Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Community of Truth: Word - Ian Graham
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Pastor Ian Graham walks us through John 8vv1-11 and points us to four dynamic elements of the Word of Truth.
Welcome and Introduction
Speaker 1Well, friends, it's really good to be with you today. My name is Ian and I have the joy of being on staff here as a pastor, and it's a joy to serve with these amazing people that are here. If you're here and you're new, welcome. If you're visiting just a one-off I know sometimes we have people come through from out of town it's a joy to worship with you today. Thanks for showing up. If you are here and you are searching for a church because it is fall in Princeton, I commend you. Keep going. We hope you land here, but there's other great churches too, so it's okay if you don't. But if we can help you in any way, please don't hesitate to ask. And if you're here every week often y'all aren't acknowledged. So glad you're here. It's good to see your face. Let's see, let's get into it. Today we are in a series that we are calling the Community of Truth, which is a pretty ambitious claim.
Speaker 1One of my favorite Substack accounts is called Mini Philosophy, and what he will often do is he will post words from other languages or philosophical concepts and draw out their full implications. One of the amazing things about words is the way that a whole world can live behind just a simple word. This is why poetry is so powerful Poetry, the best words in the best order, and often there's this economy of words. And one of the things that this Substack account does is it draws you to phrases that you probably wouldn't encounter in your everyday life, but it often expresses something You're like oh, there's a word for that. I've been looking for that word. I want to give you just a couple of examples here. The first one is from a Latin phrase finifugal. Now, fugal means to fly, centrifugal, fly out, you know, fly out from the center. Fugle, finifugle, that sense of finite, so a 19th century neologism for the feeling of not wanting something to end. Have you ever been in a place and you're like, oh, I wish this could go on forever. I mean, that's a word right? Our dear daughter, rory, often would express this. We didn't have the word for it, but she would start crying before the thing was over and we're like, dear, we're having so much fun, what's wrong? And she would just say I don't want this to be over. I'm like, oh, oh, I know what that feels like. The next word, a Chinese word, poo, which has unfortunate English connotations but in the Chinese is quite beautiful Chinese word meaning an uncarved block, the natural first state of a thing before any configuration. Poo is what all things are made from that's a funny sentence and when it's unmade, is what remains.
Speaker 1If you are a seminary student, you know that the Germans have a word for everything, and they certainly have a word torchless panic. The fear that time is slipping away. Now, it's not slipping away. You don't need to go get drunk in a hostel. That was many philosophies. You don't do that anyway. We're drunk off the spirit of God. But ignore that for a minute. The fear that you might be too late to become something you always wanted to be, or that that time has already slipped away. Oh, those of us who are a bit advanced in years know that feeling well right.
Speaker 1The last one comes from Immanuel Kant Sensus communis. Immanuel Kant, sensus communis, kant's aesthetics, the sense that what you find beautiful, others will too. And I wanted to end there, because my hope today is that the thing that we see together in the person and story of Jesus, I find quite beautiful, and I hope to just share a little bit of that today, that you'll see the beauty of who Jesus is, and perhaps you're here today and you've never heard about Jesus, you've never really understood what he has done for you and how he loves you. I believe that he's here, that he's present, he's speaking now and I pray that he would meet you as we are gathered here today. Through the words that we say, through the words that we say, through the songs that we sing, through the expressions of worship at the table, I pray that you'll see the beauty of Jesus. We're going to turn over to John, chapter 8, beginning in verse 2. And it says there, at dawn, he being Jesus.
The Community of Truth Series
Speaker 1Jesus teaching in the temple in Jerusalem. Now, ironically, the mere fact that Jesus is teaching in the temple is a fulfillment of one of the age-old hopes and dreams of the people of Israel, but they miss its significance completely. In Ezekiel, chapter 10, the glory of the Lord gets up and leaves the temple at Jerusalem, the first temple, declaring God's judgment over his people. God's judgment often involves a removal of his protective presence and we see this viscerally in Ezekiel, chapter 10. This, in the storyline of the scriptures, precipitates the destruction of the temple in 587 BC, when the Babylonian armies march into Jerusalem, laying waste to the city, killing many of its inhabitants, hauling off several more people into Jerusalem, laying waste to the city, killing many of its inhabitants, hauling off several more people into exile and leaving Jerusalem as a shell of itself.
