Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 9 Aug 2026
Summary
This week Brigid talked to us about the story in John 8:2–11, where the Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery before Jesus, hoping to trap him. Brigid unpacked the difference between condemnation and conviction, showing that Jesus's question “Has no one condemned you?” and his declaration “Neither do I condemn you” free the woman from shame while still calling her to a new way of living. She invitedn us to consider who we identify with in the story; the one needing to receive forgiveness, or the one still holding a stone and to respond to Jesus's invitation to lay both down.
Key Points & Takeways
The Pharisees use the woman as a weapon to trap Jesus - By bringing only the woman (when the law required both parties to be judged) the religious leaders reveal they care less about justice than about forcing Jesus into a corner: side with mercy and be branded a heretic, or side with the law and lose his reputation as a friend of sinners.
Jesus refuses to walk straight into the trap - Instead of answering directly, he kneels and writes in the sand, creating an uncomfortable, reflective silence rather than the spectacle the crowd expected.
‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone’ turns the accusation back on the accusers - None of the accusers can honestly claim to be sinless (Romans 3), so one by one, the older, wiser ones first, they walk away, stones still in hand but no longer thrown.
Jesus's question to the woman is for transformation, not information - “Has no one condemned you?” isn't asked because Jesus doesn't know the answer, it's an invitation for the woman to lift her eyes from guilt and shame and look into his face instead.
‘Neither do I condemn you’ changes everything, because only Jesus has the right to say it - He alone is sinless and sees the whole truth, yet his verdict is forgiveness, not condemnation showing that condemnation does not get the final word over the woman's life.
There's a real difference between conviction and condemnation - Condemnation pushes us away from God; conviction shines light into the dark so it can be healed. Jesus doesn't deny the woman's sin, he tells her to ‘go and leave your life of sin,’ but forgiveness and compassion come before transformation, not after.
Received forgiveness changes how we treat others - The story of Lynn and Dan Vagnner, who chose to forgive Lisa, the woman whose drunk driving killed their two daughters, shows how forgiveness can break the cycle of outrage and grievance our culture runs on without pretending the wrong didn't matter.
There is no condemnation for those in Christ, not a little less, none at all - Paul's own story, from persecutor of the church to apostle, began with Ananias showing him mercy instead of condemnation (Romans 8). Jesus took the judgment we deserved at the cross, so we don't have to keep prosecuting ourselves for what he has already dealt with.
Dock Discussion Questions
Jesus asks the woman, “Has no one condemned you?” not because he needs information, but to invite transformation. Where in your life might Jesus be asking you questions that encourage transformation?
Brigid described the difference between feeling convicted and feeling condemned. Have you experienced both? What did each one lead you toward?
Sister Mary Clare said all her prayers could be summed up as, “Here I am God, what a mess.” Is that a prayer you find easy or hard to pray honestly, why?
Lynn and Dan chose to forgive Lisa, the woman who killed their daughters, without pretending it didn't matter. What would it look like to “drop the stone” toward someone in your own life who has wronged you?
Brigid asked who we relate to in this story: the woman needing to receive forgiveness, or the Pharisees still holding a stone of judgment. What's one concrete step you could take this week in response to that question?
Long-form, edited transcript
Questions Jesus Asked
Has No One Condemned You?
John 8:2-11
Introduction: A Few of Jesus's Questions
We are looking at just a few of the questions that Jesus asked in the Gospels. If we tried to look at every question Jesus asked, we'd be here for years, there are about 307 questions Jesus asks across the Gospels. We're looking at about six or seven. Jesus uses questions consistently in the Gospels to encourage curiosity, to bestow agency on people, to challenge the status quo, and to lead people into a deeper knowledge of God's love, and knowledge of themselves and of others. So we're looking at a few over the summer, each week wondering whether Jesus might be asking us the same question today.
Today's question comes from John chapter 8, verses 2 to 11.
At dawn Jesus 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 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.”
You might notice, if you're reading this passage in your own Bible, that it's sometimes set in italics or brackets, or has footnotes attached. The reason is that some of the earliest manuscripts don't include these verses, or include them somewhere else, some scholars think this story may originally belong in Luke's Gospel rather than John's. But there was a huge oral tradition of this story being taught and told about Jesus's life. What's interesting is that wherever it originally belonged, it fits remarkably well here. The theologian N.T. Wright says this is the point in John's Gospel where Jesus's tone starts to shift and become increasingly serious, he's confronting problems in the society around him: hypocrisy, condemnation, the misuse of power, and the need for freedom. That is exactly the world this story drops us into, and I don't think it's so different from the world we live in now.
