John 8:1-11 is one of those passages that just "gets" me. Every time. At risk of being a bit eisegetical about it, here's why.

1Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Old Testament civil law would have called for the execution of this woman. Adultery is one of those crimes that in Leviticus is listed as a capital offense. Jesus knew this - the Pharisees knew this - they thought they had him. But Jesus also knew that not one single solitary one of them was righteous. Every last one of them was a sinner. And he called them on it. If they were to condemn her, they were for all intents and purposes initiating their own trial and judgment!

But it's those two statements at the end that just sum up the whole New Testament. It's grace and transformation in a nutshell. "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and do not sin again."

I am that woman caught in adultery. My transgression might not be adultery - it might well be something else. But it exists. It is real. You are also that woman caught in adultery. (Greed, impatience, anger, hatred, theft, falsehood, faithlessness...)

And grace says "I do not condemn you." Grace imparts divine forgiveness. Just as I'm ready to leave it at that and close the quote marks, I get swatted with "Go your way, and do not sin again." Oops. It is not that I have to change lest I be condemned...it is that I do change because I have been forgiven.

This is what I mean, when I talk about a Gospel of inclusion being inseparably partnered with a Gospel of transformation. It sort of comes right out of the horse's mouth.

Jesus said in that scripture, to me, that very woman caught in transgression of WHATEVER kind, "Go your way, and do not sin again." It means that like it or not, comfortable or not, I have to open up the Bible and use it to figure out what sin is, and shine its light on my heart to see where I am lacking, that I may faithfully and honestly make the step to go and sin no more.

It's one passage, sure.

But you take that passage, and you put it alongside Matthew 22, where the experts in the Law go to Jesus and say "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment?" and Jesus says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

And you put it alongside Mark 10, where the man runs up to Jesus and says "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus says to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone. You know the commandments; Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother." And the man says to Jesus, "Teacher, all these l have observed from my youth." And Jesus says: "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

And then you put John 15:14 - "You are my friends, if you do what I command" - alongside John 13:35 - "by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another".

And you start to realise that it isn't about you, or your walk, or your experience. It's about you following Jesus. That he tells you to do stuff you don't want to do. Give up your earthly possessions, leave your father and mother, pick up your cross, be persecuted for the sake of righteousness. And he tells you to love your neighbor.

The Gospel tells us to do a lot of things we aren't really naturally programmed to do - like love each other - but it also calls us to an emptying of self. To giving up the things which are most precious to us, no holding back. To a holy life which is not about us, but about glorifying God.

That is precisely why I am a political liberal and a theological conservative. Because it is in that confluence of loving my neighbor, caring for the needy, loving the Lord, and going my way and sinning no more that something really powerful happens. And it doesn't make me a right-winger, a liberal-basher, a name-caller; it isn't about self-flagellation or about condemnation of anyone else. It is the Gospel that drives my political liberalism. But it is also the Gospel that drives my theological identity. It's not either-or. It's both-and.