Speaker 1Now, several centuries later, herod has rebuilt the temple, but the presence of Roman control in the temple and the compromised state of its leadership has led to the widely held belief within Israel that the temple worship has not been restored to its former glory. This has informed one of the great eschatological hopes Eschatology is just a fancy word for saying words about the last things and so the people of Israel thought, when the end, or the beginning of the end had come upon the world, that right worship would be restored in the temple and that all the nations on the earth would flock to Jerusalem to receive the gifts from this one true nation, of the one true God. You see this vision in places like Isaiah, that the temple mount would be the highest mountain in all the world, higher than Everest. And this is their hope. And ironically, we get a glimpse, a glimmer of this fulfillment, as Jesus, the glory of God made flesh, has sat down in the temple at dawn to teach the people.
Speaker 1And in John 8, the glory has returned. The one true God, god from God, light from light has returned. The Word made flesh. Jesus of Nazareth is unveiling the glory of God, as John writes masterfully in his prologue. Again, beautiful things. John 1, read it, verse 9,. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. In his pro among us is the Greek word skine. It can also be translated tabernacled.
Speaker 1John is making it clear that the glory of God has drawn near, not in the blinding brightness, not in smoke and fire, but in the glory of this Jewish man's skin and bones. The word that brought the world to life has taken on flesh and he is drawing the world towards the end of the story that God had always envisioned. That, though he be transcendent God outside of time and space, his desire in creation, his desire in restoration, his desire at the end of all things will, that he will be God with us. You see, the story, ecclesia, as I tell you often, is about God stopping at nothing to be God with us. He's not a God set on Olympus, saying good luck to you, winding up the watch and letting it run. He is God drawing near and we see him move from buildings of stone into the internal, the confines of our hearts. He is wanting to take up residence in and among us, and we see that at the end, the new Jerusalem city has no need for a temple, because the place itself is the temple of God. The glory is so present, so near, that it is the space between us. We will inhabit glory, we will be changed by it, and we see just a glimmer of this here in John, chapter 8.
Speaker 1The text tells us in verses 3 through 6, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery and they made her stand before the group. Now, what do you say? They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. The shape of the accusation makes it clear that the accusers are making a legal claim. They're elevating Jesus to the position of judge. They're saying okay, Jesus, you claim to be able to adjudicate matters of things that God has said, the things that God is like. Okay, we'll let you be the judge for just this instance. But in this moment, we are going to put you in a bind that is going to cause you to make a number of decisions.
Speaker 1First of all, as we see in the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish people living under the thumb of Roman rule do not actually have the authority to execute capital punishment. And so they say our law says to stone such women. And it would seem that if we just follow that line of thinking, if Jesus were to say, yes, do exactly what Deuteronomy says, then Jesus will be guilty under Roman law of subverting Roman law. That's one thing. The second thing is, if you read in places like Deuteronomy we go to Deuteronomy, chapter 22, it says in verse 23, if a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death. The young woman, because she was in town, did not scream for help, and the man, because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you. And because he violated another man's wife, you must purge the evil from among you which says right there in the law Jesus, this is to be our response. And so it's likely that this woman is betrothed to a man not yet fully inaugurated marriage but that she is the fiancé, and in this culture that is a legally binding contract, and that contract has been violated. Now a lot of questions arise here. Most prominent among them and I hope you're asking it what did Deuteronomy say? Both of them are supposed to be subject to this capital punishment. How many people have been brought and dragged before Jesus? Where's the man? Where's the man? These men said to themselves that this woman was caught, that they witnessed her in the act, and thus they definitely also witnessed the man and they let him go.
Speaker 1We see several things here that frame Jesus' response in these short verses. The first thing we must notice is that what's being contested here are the cherished words from God found in the law called the Torah. The Jewish people were intent on living by this law, not because they were a wet blanket legalist Again, we so often color people with broad brushes historically that they don't actually fall into these categories. The Jewish people didn't wake up one day and said you know what? Let's just be really, really passionate about the most minute details of every little law. No, they saw their responsibility responsibility rightly that they were the covenant people of God and that that was a heavy responsibility and that they lived with, some way, the aftermath of judgment because they had failed to live up to that covenant and they're trying with everything they have to get back to a place of right standing with God, of keeping their end of the bargain so that God will keep his, that he will judge the pagans among them, that he will draw near, that he will gather in the temple again, that all the nations on the world will flock to Jerusalem as the centerpiece of all creation. So they try to live by these words because they take them seriously and we can take their posture seriously while encountering the grace of Jesus that we will see here, while encountering the grace of Jesus that we will see here. Jesus was seen as a person who was bending the law in his dining with sinners and his approach to the Sabbath, but sexual morality was a key marker of the difference between the Jewish people and their pagan neighbors. The contrast between the Jewish approach to sexuality and the Roman approach could hardly have been starker. So these people are intent on testing Jesus and they're intent on testing his fidelity to the law. They choose this particular topic to set Jesus up and to entrap him and, as we see, it has all the markings of a setup as we consider the words of truth today.