A Trap Set for Jesus
This story begins with the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious leaders of the time, trying to set a trap for Jesus. In the middle of the temple courts, a woman caught in the act of adultery is brought before the crowd, and the Pharisees ask Jesus, “So, what should we do?”
I think the Pharisees suspect Jesus is going to say, “Well, we should forgive her.” That would fit with the “friend of sinners” reputation that's been causing a stir across the area, and it's exactly why they want to catch him out and see him arrested. But if Jesus tells them to forgive her, he'd be teaching people to ignore the law of Moses, God's holy law, and he could be written off as a heretic, proof that he was teaching apart from God's instruction. Either way, they think they've got him. They're trying to ruin his reputation.
But what actually happens is that Jesus demonstrates great wisdom and compassion, and the religious leaders walk away with their trap having failed, and questions to ask of themselves.
Jesus Writes in the Sand
When Jesus is presented with this question “what should we do?” like so many moments across the Gospels, he doesn't directly answer it. Which, I'll be honest, I sometimes find really frustrating: come on, Jesus, just make it clear. But he doesn't. He's making a bigger point. He kneels down in the sand and writes something on the ground. I would love to know what he wrote, scholars have argued and suggested all kinds of ideas over the centuries. It wasn't uncommon for teachers and rabbis to kneel and write in the dust; this is before chalkboards and projector screens. But we don't know what Jesus wrote. A question to ask him on his return, perhaps. It definitely created an uncomfortable atmosphere.
Instead of answering directly and walking straight into their trap, Jesus creates a moment of reflection. And when they keep pressing him for an answer, he finally stands up and says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Let the One Without Sin Throw the First Stone
The whole conversation, the whole mood of the moment, pivots on that one sentence. Jesus flips the whole thing on its head. They came wanting to put this woman on trial, but suddenly Jesus turns the question back on the Pharisees. They've brought her into the middle of the temple, in front of crowds, to expose her sin, but Jesus exposes something in the leaders who are ready to throw their stones.
This woman has been caught in the act of adultery; there's no doubt she has sinned. She's broken one of God's laws for a good life, and Jesus doesn't deny that. But the religious leaders have taken her sin and turned it into a tool. God's law says that if a couple is caught in adultery, both are to be found guilty, but they've only brought the woman. They're using her as a scapegoat to trap Jesus and prove themselves right.
Jesus is not prepared to walk away from her. He doesn't deny her guilt, but he's got a more pressing bone to pick: exposing the leaders' hypocrisy. They've misused God's law, which is meant to reveal what is true and good and how to live a flourishing life, meant to shine light into the darker parts of the human heart and our society, and turned it into a weapon. They're standing over this woman as though her sin puts her in a different category: us versus her.
Into that, Jesus says, “Let the one without sin be the first to throw the stone.” In other words: you don't get to stand over this woman as though you don't need mercy yourselves. One by one, the accusers leave, the older ones first, perhaps those with a bit more wisdom, more ready to acknowledge their own brokenness and then all the others. The stones that were ready to be thrown are no longer in their hands. The adultery still happened, but the men have lost their sense of moral superiority.
None of them can honestly say they are without sin. None of us can either. As Paul writes in Romans 3, “all alike are under the power of sin.” All of us experience and perpetuate the brokenness of our world. I came across a woman this week called Sister Mary Clare, an influential nun and spiritual writer of the last century, who said that all her prayers could be summed up in one sentence: “Here I am, God, what a mess.” I love the honesty in that, I think it's what Paul is getting at in Romans 3 as well. Jesus will not let the Pharisees use God's name to pretend they are anything otherwise.
Has No One Condemned You?
In this nail-biting story, all that's left now is Jesus and the woman. The crowd have gone, the accusers are gone, the stones have been dropped. And now Jesus asks his question: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
In some ways this is an unnecessary question, Jesus already knows the answer; he can see everyone has gone. But like so many of Jesus's questions through the Gospels, he's not asking for information. He's inviting transformation. The shouting has stopped, the accusations are gone, every voice that condemned this woman has walked away, and perhaps for the very first time that day, she lifts her eyes up from the guilt and the shame, up from the fear. She's not looking into angry faces anymore. She's looking into the face of Jesus, the one who has literally saved her life.
