Lent-Compassion-Law-Woman caught in Adultery

LENT SUN 5-C

The Woman Caught in Adultery

(Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Phil 3:8-14; John 8:1-11)

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Have you heard of the nun who wanted to join a curling team? In discussing what position she should play, the team remembered what Jesus taught, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone,” so they let her play lead.

Believe in Jesus, repent and forgiveness will be your new way of life.

Fr. Bill Stang OMI shares how in Kenya an unwritten tradition gave unwed mothers or pregnant girls the message they were not welcome in church. They were blatantly being judged by the community, until the Oblates came along and pointed out that tradition was aimed at the women, but what about the men? Then the tradition slowly started to change.

Jewish society at the time of Jesus was very similar. Tradition, male dominance, human pride and sinfulness, blinded the scribes and Pharisees to the injustice of their own actions in bending the law and using the woman as both a scapegoat and an object to trap Jesus.

The readings today address this injustice. The prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, proclaims God is working a powerful reality in the lives of God’s chosen people, destroying the earthly abusive and corrupt powers, and bringing about something new, a new creation, a new consciousness perhaps, a new deed, a bright light that is becoming visible, something as treasured and valuable as water in the wilderness.

In the letter of Paul to the Philippians, Paul is caught up in the conviction it is through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus that God is working this new thing. All he wants in life is to share in that power, even if it involves personal suffering – such is his faith. And the psalm celebrates the newness of that kind of love and forgiveness with joy.

In the gospel, Jesus isthis new way. The gesture of Jesus writing in the sand is a statement of disengagement, of refusal to buy into useless debate. Could he be writing their secret, sexual sins? Some think so but there is a deeper significance to that gesture.

Oblate scripture scholar, Paul Fachet, basing himself on John Shea, offers a fascinating interpretation of the gesture of Jesus writing in the sand. Who else in the scriptures, he asks, writes with a finger not once, but twice, as did Jesus? The answer is God on Mt. Sinai, giving the Ten Commandments to Moses.

The difference between Moses and Jesus reveals the meaning of this story. When Moses descends the mountain with the commandments on tablets of stone, he finds the people had already lost faith, turned to false gods, made themselves a golden calf, and had given themselves over to idolatry (close to adultery!) and debauchery.

Moses acted out of anger, smashed the stones, ground the calf into dust, made a potion with the dust and punished the people by forcing them to drink of it. Then with the help of the sons of Levi, he slaughtered 3,000 of the revelers. For Moses, at that time, the price of breaking the Law is death. Hence the scribes and Pharisees could say to Jesus: “Moses told us to stone such women.”

As Hebrew tradition evolved, this breach of the covenant actually became viewed as adultery. Yahweh and his people were married, covenanted, but Israel consistently whored after strange gods. For Jesus, it is not this woman but the very scribes and Pharisees now confronting him who have strayed from God and the true teachings of Moses, who were actually committing adultery!

After breaking the tablets, Moses returns up the mountain to plead for the people and suddenly he asks to see God’s glory. God agrees on one condition that Moses will not see his face. The glory of God is too much for us to see face to face. So, the glory of God passes before Moses and teaches him the true nature of God: “The Lord is merciful, gracious, slow-to-anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and sin to the thousandth generation.”

Then God (like Jesus) writes again with his finger, a second time, the words that were on the tablets Moses smashed. Moses then comes down not only with the tablets, but also with a new understanding and a changed attitude, and works with the people to help them understand this compassionate, nonviolent, merciful God of unconditional love and forgiveness he encountered on the mountain.

Real sin for John is the refusal to accept Jesus as the Word made flesh. Jesus reveals their deeper sin of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, cruelty, false pride and disbelief – in a sense, a deeper adultery. He accepts both the woman and her accusers as sinners in need of forgiveness and healing and offers that to both. Ironically, it is only the woman who is open to the invitation to repent and receive the forgiveness of Jesus. Her accusers stay caught in their sin and leave “in order of importance,” unrepentant and unchanged.

Jesus reveals a God who is that new way of Isaiah – so much greater than we can imagine – whose mercy and compassion opens up a way of hope, whose love and forgiveness gives dignity and confidence back to the woman and to all sinners who are willing to acknowledge their sin and receive his love. By welcoming this God who is forgiveness into the depths of our hearts, we discover for ourselves a new path of forgiveness for our future.

What Jesus has to say to those who confront him is that it is an incomplete understanding of the Mosaic Law to stone people who have broken covenantal laws. They had to learn the same lesson God taught Moses on the mountain – the God who wrote the Law is not punishing and vindictive.

The true interpretation of the Mosaic Law is that God always writes twice because two writings are always needed to see who is really guilty or innocent. There are no sinless persons – Israel herself is alive only because God has forgiven her for the many time she committed adultery. No one can say, “Cast the first stone” for everyone lives by the grace of a forgiving God. Holding people in their sins while holding one’s self as innocent is delusional. The question is not the condemnation of adultery but the continuing blindness of people to the universal necessity of forgiveness.

So, Jesus writes with his finger – the sign of God’s authorship. He writes twice – the sign of God’s forgiveness. He writes on the earth – the sign of a universal human condition. He refuses to stare at the people – the sign that sins are not held against them. In the end, there is only the woman, and no one to condemn her. The refusal of Jesus to condemn her means there is no condemnation in God, only forgiveness, mercy, compassion and love. In short, there is no killing or violence in this God of Jesus Christ who writes in the dust. The God of Jesus Christ is a nonviolent God. That is the message that the world still does not get, as it commits countless acts of violence in the name of religion.

This story contrasts with the Old Testament story of Daniel and Suzanne who was accused of adultery by two lustful elders. When exposed by Daniel, the crowd did to them what they were going to do to Suzanne – stoned them to death. Justice was done like a Hollywood ending: an innocent life is spared and the bad guys get it, but there was violence. With Jesus, there is no violence – only compassion, mercy and forgiveness.

This story is not so much about the scribes and Pharisee’s “sin” of self-righteousness or the woman’s sexual sin; rather, it is about the challenge Jesus brings to rigid religious authority, and the possibilities of new life arising from that challenge. Jesus places his authority to forgive and to offer freedom over against the religious establishment’s determination of the categories of life and death.

We are challenged to look into our own lives and attitudes towards sin, our own and that of others. Jesus could see through the real motives and thoughts of others, and hold up a new future for all, both victim and abuser. Can we be like him and do the same?

The Eucharist is our great prayer of forgiveness. We share in the Word and receive the Body and Blood of he who wrote in the sand to reveal all sin as an invitation to repentance, change and new life.

So, this last Sunday of Lent – let us truly believe in Jesus, repent and forgiveness will be our new way of life.