Jesus Teaching in the Temple
Speaker 1I want to just put a very gentle outline in front of you just to kind of show you where we're going, because I think it'll be helpful. Today I've got two points that are going to be longer. Those are going to be the first two. Let's see, do we have? Hey, Fredo, do you have that outline that's at the front there, that one, thank you. First two are going to be longer. The third and the fourth may feel like they're rushed. I assure you they're not. They're just wherever we're going. So first two, and then we'll see what God is up to here.
Speaker 1The first thing the Word of God does is it confronts. Jesus does something here that stretches the bounds of how we see rules and how we apply them. The fundamental test being put forward is will Jesus cop out on the very clear standards set forth in the Torah? But Jesus confronts the oversimplicity of that equation with the force of his very person. He confronts the assumptions of those who are trying to entrap him. He confronts their unjust scheming. He confronts the voice of the accuser, which elsewhere in John, jesus says the voice of the accuser belongs to Satan. And here that voice has been joined by a chorus of accusation. Who have dragged this woman in front of Jesus and thrown her at his feet.
Speaker 1Many people I talk to I have the joy of telling people what I do for a living and it's it's a weird thing to be a pastor amongst people that really have no concept what that is or why you would do that for for me, when I spend time in the more public settings that I spend them in, usually it's around people that grew up in the Catholic church in some way and they did their first communion, then they walked away from it but then they had kids and so oftentimes they'll go through that again and they're like okay, cool, we've checked our boxes. And again, that is no commentary on a faithful Catholic expression. That's just the consistent expression that I encounter and one of the first questions people will ask when I tell them I'm a pastor. After they get over their Catholic assumptions about, like you have kids, I'm like yes, I do. Like, okay, so you're not Catholic. Okay, we got that part. But after they get over that part, they're like it's just so many rules. Like, why? Like they're almost like, why would you sign up for that? Like you voluntarily show up to church and hear a bunch of people talking about these minute little details of rules Like that's what you like. You're into that I'm like well many people I talk to. They just they feel this way about faith and about church, and I understand where they're coming from.
Speaker 1Most people's expressions of what God looks like are the articulation of what they've experienced, from people telling them what God looks like, and that's a heavy responsibility. I often don't know how to apply all the minutiae from Deuteronomy in Leviticus. I am currently wearing a fabric made of two different cloths that is forbidden in Leviticus, so I stand before you a sinner. I'm always trying to get people to see that the scriptures are not a list of rules that we're trying to adhere our lives to. They are first a story, the true story of the entire world that invites us to see God and to find that his love, his calling, his presence can be integrated into every moment, every inch of our lives. That's what I'm up to and that's why I can stand before you on a Sunday morning knowing that in just a little while I'll send you out to a life that has all the miraculous before it and all the mundane before it. Challenges, glory, triumphs, joy. All of that awaits you, some of you, in the next week and God is saying to all of it it's all mine, it's all telling about who I am and what I have done. But when we consign God to a list of rules, we're actually negotiating a truce with him. We're saying God, okay, I will give you my obedience to this prescribed set of commandments, regulations, if you'll just leave me alone for the other parts of my life. If I can just segment this part off and have this, you can have that.
Woman Caught in Adultery
Speaker 1Jesus bent down it says in John 8, verse 6, and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept 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. Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Jesus is a master of drama. Our law says that we are to stone such women. What do you say? What's he writing?
Speaker 1Jesus has this poor woman thrown at his feet. She is being publicly shamed. And Jesus, he does this often and it's so subtle and yet it's so powerful. For the whole of this story, the whole focus has been on this woman. You can imagine he's teaching in the temple. He must be in the outer courts because this woman is allowed into this space. All of the focus and all of the shame in this very public, shame-oriented society has been on this woman. And now Jesus, master that he is, just draws everybody's attention to himself. It is so subtle and it is so kind. Everybody that might have been stealing glances Jesus woman. We don't know how this woman is dressed. We know what she was caught doing. I assume they covered her up in some way, but I doubt it was done with any care.
Speaker 1Jesus is drawing all the attention to himself. What is he writing? What a great question to ask the Savior when we get to walk with him in eternity. I don't know. Some scholars have proposed what he is writing, other texts from the Torah or the prophets. Jeremiah 17, verse 13 comes to mind. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water. Exodus 23, verse 1. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness. What is he writing? I don't know, but this is the only record we have of Jesus writing anything, and when we think about truth, we tend to think about it in terms of suggestions of doctrine, of suggestions of doctrine. And here Jesus could have spent all of his time on earth writing a list of scriptures for us to keep and saying don't mess with these. These are the words from Jesus. He doesn't do that.
