In our adult Sunday school class today, one of the scripture stories that we discussed was the one<\/a> where the scribes and Pharisees apprehend a woman while she was having sex with a married person (or perhaps she is the married person, or perhaps they are both married to other people) and take her to Jesus. As those of you who are familiar with the story already know, they demand from Jesus to tell them whether she should be stoned, which they claim the Law of Moses allowed them to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, Jesus famously sees past the binary options of their question meant to bait them and encourages them to look at their dichotomy from a different lens: that anyone of them who was sinless could stone her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t really want to discuss that part of the story, as it\u2019s probably been picked apart a lot. However, there is one element toward the end of the story that I have been thinking about recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the scribes and Pharisees are overcome with guilt at Jesus\u2019s carefully worded invitation and leave the scene, Jesus, who had been focusing his attention to the ground and missed their departure\u2014asks the unnamed woman where her accusers were, whether any of them had condemned her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When she said that no one had ended up condemning her, he responded with \u201cNeither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The part I want to focus on is \u201csin no more\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I hear this story discussed, when we get to this point, almost always people frame it as Jesus labelling her actions as sinful, despite having just said he didn\u2019t condemn her. Almost as though this were a prime example of the oft-repeated saying, \u201cLove the sinner. Hate the sin.\u201d According to this interpretation, Jesus is being merciful to her, while acknowledging the wrongfulness of her actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I wonder if \u201csin no more\u201d might mean something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n