I’m still on about this thing. One more example, and probably the clearest.

John 8: The woman caught in adultery.

You know the story. Jesus is teaching in the temple and the scribes and Pharisees bring before Him a woman they caught in the act of adultery.

Imagine: The Pharisees are excited. They know they’re right on this one, the scriptures are very clear. Jesus cannot escape a simple judgment on this case, and if He refuses them justice they will have a sure accusation against Him.

The prosecution is swift and complete. “We found her in the very act,” they say. The requirement of the law was two or more witnesses and they have met it. “Now Moses, in the law, commanded …” they continue. The case is cut and dry. Adultery is one of the Big Ten (Exodus 20:14), the required number of witnesses has come forward (Deuteronomy 17:6), and the punishment is clearly articulated by Moses in the law (Leviticus 20:10).

And then they ask, “But what do You say?” It’s almost a dare.

Jesus also references the Law when He responds, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”

Deuteronomy 20:7 instructs, “The hand of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people.”

The scribes and Pharisees would have recognized the reference to “be the first” to throw a stone, but Jesus doesn’t call for the witnesses. He calls for the sinless.

How can you remove a speck from your brother’s eye if you have a plank in your own eye?

How can you execute justice if you have been shown mercy?

We would say that our sin is not so great as this sin, his sin, her sin.

James would say that if you have stumbled in one point you are guilty of the whole law.

Is this woman deserving of death or not? Right or Wrong? Guilty or Innocent? Just or Unjust?

If they had dragged her outside the city and stoned her to death, would they have sinned? Would they be wrong? Would her death have been unjust? Nope. If Jesus had consented to it, would He have sinned? Would His mission on earth have been compromised? No.

Is it always about Right or Wrong, Just or Unjust, Righteous or Unrighteous? I don’t think so. I think there’s a third option between True and False. It looks stupid. The world doesn’t get it. It’s hard to do. It’s not fair, and it eventually leads to a cross.

What do you think?

We’re tossing around an idea tentatively called The Third Way. Back story is here. Basic idea is here. Insight from Pastor Zahnd is here.

But maybe part of this new life that Jesus asks us to live isn’t about right or wrong. Maybe it’s about Christ.

Jesus didn’t stop with talking about this, though. He lived His own sermon.

On several occasions, Jesus enters the home of, and even sits to eat with, “sinners” (Matthew 9:11-13, Mark 2:15-17, Luke 15:1-7, Luke 19:5-10). Matthew Henry’s Commentary points out that the Pharisees would have interpreted Psalm 1:1 and 119:115 as a case against associating with sinners in order to maintain holiness. They accused Jesus of defiling Himself and, in effect, raised the question of holiness.

But Jesus neither repents nor defends His actions. He points to a different way of thinking. This is not about your holiness or your doctrine, it’s about mercy and the knowledge of God.

Jesus also irritates the holiness authorities by “working” on the Sabbath (Matthew12:1-8, 9-13, Mark 2:23-28, 3:1-6, Luke 6:1-5, 6-10). The Old Testament law pronounced death on anyone who worked on the Sabbath (Exodus 31:15). This wasn’t just about holiness, this was serious business about keeping the law.

Again, Jesus doesn’t really answer the accusation, but tries to open their eyes to a new mindset.

In both situations the religious elite were looking for “Right” or “Wrong,” and Jesus gave them neither.

We are called to be holy, and the Sabbath is a commandment handed down from God, and I think Jesus didn’t want to belittle either of those things. They’re godly and in a sense they are right.

But I think Jesus is trying to open our eyes to a third answer that we have a hard time recognizing on our own because life is easier when everything is True/False, and because religion can be used for our own purposes when there are no shades of gray.

Life is not True/False and our faith should be the whirlwind that brings us to a colorful new world, and I think that Jesus is applying palm to forehead and trying to show us that it’s not just about Right vs. Wrong. It’s not just about your clean slate or your good score.

It’s about love, even when love is unreciprocated and unwanted. It’s about mercy, even when mercy is unjust and undeserved. It’s about living outside of the script society wants to hand you, and living counter-intuitively out of love of God and love of people … even people who are wrong.