Speaker 1Leslie Newbigin says it this way If his purpose had been to provide for all succeeding generations of mankind a revelation of God which could be embodied in a series of verbal statements of absolute inerrancy or an infallible code of conduct, he could have left a written deposit, as Muhammad is said to have done. A great deal of subsequent thinking seems to assume this is what he ought to have done, but this is precisely what he did not do. He chose 12 men and women. We know that they might be with him and he might send them forth being with him. They received not so much a formal course of instruction in divine truth as an introduction into the intimacy of his spirit. And so often, ecclesia. We would so much rather the code of conduct, the rules, because the rules are a negotiated truce between us and the divine. The rules tell us that A plus B equals C. The rules tell us what the bare minimum that we have to give to God is. The rules tell us who is in and who is out.
Speaker 1The old evangelical cliche some of you who have been out this for a while said it's not a religion, it's a relationship, and I think that's mostly right. It's a little oversimplified. We're a little too religious of a creature to not have a religion, but that's what God is drawing us into. It's a relationship and it's a religion. It's not a stone tablet, it's a story. A story where the author has stepped onto the stage and said this is living, this is fullness, this is holiness, this is God.
Speaker 1These words, when we pick them up, are not dead words from other cultures. They're not just written in other languages at other times. They're not things that we have to twist our lives into pretzels in order to understand how to apply them to our lives. These words are life, they are living and active. They are sharper than a two-edged sword. They are God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking and training in righteousness, because in these words we encounter the person of Jesus, because he is not in the grave, he is alive. He is present in gatherings like this one. He is present when you leave this place. He is drawn near in all creation because he is the resurrected Lord of all the earth and when we encounter the words of the scripture. Yes, at times we encounter rules, at times we encounter proverbs that would suggest that living might be a little easier than we have experienced it to be such, but we also encounter lament.
Speaker 1We also encounter books like Ecclesiastes that aren't so sure, and books like Job, where you're like wait what? These words are? An invitation to a story, and the invitation to the story is the invitation to the author, and he has met us with his presence through the power of the Holy Spirit. And as these men bring their understanding of the scriptures to Jesus and they say our law says this Jesus meets them with something greater than the law. St Augustine says it this way Anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot, by his understanding, build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them. These men have apprehended some letter of the law, but they have missed the author of the law.
Speaker 1Nt Wright says of God's authority in Scripture. God's authority vested in Scripture is designed as all. God's authority is designed to liberate human beings, to judge and condemn evil and sin in the world, in order to set people free to be fully human. That's what God is in the business of doing. This is what his authority is there for, and when we use a shorthand phrase like the authority of scripture, this is what we ought to be meaning. It is an authority with this shape and character, this purpose and goal.
Truth That Confronts
Speaker 1God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth here in John 8, is confronting our assumptions about God. Here in John 8, is confronting our assumptions about God, our petty idolatries, our small expectations, with the force of his very person. And we see that the God revealed here in this confrontation is a God of unfailing love. As John the Apostle will say elsewhere God is love. The old Baptist preacher, dl Moody, says this if I could only make people understand the real meaning of the words of the Apostle John God is love I would take that single text and go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious truth. If you can convince someone that you love him, you have won his heart. And if we can convince people to believe that God loves them, we would find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven. The trouble is people to believe that God loves them. We would find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven. The trouble is that people think that God hates them and so they're constantly running from him.
Speaker 1Jesus, in this moment, is writing, and we don't know what he's writing, but we can see what he's up to Verse 9,. At this, those who heard began to go away, one at a time, the older ones first. We see that the word of God written in the dust silences the voice of the accuser and brings comfort. So the word of God, it confronts. It confronts our way of being in the world. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. But it also comforts, and oftentimes these are one and the same time.
Speaker 1I think there's still such a large part of us here that expects condemnation, and this is such an incredible moment. I mean, again, draw your imagination back into this story. You can see this woman who's been dragged before this court of accusers. I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't think I could lift my head. She probably hasn't taken a look at what's around her and Jesus isn't saying anything. And so what's happening? She probably just head down in shame. She's been thrust at the floor of this man. She doesn't know who he is. They're saying teacher, our law commands us to kill such women. Her very life is hanging in the balance. I think we missed that.
