At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on 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.
At 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. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

• John 8:2-11

Boilerplate

I was born into a Presbyterian Church.  For all my life up until now, I have been a member of one Presbyterian Church or another.  It is told that the founding fathers were wondering how the organizational structure of the US Constitution should be set up and a founding father who was Presbyterian showed how it worked in his church.

So, if anyone has had enough time to screw up bureaucracy and the church as a whole, the Presbyterians are great at it.

I had someone tell me that I do not sound like a member of the Presbyterian church, and I replied that I might just be a Reformed School Dropout.  This is a play on words.  Reform school is what they used to call a special school for juvenile delinquents so that they could be incarcerated and given an education at the same time.  They do not have these schools anymore or they call them something different.  Presbyterians and a few other denominations are considered Reformed Theology instead of protestant, but the military could not understand the distinction, so my dog tags read PROTESTANT, meaning Christian and not Catholic.  And of course a school dropout is someone who quit before finishing.  Thus, I think I really dropped out of the reformed way of thinking and the bureaucracy of the denomination when I accepted Jesus into my heart.

When my heart is moved to do something, I feel that it is the work of the Holy Spirit.  Once I suggested that I was going to buy a banner to show where people were being persecuted for their faith and I simply wanted a prayer made on a specific day, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted.  The pastor said he would send that to the worship and discipleship teams for approval.  As usual, it was buried in committee until after the specific day.  Bureaucracy had triumphed and the Holy Spirit was grieved.  The next year, I bought the banner.  I handed out prayer cards to my Sunday school class.  I displayed the banner each Sunday for a month before the day of prayer, and I took the banner down before a bureaucrat caught me.

Yes, I am a Reformed School Dropout.

Discussion

This is the last installment in this series of heart and soul over bureaucratic rules.

Jesus sends the woman away, but He tells her to sin no more.

Jesus showed mercy when there were multiple witnesses.  The Law, with multiple witnesses, would say to condemn the woman to death.  But wait, adultery requires at least two parties and only one party was present.

The people wanting to stone the woman, really wanting to trap Jesus…  They might have known the other party.  They did not want to ruin his life, but her life was meaningless to them.

Every life is meaningful to Jesus.

We had an interesting discussion in Sunday school recently.  What is said in Sunday school stays there, but we were talking about current events.  In many cases, maybe in the majority, the riots in the USA are allegedly started by paid anarchists.  Whether that is true or not is up for debate.  I think that the media loves anarchy so much that they cannot help themselves in reporting it, if the news can harm one particular party.  But this sets the stage for a lively discussion.

Then, someone in class said they could not pray for the people who are funding this anarchy.

I said that we have to do that.

Then with soul searching, they said that they would pray that Jesus would change their heart.

Is that justice?  Not on your life, considering the property damage, the lack of faith in law enforcement, the injuries, and the possible deaths.

I am not advocating a different type of anarchy.  If law enforcement is cleaning up the streets to make people’s lives better, then we should support them.

But the only true way to overcome hatred is to treat hatred with love and mercy.

We cannot treat hatred with love after a period of retribution.  And I will not love on the terms of other people.  I will not celebrate sin and wrong doing on anyone’s part.

With the love of Jesus in everyone’s heart, we have no need for vengeance.  Vengeance is the Lord’s.  And the Lord opts toward Grace and Mercy unless the other person refuses.

The sad truth is that a lot of people refuse, and they will, in the End, obtain the justice for all the sins they commit.

As for me, I want Mercy.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.