I think this is a question Jesus is asking some of us today too. In my first job after university, I made a pretty bad mistake, I accidentally damaged something we'd borrowed from another organisation. I knew straight away it would be an expensive mistake to fix, and that there'd be relational damage too; we'd been trusted to look after this thing, and I hadn't managed that. I was worried it would cause problems not just for us but for the organisation we partnered with. The mistake happened right at the end of the workday, so I had the whole evening and the whole of the next morning before 9am to agonise over what my boss was going to say. I can still feel that stomach-turning feeling of knowing you have to own up to a mistake. I felt so guilty about not being more careful, about letting people down, and I was expecting anger and judgment.
But to my surprise, the voices of my boss and the partner organisation held no judgment or anger. There were consequences, someone else took over that part of the job, but they didn't make me live in the shame of what I'd done. They offered me kindness and compassion, and 21-year-old me kind of melted into a puddle on the floor with relief. They dealt with the reality of my mistake, but they did it with kindness and compassion.
Neither Do I Condemn You
In response to Jesus's question, the woman says, “No one has condemned me, sir.” And Jesus says, “Then neither do I condemn you.” Let's just sit with that for a moment. The only person in this whole passage who actually had the right to condemn this woman chooses not to. Jesus is sinless. He is perfect. He sees the whole truth. He knows exactly what she has done. He has every authority to judge sin as it should be judged. And yet his verdict is, “Neither do I condemn you.”
It changes everything for this woman. She knows she's guilty, she was caught in the act, but can you imagine how she must have felt? Neither do I condemn you. A weight slipping off her back, like she could breathe again. Jesus is showing her that condemnation does not have the final word on her life. Instead, what she needs is a fresh perspective and the chance to get back up again, and that's what Jesus gives her. He's saying, “I believe that you can be more than you are in this moment.” I think that's good news for some, if not all, of us today.
Maybe you've been carrying something for years, a mistake, a failure, a sin, or something that happened to you, or something you wish you could undo. Something that sits between you and God like a heavy weight. It's easy to live as though the verdict on ourselves is still being decided. But Jesus this morning perhaps asks you the same question: has no one condemned you?
After that mistake in my first job, the biggest wrestle I faced wasn't the external voices, my boss was so kind, it was the internal battle of guilt and shame. I think so many of us end up there over mistakes and messes we've made, things we wish we hadn't done, or should have done. The people involved move on, the conversations ended years ago, the mistakes are long behind us, but we still hear that voice of condemnation. Maybe it's the voice of other people, a parent or a colleague or a friend. Maybe it's our own voice, replaying the failures, revisiting old regrets. We can keep prosecuting ourselves over things Jesus has already dealt with. It's a bit like standing in a courtroom waiting for a sentence, when actually Jesus has already cleared the room, the jury, the lawyers, the judge have all gone home, because Jesus sent them away. When we stay in that room, the voices carry on: you'll never change; if people really knew, God could never forgive someone like you. Maybe there isn't even a specific sin in mind, maybe it's just a sense that God is looking down on you like a disapproving parent, or a cosmic police officer, or a stern headmaster.
But this morning Jesus is inviting us to look up into his face: where are they? Has no one condemned you? Only he has the right to pronounce the final verdict over our lives, and Jesus does not proclaim condemnation. Like this woman, we can find our heads lowered in guilt or fear or shame, but these are not God's perceptions of us. Paul writes in Romans 8, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” We are set free by Jesus's saving love and power from death and from sin. Only Jesus has the creative power over the material world, over us, his creation, along with the motivation of deep and perfect love, to actually be able to pronounce forgiveness. So in some ways, who are we to keep proclaiming condemnation over ourselves, if the perfectly powerful and perfectly loving Jesus has declared us free? Jesus invites us to look up, into a new way of living defined not by condemnation, but by forgiveness.
Conviction, Not Condemnation
Our life experiences can persuade us to have a distorted view of what God is like, or how God feels about us. But Jesus's consistent message through the Gospels is love and forgiveness, I believe that you can live more fully as I made you to be. Condemnation does not need to define or shape our lives, and if Jesus declares this is true, then it must be so.
This is not Jesus saying sin doesn't matter, or that it's no big deal. That's important, because if we've been harmed by somebody else's sin or wrongdoing, Jesus isn't asking us to pretend it doesn't matter. Sin matters. What happens to people matters, because we're made in the image of God. Jesus doesn't minimise what is evil or broken, because he values human life so much. But he does something more powerful: he doesn't erase the reality of sin, but he erases the power of condemnation.
