Readings:
• Is 43:16-21
• Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6
• Phil 3:8-14
• Jn 8:1-11
Imagine
being caught in a most serious and embarrassing sin, then taken into a
crowded public area and placed before the man who will, apparently,
determine your fate. You stand in the middle, between your accusers and
your judge, like someone walking a tightrope with doom, perhaps death,
waiting on either end.
You are lost, alone, damned. And you know
you are guilty of the sin of which you have been accused. The only
unsettled matter is the exact form of your punishment. You only hope it
isn’t death.
We all have something in common with the woman
caught in adultery: we are sinners in desperate need of mercy, without
argument or alibi, completely at the mercy of a righteous judge. Lent,
of course, is meant to remind us of this need for God’s mercy and
forgiveness, not in order to make us feel enslaved, but to recognize
anew the joy of salvation. “Those that sow tears,” today’s responsorial
Psalm states, “shall reap rejoicing.”
A word that stands out to
me in the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman is “caught.” The woman
had been caught in adultery—probably through devious means, based on
the absence of the guilty man. The scribes and the Pharisees hoped Jesus
would be caught in their legal snare. Their trap was simple and
seemingly airtight. The Law was clear about the punishment for sins such
as adultery: “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man,
both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman;
so you shall purge the evil from Israel.” (Deut. 22:22; cf. Lev. 20:10).
If Jesus allowed the woman to live, he would be accused of acting
contrary to the Law. But, as St. Bede noted, if Jesus “determined that
she was to be stoned, they would scoff at him inasmuch as he forgotten
the mercy that he was always teaching.”
Jesus’ response was
brilliant on both the legal and spiritual levels. First, he bent down
and began to write on the ground, the only instance of Jesus writing
that is recorded in the Gospels. What did he write? Speculation abounds.
Perhaps the sins of some of the accusers? Perhaps something from the
Law, such as, “You shall not join hands with a wicked man, to be a
malicious witness” (Ex. 23:1)?
Whatever the words were that
Jesus traced on the ground, they set up his stunning riposte: “Let the
one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
This turned the rhetorical thrust of the scribes and Pharisees back into
themselves. In so doing, Jesus presented the accusers with difficult
options: if any of them did throw a stone, he would have outrageously
declared his moral perfection. And if anyone threw stones, they likely
risked being severely punished by the Romans (cf. Jn. 18:31). If none of
them threw a stone, they would admit implicitly their sinfulness. They
were caught.
It wasn’t just that the scribes and Pharisees were
sinners; it was the fact that Jesus had exposed their unjust and sinful
use of the woman as a pawn. “He recognizes that,” observed Fr. Raymond
Brown, “although they are zealous for the word of the Law, they are not
interested in the purpose of the Law…” Beaten at their own game, the
accusers melted away. “The two were left alone,” wrote St. Augustine in a
memorable description, “the wretched woman and Mercy.”
Now you
are standing face to face with the righteous teacher and merciful judge.
You know your sins; you are well aware of what you deserve. Further,
you know that Jesus has not overlooked your sins. “Therefore the Lord
did also condemn,” insisted Augustine, “but condemned sins, not the
sinner.” And so, while rejecting your sin, he accepts you. He invites
you to a radical life of discipleship, liberated from sin and free from
being precariously balanced between accusation and damnation.
(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the March 21, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)