Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

January 30, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

Things Jesus Never Said:
“Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner”

Lucy Forster-Smith
Senior Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 71:1–6
John 8:1–11

We continue the sermon series “Things Jesus Never Said” with one that rolls off the tongue as easily as the Lord’s Prayer or John 3:16. “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” And believe it or not, Jesus never said it. Even in the scripture lesson I have just read, there are those who would say it is embedded in this story, but let’s dive in and see if it is there.

The story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman caught in adultery is often titled just that. The focus has been on the woman and adultery—that is, she is caught having sex with someone other than her husband. The focus is on the act—her sin—which in the history of the Jewish community is punishable by stoning the adulterers, both parties involved. But as in any story, and especially in this one, it is important to learn about what is fueling the intensity we step into. Leading up to this particular encounter, Jesus has been in continuous conflict with the religious leaders. The day before this happens, the religious leaders are humiliated by the refusal of the temple police to carry out their orders to arrest Jesus. Also the temple leaders are taken down by Nicodemus, a well-regarded religious scholar, who had encountered Jesus in a late-night scholarly debate. After that, he had scolded the leaders in public for their lack of legal protocol. So let’s just say the religious leaders, having been put in their place once too often, were out hunting for bear.

As we read in today’s passage, the day start out as just another day. Jesus comes down from the Mount of Olives, where he is staying during this Jerusalem visit. As seems to be his pattern, he goes to the synagogue and there are many ready students waiting for him to hold forth. Maybe this day the crowd that arrives is larger than usual. It is, after all, the harvest festival. As is the custom Jesus sits and begins to teach them. Yes, we can picture the scene. The professorial Jesus on the lawn, with students basking in the pearls falling from his lips. And then there is a ruckus. A half-clad woman is shrieking, arm-mangled by the stuffy but strong scribes and Pharisees. They move the crowds out of the way and place her in the middle of the crowd. There she stands, alone, all eyes on her. Yes, the woman is the immediate focus. Jesus sits; woman stands. And the teachers of the law confront Jesus with the accusation: “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?”

We realize very quickly that this is a total setup. What is not said in this story but is the challenge that is behind the scene is that (a) Roman law states that Jews cannot administer capital punishment, so if Jesus says, “Yes, stone her,” he will be breaking the law of the land, and on the other hand (b) in the law of Moses, as cited, adultery is punishable by death, so if Jesus indicates leniency in dealing with this, he condones and encourages adultery. Though we are not told all of this, Jesus knows it. And what does Jesus do? He bends down and begins to write with his finger in the sand. Yes, the woman stands there; the religious leaders stand there; Jesus was sitting and then likely stands and then, we are told, he bends down to write in the sand. Just the movement and motion alone are enough to make you seasick. But the whole ordeal—the setup, using the woman as a pawn, the rage, fear, and threat, not only to the woman but also to Jesus—are enough to handle. But another thing that is completely baffling is why the raging leaders drag the woman and not her partner into the circle. Doesn’t it take two to commit adultery? A high-pitched moment. And what does Jesus do? He pauses, bends down, and focuses on the dusty earth. He draws or writes in the sand. We don’t know what he was writing. But what we do know is that he deftly turns the attention from the accused back to her accusers.

With eyes on the ground, they continue to hound him. With the woman standing in the midst of the stunned crowd, she waits. And then Jesus rises up and says, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Maybe one of the younger ones grabs a stone from the ground; maybe the woman gasps; but then maybe one of the older teachers puts his hand out to quell the action and, with eyes to the ground, turns and walks away. The next and the next and the next, in turn.

Pastor Nancy Taylor says, “With a few words [Jesus] conjures a mirror. Under the bright Palestinian sun, the [leaders] see their reflection as clear as day. They see themselves snorting and fuming with righteous indignation, even as they are covered in sin. It is not a pretty sight, . . . and one by one they turn and walk away” (Feasting on the Gospels, John, vol. 1, p. 250).

This story is about trials and judgment. It is about religious authorities putting this woman on trial. But it is really about these authorities putting Jesus on trial. Yet the outcome is that they put themselves on trial, and being the judge and the jury, they find themselves guilty. Of course this story comes home to us this day, in this time. This is our story, the church’s story, whenever we find ourselves acting in rage or shaming someone. This is our story when we try to boil a human being down to an act that they do. This is our story when we are more interested in proving someone wrong rather than calling all of us to the fullness of human experience, leading us to the face of Christ, who sees us as sinner and sinful, no separating or sorting out what it is to love and what it is to hate. (Much of this section is influenced by Nancy Taylor’s commentary in Feasting on the Gospels, John, vol. 1, pp. 248–250.)