Jesus says to the woman, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” He doesn't say, “I forgive you, carry on exactly as you were.” He says, “I don't condemn you, go and live differently.” This is a beautiful example of the difference between feeling convicted and feeling condemned. As Christians, as we get to know the voice of the Holy Spirit working in our lives, we can start to know the difference, and it's a joy to learn it. The voice that brings our sin into the light isn't there to shame us but to lead us back to God, and recognising that changes everything about how we live. Condemnation pushes us away from God; conviction shines light into the dark so that the place of hurt or brokenness can be healed.
That's exactly what Jesus does for this woman. He doesn't say her sin doesn't matter anymore, but he also doesn't condemn her. He brings her sin into the light and invites her to walk in a new direction, toward conviction and flourishing, not condemnation. This is what God's law in the Old Testament and Jesus's teaching in the New Testament was always supposed to do. It's never meant to be a weapon to establish superiority over somebody else. It's meant to shine light into dark places in our hearts and our world, so that we might turn back to God. And notice the order: forgiveness and compassion come first, and transformation follows. That's the freedom of the good news of Jesus. Our failures are real, but they don't have to define our future. Our sin matters, because people matter, but it doesn't have to be the final word. Our pasts are part of our stories, but they don't have to be the end of our stories, because the freedom Jesus offers isn't just freedom from condemnation, or a blank slate. It's an invitation into something more.
Forgiveness Changes How We See Others
Freedom, when we receive it, doesn't stop with us. When we receive forgiveness and freedom, it changes the way we see and interact with other people too. We live in a world that is anxious, divided and suspicious. Outrage spreads so quickly, and many of our culture's ideologies, at every corner of the political spectrum, are built on grievance. Judgment is much easier to find than mercy. I know that when I'm on social media or news apps, I can become really good at identifying the villains, I can tell you quickly who I think the bad guys are, who deserves to be written off. I think that's part of what Jesus is doing in this story: flipping that expectation on its head. The crowd expects outrage, a spectacle, condemnation. What Jesus offers instead is mercy.
The theologian Amy Orr-Ewing has just written an exceptional book on forgiveness, lots of us were at Focus a couple of weeks ago for her three-part series on it, and it was stunning; I really recommend the book. In it, she tells the story of Lynn and Dan Vagnner, who live in California. In 2001 they experienced a tragedy no one should have to face: driving with their two teenage daughters when their car was hit by a driver under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Both daughters died in the crash. Lynn and Dan faced unimaginable grief, the loss of their children, the anger and questions that come with such a tragedy, and the struggle to work out how to move forward. I'm sure it wasn't an easy path, but over time their faith led them somewhere extraordinary.
The woman responsible for the crash, Lisa, went to prison, and after seven years Lynn and Dan chose to meet her there. When they walked into the room to meet her for the first time, Dan felt an overwhelming sense that he should hug her. They listened to her story of a newfound faith in Jesus and her recovery journey, and as they walked out afterwards, the parole officer said, “I have never seen anything like this.” Lynn now describes Lisa as her daughter and says she knows Lisa will always be there for her and Dan.
Their forgiveness didn't mean they forgot what happened, or considered it acceptable, they weren't saying the wrongdoing didn't matter. This kind of forgiveness doesn't remove the need for boundaries or consequences, and it doesn't always mean reconciliation. But in this case, the power of forgiveness transformed Dan and Lynn's lives, transformed Lisa's life, and continues to transform the countless others who have heard this story. Amy Orr-Ewing writes that forgiveness is an act that swims against the tide, it releases love and goodness into a world shaped by outrage and fear, and it's the one thing that can break down the walls anxiety builds up.
This is what we see with the Pharisees. They've taken this woman's sin and used it as a platform for their own moral superiority, they came carrying stones, convinced that condemning her would somehow establish their own righteousness. Perhaps what they experienced that day was the freedom of acknowledging their own brokenness. We don't need to pretend, or hide the messy, unacceptable parts of ourselves from God, he already knows. We can drop the stones that say, “I need to prove I'm better than this,” because carrying that kind of self-protection is exhausting. It's the same when we look at other people: Jesus challenges the desire in us to stand over somebody else as though their failure makes us better. Jesus has shown us mercy so that we can extend mercy to others; he refuses to define us by our worst moments, so that we can resist defining others by theirs.
Guilt and shame are terrible motivators. They feel like they should spur us on to be better, but really they just make us want to hide, to disappear into ourselves and hope no one notices. God's love and forgiveness do something completely different, they bring us into the light, they tell us the truth about our brokenness without telling us that's all we are. And from that place, God can transform us.
