The Inconvenience of Mercy

“Protection and Care for the Vulnerable”

March 22, 2026 Cobleskill United Methodist Church, Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

John 8:2-11; Matthew 23:23

Fifth Sunday of Lent

John 8:2-11

² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, ⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. ⁵ Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They 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. ⁷ When 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.” ⁸ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, sir.”^[a] And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” 

Here we are in the fifth week of Lent.  The fifth week is the last week before Holy Week begins next Sunday with Palm Sunday.  The fifth week of Lent sits on the cusp of what is about to happen next. 

The narrative around Jesus begins to pivot this week.  For the weeks leading up until now, the stories and scenes portrayed in our scripture readings find Jesus bringing good news to wedding parties and those with broken spirits, hungry crowds and children who were allowed to come close.  The good news has been meeting the world’s needs and changing lives in ways that are profound. 

But something else has been lurking in behind the scenes.  It’s the rumbling of the powerful when the good news of Jesus challenges the status quo.  Tensions are mounting in the background as the authorities around Jesus begin to question this Jesus person and the good news he brings. 

And so this week we feature a passage of scripture about Jesus in which the tensions come to the surface.  There are several scriptural passages like this.  This particular story is not in our lectionary and so it’s one we don’t often hear.  But again, like last week, it’s a story that lingers in our memory even if we’ve heard it just once.  

The scene is this: In the early morning Jesus came again to the temple.  And people noticed that he was there.  They had heard the good news he was teaching.  They gathered around him.  He began to teach them.  But the authorities see this moment as an opportunity to trip Jesus up.  So they set the stage.  They bring in a woman who has made a mistake.  Caught in a sin that takes two, yet she is the one that has been brought in front of a crowd for rebuke.  The authorities hold this woman before Jesus and dare him to follow the law of Moses.  They dare Jesus to condemn this woman to death by stoning.  It was a clever trap.  Jesus would either have to follow the Mosaic law he professed to be a rabbi of and carry out this horrific punishment, or he would try to save her and thereby go against the laws of his religion right in front of the temple, no less.  The religious authorities thought this would be the moment when they could catch Jesus in the act of making a mistake himself.  Charges could be brought if he made one slip.  

Jesus said nothing.  He looked back at the ground where he had been teaching and he bent down and he wrote with his finger on the ground.  He wrote with his finger on the ground.  Was this the chalkboard of his lesson?  Was he drafting a thesis statement?  Appearing to be ignoring them, the religious authorities continued to ask him, What are you going to do?  Jesus, Jesus, come on show us what you’re made of.  Stand up and be the rabbi you say you are. 

When they would not leave him alone he straightened himself out and stood tall.  

“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

His words sent silence across the crowd and the authorities.  Jesus let that silence fall and bent back down to his chalkboard on the ground, continuing his lesson plan for the teaching he would still teach. 

The silence in the crowd lingered.  What did he say?  Anyone among us who is without sin?  Anyone who is sinless can throw a stone.  But… who is sinless.  What is he trying to say to us?  That our sin is equivalent to her sin.  Surely not, Jesus!  Surely not…. The gravity of the sin present amongst every individual standing in the crowd slowly causes the stones they are holding to drop.  Something in that moment has changed.  Those who thought they could end a life because of a supposed mistake that a living person had made suddenly dropped their stones at the reminder that themselves have also made mistakes.  Those who thought they were justified in taking another human being’s life suddenly realized that they had no standing on which to do so.  Something in that moment changed.

In the year 1992, a non-profit was formed by two attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck called the Innocence Project. It’s mission?  To reform the criminal justice system in the United States to “free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.” 

Over the course of the 34 years Innocence Project has been working, they have exonerated 255 human beings who were wrongfully imprisoned.  23 of those people were on death row. DNA and other scientific advancements have played a critical role in their work.  

Studies the Innocence Project have done suggest that between 2.3 and 5% of all current prisoners in the US are innocent.  If this was true for even 1% of prisoners, that would mean 20,000 people.   You can see these statistics on the Innocent Project’s website.  And I give thanks to Paige for first bringing this organization to our attention so that some of our Outreach funds each year can go to fund their work. 

The interesting thing about our story today with Jesus and the woman is that the innocence or guilt of the woman is not at the center of the narrative.  What is at the center of the narrative is our own ability to see her humanity and to not take her life because of a mistake she may or may not have made.  And to see her humanity, Jesus asks us to look inward in order to see our own humanity.  To be human is to have the possibility to recognize our own mistakes and to see them as opportunities to change.  

It was in my research of the Innocence Project that I stumbled across the story of James Fry, a former Dallas County Assistant District Attorney.  James Fry was new in his role when he convicted Charles Chatman.  For twenty-seven years Charles Chatman was imprisoned before DNA evidence exonerated him.  James Fry was a staunch supporter of the death penalty in Texas, a state that has executed more people than another in the nation.  But this is what James Fry said after it was learned that Chatman had been innocent all along: “For years I supported capital punishment, but I have come to believe that our criminal justice system is incapable of adequately distinguishing between the innocent and guilty. It is reprehensible and immoral to gamble with life and death.” 

James Fry changed his mind.  It is possible to change your mind even about something as important as life or death.  The religious authorities and the people in the crowd that day with Jesus changed their minds.  It is possible to change your mind even about something as important as life or death.  

It is possible to change your mind.  Even when it’s inconvenient.  Even when it’s embarrassing to admit you were wrong. 

And this is the good news at the heart of this story.  We are all human.  Even and especially when we’ve made mistakes.  The question is not who can we punish for the mistakes they’ve made, but how can we see one another as humans first.  How we have the capacity to admit we were wrong and then to drop our stones. 

Jesus knew that there was a time coming soon when his own life would hang in the balance.  That is the story that will unfold next Sunday as we enter Holy Week.  The amazing thing about this story today is that even those who sought to do Jesus harm had the capacity to change their minds.  Let us pray together that we might, too, have such an awareness and capacity even when it’s inconvenient.

Invitation to Confession: 

Jesus once said to a crowd, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

Friends, none of us are without sin.

None of us get it right all the time.

None of us can get by without God’s grace.

In the Prayer of Confession, we acknowledge this truth.

We put down our stones

and we turn to God for forgiveness.

Join me in this act of transformation.

Let us pray:

Prayer of confession 

Holy God,

we love to live our lives by the rules.

We love clear answers.

We love right and wrong.

We love swift justice.

We love to pick up stones,

but you show us another way.

You welcome shades of gray and nuanced conversation.

You prioritize mercy over legality.

You prioritize people over tradition.

You prioritize love over everything.

Forgive us for losing sight of what truly matters.

Forgive us for clinging tighter to laws than to each other or to you.

Forgive us. Soften our hearts.

Root us in mercy, justice, and love.

With hope for a better tomorrow, we pray. Amen.