Speaker 1She kneels at the feet of this one and she's had her life placed in his hands. She barely dares to lift her head. What is he doing? What is he writing? And when he finally does speak, he says let those who are without sin cast the first stone. And then there's this long, long pause. And then she starts to hear. And I wonder just pay attention, what does she hear. What does she hear From the older to the younger? They realize the gravity of what Jesus has said. She hears mercy upon mercy upon mercy. The word of God. It confronts us. It will not leave us in our petty idolatries, our small assumptions about God, our sinful ways of living that leave us dehumanized and diminished, but it will. It will comfort us. And then the text tells us and diminish, but it will, it will comfort us. And then the text tells us everyone goes away, it's only Jesus and this woman. Jesus straightened up and asked her woman where are they? Has no one condemned you? She looks around. No one, sir. Then neither do I condemn you.
From Rules to Relationship
Go and Sin No More
Speaker 1The Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar says this If we are truly and completely loved by the Eternal Father, then nothing about us escapes His care, not a single hair on our heads, not a single need unaccounted for. Even our failings, which we so often fear define us, are met with His inexhaustible mercy. And through that mercy he does not merely overlook our faults, he transforms them, weaving them into the great fabric of his love. Even when he calls us to penance, it is not punishment but restoration, a fatherly discipline that reshapes us into something truer, something freer. The Father loves you. These words are not mere sentiment. They are the deepest reality in which we live and move. No matter how scattered and chaotic life appears, all its fragments are gathered up in him. The last two points I want to make very quickly, as I promised I would. You can invite the worship team forward.
Jesus Silences the Accusers
Speaker 1The word of God confronts, it comforts and notice here, it convicts and it commissions. Jesus asks her is there anybody left to accuse you? No, she says. And Jesus says neither do I then condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin Notice. Jesus doesn't downplay the woman's sinfulness or her agency. We can all see that she was caught up in an unjust scheme, that she was in some way a victim. But Jesus' insight into the story seems to suggest that she played some small part in where she finds herself today. She was a victim, as a pawn in this scheme, but it does not consign her to a life of noble victimhood.
Speaker 1Jesus is the light of the world. In him there is no darkness, and we see. This light is first mercy upon mercy. Light of the world. In him there is no darkness and we see. This light is first mercy upon mercy. Stones hitting the ground. But as that mercy shines on us, it illuminates the darkness that often persists within us. But even Jesus's illumination of the darkness in us is an invitation to the light. Jesus's mercy is for us today, and that mercy, that comfort, is big enough to hold our darkness and to transform it.
Speaker 1You see, as Jesus speaks a word of repentance, he's speaking a word of invitation to be conformed to the image of Christ, that we will be united with God, that we will, in the words of the scriptures, be like God because he has taken up residence in and among us. And it's that mercy go and sin no more. That then commissions this woman go, go, as a carrier of this mercy, as a teller of this story of what you have received and what God has done, not just for me but for the entire world. Jesus says to his disciples at the end of Matthew's gospel all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I commanded you, and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Speaker 1Ecclesia, we are the community of truth, not the only one, because we have received the truth. It is a gift that Jesus gives to us, and the truth of his posture, his disposition towards you, is that he loves you and he refuses to let you subsist in things that will bring you anything less than the fullness of life that he has given himself for by his precious blood given on the cross, by his precious blood given on the cross, by his resurrection, which inaugurates a new creation breaking forth right in the midst of this one. You are invited to these words of truth, to this story. We pray.
Speaker 1Come Holy Spirit, god, as we shift our postures, lord, lord, I ask that God as we shift our postures, lord, lord, I ask that, god for those, lord who need confrontation, lord, with small stories. God, god, that your spirit would do that here in this place, god, there's so many scripts offered to us, god, so many ways of living that aren't yours, so many pictures of you, god, that are tarnished, that are small and sad. Lord, would you meet us here with your presence, god, the beauty of who you are, that you are the Lord, the Lord abounding in steadfast mercy and unfailing love. God, god, confront those things that we hold on to God because we think they bring us life, even things that bury your name, god. And I pray for those, lord, who need comfort. God, release from shame. God. And I pray for those, lord, who need comfort, god, release from shame.
Speaker 1God, who feel like this woman. They've been dragged out into the open and exposed. God, lord, that we would hear the sound of mercy this morning. God, you have broken the law with its commandments. God, you have canceled them by your blood on the cross. Jesus, would you remind us of what you've done and what that says about who we are and how precious we are in your sight, god? Lord, would that convict us, lord, would that commission us to go? Lord, jesus, would your word reign in this place. Holy Spirit come. We ask these things in your name. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray Amen.