This woman could have ended this story very differently. She was not crushed beneath those stones, instead, she leaves with a future. That's the freedom Jesus offers us this morning. Whatever sense you have that there's no future for you, God says: drop the stones, let me lift the condemnation, there is a future for you. Freedom to stop living under condemnation. Freedom to stop defining ourselves by our sin. Freedom to receive forgiveness and begin again. Freedom to extend that to others.
No Condemnation
Ultimately, this story points to the place where Jesus himself will stand under condemnation. The one who is without sin takes our sin upon himself. The one who has every right to be judged allows himself to be judged. The one who could have thrown the stones will instead go to the cross. That's why Paul can write, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” in Romans 8. It's simply a matter of fact, not a little less condemnation, not just a little bit when we get things wrong. No condemnation. Jesus has taken it all upon himself.
I want to ask, as I finish, where are you in this story today? Perhaps you identify with the woman, you're carrying guilt or shame, and Jesus is inviting you to lift up your head, to look up. The only one with the right to condemn you is offering you freedom and forgiveness.
Or perhaps, and this is a bit more uncomfortable, some of us feel more like the ones holding the stone. Lynn and Dan's extraordinary decision to forgive Lisa shows the transformational power of not letting other people's wrongdoing become the platform for our own moral superiority. They had every right to be angry, what happened to them was devastating and unjust, and forgiveness doesn't mean pretending otherwise. But they chose not to let Lisa's worst act become the defining truth about her. They could name the pain and the wrong, and still see the person she was.
Perhaps that's what Jesus is challenging some of us with this morning. We all stand in the same place before God, as people who need mercy. A Catholic priest, Kevin Codd, said: “A man humbled daily by the knowledge of his own failing will treat another sinner with a care that heals, rather than a heavy-handed arrogance or superiority that intimidates and shames.” That sounds like it would change the atmosphere around us, and if the atmosphere around each of us as individuals changes, it starts to affect our workplaces, our friendship groups, our families.
I've given you a couple of verses from Romans today, and I'd love to finish by reflecting on the story of the author of that letter. Think about where Paul's story started, a high-powered Pharisee, an executor of Christians, and how he meets Jesus on a road so powerfully that he's blinded. Jesus tells him to go and find Ananias, one of the very people he was on his way to arrest, perhaps kill, who I imagine was terrified to find Paul at his door. And yet Ananias lays his hands on Saul, the same man who had been breathing threats and murder against him. Perhaps it's that act of forgiveness, that lack of condemnation, that's so powerful that the scales fall from Paul's eyes and he can see again. Only someone who has themselves experienced the extraordinary mercy of God could do something like that. Paul goes on to preach the gospel and plant churches, because that movement of repentance and forgiveness grows one forgiven and freed sinner at a time, and it changes the world. Our world is changed because forgiveness and freedom was offered one person at a time. That story keeps going through the centuries, until we get to here, in London in 2026, in a room full of people who are forgiven and freed, who can offer that to the world around us. So we have to live like it's true.
From one forgiven sinner to a whole room full of forgiven sinners, hear Jesus's words to you this morning. However you are still punishing yourself for the things you have done: there is no condemnation over those who are in Christ Jesus. You can stop rehearsing the offence. You can stop reliving the failure. Stop demanding payment for what has already been forgiven. Whatever brokenness you are still holding on to or living in, go and leave your life of sin. You have been set free. Wherever you are letting sin define your worth, it will not heal. So put down that stone.
Response and Prayer
Lets take a moment to respond to the invitation Jesus offers in this passage, to consider who we relate to in the story, and whether there's something of the Pharisees in our hearts, something of trying to feel superior over others. It's brave to acknowledge that, and I believe Jesus wants to set us free from condemnation.
Closing Prayer
Dear Lord,
Some of us this morning are living under condemnation. And you tell us that when we turn back to you, when we confess to you that which we have done wrong, you meet us with forgiveness.
We confess our sin. We lay before you our brokenness. We lay before you the imperfections. And we thank you, Jesus, that because of you there is no condemnation anymore over those who are found in you. God, would you illuminate in our hearts and minds to the reality of what that means.
If there are particular sins or failures that have plagued us for months or for years, Lord, we ask for your forgiveness and freedom. Might we lay them down, because Jesus, you have done everything necessary for us to approach you with confidence. Holy Spirit, come and move in our hearts, set us free from condemnation.
Lord, for the parts of our hearts that are more like the Pharisees, where it's so easy to pick up stones of judgment, reveal to us where we carry that kind of hypocrisy, where we forget that we too are in need of mercy.
Lord, heal us from the damage that carrying stones like that does to us. Teach us, Jesus, what it is to offer mercy to others instead. Help us see others how you see them.
Amen