Reflections of a Songwriter

  By Steve Young

    As a songwriter I often feel like the sower of seeds in Matthew’s Gospel story. A song springing from an idea or a melody is gently crafted, capturing an emotion or an idea I have, but what the listener experiences may be different from what I was thinking the song expressed. My song “Neither Do I Condemn You” is a good example of a song falling on the fertile ground of a listener’s heart and bearing fruit that surprises me. 

   As a sinner the words from John Chapter 8 spoke to me of forgiveness as I began writing the song. Aware of my own faults and shortcomings I was aware that just like the woman caught in the act of adultery, no matter what my sins were, Jesus forgave them. While he would have been justified picking up a rock and throwing it at me he chose not to and instead made me aware I was forgiven by Him. Not only was I forgiven by Him but just like the disciples in the upper room His Spirit descended on me and offered me the peace that comes from being forgiven. A peace so deep that nothing else mattered, everything that could possibly be right in my world was right. I was forgiven and loved. That peace is so powerful that it leads me to forgive others to acknowledge that we are all sinners on the journey, all forgiven and all gathered in the upper room in His Presence. That was the essence of the song for me. 

  Being blessed with the opportunity to write, record and perform the song, I am humbled at how well the song has been received. Frequently the song is performed in conjunction with someone reading the story from the Gospel or in some instances dramatically portraying the story. Cutting through the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders in the story and setting aside the powerful message of forgiveness in the story, the humanity of Jesus is striking. The woman’s guilt is never challenged in the story. Clearly she was guilty as was her never mentioned partner in the act. But listeners to the song have pointed out so many things that make the song so much more powerful for me than when I first started singing it. For example, after the crowd dispersed, and Jesus bent down to the ground the woman could very easily have been thinking that He was picking up a rock to throw at her. Instead he rises and says “Neither do I condemn you”. He and everyone else knows she is guilty and yet, she is not condemned.

  A minister pointed out to me that while we frequently reference this story when talking about God’s love and forgiveness there are many places in the Gospel’s where Jesus points out He is not there to condemn the world. He also calls us not to condemn one another. How much better the world would be if we would just quit reflexively judging one another and making assumptions, condemning one another to some pigeon-hole we’ve created in our heads. We have the power to forgive one another and it was given to us by God with the expectation we would use it. Standing in front of a congregation singing this song I have the good fortune of being able to see everyone listening to the message or singing along. At times I am blessed to have a sense of what God must experience when He looks out and sees the beautiful people He has created, the challenges they are facing, the sins that are forgiven, the journey they are on returning home to Him. I am also challenged at times as I realize how I have judged others that I see, have not been forgiving, have sinned myself. If I can’t be more accepting of others I have no right to expect God’s acceptance and yet, there it is. He does not condemn me but challenges me to sin no more.

  Listeners have also told me how the song disarms their self-condemnation. For some people it is easier for them to experience the forgiveness of Jesus than for them to forgive themselves. It’s almost as if their guilt was a blanket they wrapped around themselves in their nakedness and refusing to let go. It’s much easier to live with being unworthy than it is to live with being loved. It can be hard to turn off that voice in our head that says, “Always do I condemn you” and yet that is exactly what Jesus does in this story. We are then challenged to replace the message and more often than not we replace it with another harangue about our unworthiness, our shortcomings, and our faults.

   If we can only replace it with the voice of Jesus saying” Neither do I condemn you” that would be enough. Let us force ourselves to make that our mantra until it becomes second nature, until we can silence all the voices and just be in His presence, like the woman and the disciples, filled with God’s peace that surpasses our human understanding.