Indeed, Jesus never said “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” Sure, it is not so bad a phrase in and of itself. But the trouble with the phrase is that the first part trumps the second. Hating the sin gives us license to hold something against another person. I love you but there are limits. And I decide what those limits are (Bert Montgomery, “The Bible Doesn’t Say ‘Love the Sin.’ Anywhere,” 1 April 2019, goodfaithmedia.org). In this story of Jesus’ encounter with the religious leaders, they set the standard of judgment they level at Jesus. They seemed to be so intent on judgment, that they were willing to allow this woman to be killed to get what they were after. They certainly did not hate the sin; they hated the way that Jesus was a threat to their security. And they used the sin to their purposes. They certainly did not love much of anything except their power to find a way to bring charges against Jesus to get him out of the picture. Those charges against the woman become the blinding force that could lead to her death. And this has little or nothing to do with the presenting issue of her adultery.

But most often when I have heard this expression “Hate the sin, love the sinner” it is used in the arena of sexuality. Indeed, when the church was coming to terms with our stance on full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered persons, often at Presbytery meetings or educational events in churches, this phrase was quoted with scriptural authority. Tracing its origin, it may be attributed to St. Augustine, one of the fourth-century church fathers. But nope, not Jesus. And why is that important? Because at the core of this saying is the assumption that we have the right to first judge another’s action. We run the risk of something Jesus did say: that we see the speck in another’s eye and not the log in our own. It often happens, as it did in the encounter between Jesus and the religious leaders, that the log in our own eye blinds us from not only the instance at hand but also what is fueling the situation. what is behind it. We think this is a story about an adulterous woman, but what gets blurry or even out of our view is that the story is really about raging religious leaders out to trap Jesus so they can trump up charges against him.

Peter Gomes, in his book The Good Book, dismantles the “hate the sin” saying with an incident that happened in the heat of issues of full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church. He cites an encounter between Andrew Sullivan, the Roman Catholic and openly gay former editor of The New Republic, and Patrick Buchanan on Crossfire, Buchanan’s talk show. The subject was same-sex marriage, with Sullivan in favor of it and Buchanan opposed. Gomes says of the interview, Buchanan thundered, “Andrew, it’s not what you are. It is what you do!” (Peter Gomes, The Good Book, p. 170).Yep, love the sinner, hate the sin. All stemming from the assumption that travels down the eons that sex has a particular purpose—procreation—and also that sex carries power and energy and, yes, out-of-control delight so that in any courteous, public setting it should only be trotted out when there is a problem, an incursion of trust, or a judgment to be made.

But I think there is another issue besides the judgment that arises from this saying “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” It takes its cues from some of the early church fathers, who tried to divide the inner life and outer life from one another. They inherited the idea from Greek thought that humans are spiritual creatures, who are temporarily tied down to a body. In addition, there were other ways of dividing humans up: us and them; body and spirit; material and spiritual; saint and sinner; male and female, etc. But in truth we are some of all of it. And the truth is that Jesus sees us fully for who we ae. And in turn, Jesus shows us that the way to see another is in our fullness, with all of our sexuality, spirituality, body, soul, mind, strength, sin and brokenness, healed and whole. God sees us and, amazingly, loves us with such a love that desires the fullness of who we are. We are loved and love others as an occasion to experience God, in our fullness. Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner says, “The desire to know another’s nakedness is really the desire to know the other fully as a person. It is the desire to know and to be known, not just sexually but as a total human being” (Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark, p. 88).

At the end of the story we have been considering today, Jesus is left with the woman standing before him, in her vulnerability, indeed exposed and naked to the imaginations of those who witnessed this. Jesus, a bit earlier, has gone back down on the ground as those who accused both him and the woman have walked away. He stands up and faces her saying, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” He takes a humble position, down on the ground. And we can imagine the range of thoughts tearing through her head. Is he going to cast the first stone? Is he going to channel the bulging eyes, flaring nostrils, enraged spirits of those he sent off? Instead he meets her, speaks to her, and orders her to sin no more. Indeed, she is seen fully, with her sin clear as day, visible to all, and is met with a vision of a life that is lived in the presence of God, who brings her a new day, a new vision for her life, liberation from sin in mercy and justice done by the self-condemnation of the accusers.

Buechner said another time, “Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: Theological ABCs, p. 48).No distinction between sin and sinner; no undoing our body life from our sexual life; no way to shame or single out; all in this together, yes, with Jesus, doodling for our sake; rising up for our very life in his resurrection; awakening new life and possibilities no matter how we may think we have stepped out into the point of no return. No, you are here, face-to-face, with absolute mercy, peace, and loved beyond measure. You are home!

Thanks be to God!