\u00a0 Yet he loves her without excusing her, and calls her to account without destroying her.
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It\u2019s definitely worth exploring how he walks that line.
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And maybe even how we ourselves might open a new file called Things Jesus Said that I\u2019ll Be Glad to Repeat<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0Most spouses go through life carrying a mental file folder called Things I Wish I Had Never Said.\u00a0\u00a0They include comments made in the heat of an argument, harsh assessments of certain in-laws, and overly honest replies to questions like, \u201cHoney, does my new haircut make me look old?\u201d\u00a0They might even include things… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[528],"class_list":["post-2113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-new-testament-texts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions\/2115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}