“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

That’s how we remember the line. The passage from John actually says:

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

Close, right? Still totally recognizable. So easy to turn into an aphorism, a saying. Jesus is trying to tell us to not be jerks with each other! we think.

'Nothing could be further from God than making violence sacred.' Share on X

Of course, we ignore our history. Especially going all the way back 2000 years. It was not only cultural law, but Biblical law to cast stones, to literally kill people by stoning them to death for breaking certain laws in The Law (Torah). By doing this, they were literally following the law and doing what GOD had told the people to do.

And the context of the story is important. This was a woman who was caught in adultery. They were doing what the law told them to do: kill her. Not the man, though. He’s free to go. And Jesus steps into that breach and says to them *let the sinless condemn.* This is brilliant, right? Who among them is sinless? But it also puts Jesus at odds with the law as they knew it.

The bigger question in the story, then is about why would Jesus defend this woman? Why would Jesus put himself at odds with the law? Especially as we know (in his own words) that he hasn’t come to condemn the law but to fulfill it? Perhaps his problem is not the law itself, but our unsuitability to fulfill it that way.

In Luke, when Jesus is asked why he lets his disciples pick wheat and eat it on the Sabbath, he says that he breaks the law because the religious leaders’ interpretation of the law prevents them from following the true law. Later, when asked about divorce, he says that we were given the law concerning divorce because we’re lousy at marriage.

Essential to Jesus’s teaching is that we are lousy at following what GOD would have us do. And that we should love one another and show mercy to them while also correcting the bigger problems. Particularly in protecting the weak, the minority, the powerless and bringing them back into the community. In other words, do what The Law says about the important stuff.

Not that we always get it right.

When I saw a picture of a slingshot made out of Jesus on Facebook, I instantly Liked it. A friend who shared it, however, got in trouble. Someone thought it was offensive.

When I see this Jesus slingshot, I’m reminded of all the people in my community who are judging and abusing my friends in the name of Jesus. I am thinking of the false persecution complex and a pretend war on Christmas. When it isn’t secularism, but capitalism that is making a charade of the holiday. I’m thinking of the right of Christians in Indiana to oppress minorities as their expression of Christian faith.

I think of all the ways in which my fellow Christians take the part, not of the woman redeemed by Jesus, the disciples, or even Jesus himself in John 8, but those neighbors, eager to stone to death the one they thought was evil.

But the essential teaching in scripture is that it is the powerless we have concern for, not the powerful. The powerful are good. They’ll be fine. It’s those who have no recourse and no family. And few of us are in that powerless position. Much more often, we’re the ones doing the hurting. We are casting stones at one another in the name of Jesus, with Jesus, turning Jesus himself into a weapon of condemnation.

Each of us has a right to be offended by what we see, but if this gag didn’t have an element of truth, it wouldn’t be funny. This slingshot is a comment on our Christian culture. Less funny are the soldiers who, in earnest faith, put religious iconography on their weapons and bombs. For many do this *in* faith.

Nothing could be further from GOD than making violence sacred. Nothing could be further from GOD than justifying abuse of minorities, ignoring the plight of the refugee and immigrant, refusing help to the widow and orphan.

So many people throw stones anyway. They think Jesus needs defending. They don’t think they are casting the first stone because they are convinced that someone else already has. They think this is self-defense. Many are convinced they aren’t breaking this teaching from John 8 because someone else started it. They aren’t casting the first stone: just the second. Jesus didn’t condemn the casting of the second stone. they reason.

Sorry, but that’s not how it works, and certainly not what Jesus teaches.

Jesus has something to say about that, too. Turn the other cheek. If someone sues you for your coat, give him all your clothes. If a soldier forces you to carry his gear for a mile, keep walking another one. Your choices, in the midst of adversity, when you are being attacked, when all hope is lost, is not a simple choice between fight or flight. There’s a third choice: standing up to injustice without perpetuating that injustice.

That’s my theological response.

My personal one is that I thought the slingshot was hilarious and relevant given the unChristian zeitgeist: oppress minorities, don’t protect the refugee, and arm yourself for Jesus.

How could I be offended by something that doesn’t make fun of my faith in the least: it critiques the false faith of those who claim to be Christian but don’t actually like the things Jesus has to say. And refuse to do the things that Jesus does: defending the weak, protecting the refugee, and reconciling the outcast.

Jesus doesn’t endorse violence or self-defense. He came to spread the love of GOD.

And when he did, he was condemned, abused, and murdered by the state for it.

He told his followers to walk that same path. To carry a cross like he did.

Imposing our way, making it be about what we want, bending others to our will, that isn’t following that path. Lashing out at others in self-defense, because of a perceived offense, isn’t following that path.

It’s not carrying your cross, it’s nailing Jesus to his.