|
|
Fifth Sunday in Lent
4-7-2019
|
|
Many years ago I was asked to visit a
patient in a psychiatric hospital. When I arrived, the patient was with a
nurse so I had to wait. I was shown into a large room. At first I
thought I was alone, until I sat down. At the other end of the room
sitting at a small table was a young woman. On the table was a jigsaw
puzzle which she was trying to put together. She held up two small
pieces of the puzzle that did not match. She tried to force them
together, then she would drop one and pick up another, banging them on
the table trying to make them fit. Then some fell on the floor, and she
became more agitated. She looked down and said softly to herself, “The
pieces don’t fit, the pieces don’t fit.”
|
|
Many of us have said something similar at
some time in our life. When it seems that everything has gone wrong,
life is out of control, you do not know where to turn or to whom, the
pieces of our life just do not seem to fit together no matter how hard
we try.
|
|
We have a woman in our Gospel today whose
life had fallen apart, who had committed one of the gravest sins in her
culture. It must have been a dramatic scene. Jesus was sitting down
quietly teaching in what must have been one of the outer courts of the
temple. Suddenly and with great commotion the religious leaders of the
people drag in a woman and place her before Jesus and in front of
everyone else. She had been caught in adultery and the law prescribes
that she be killed by stoning. They knew that the legal system in
Palestine at the time did not allow for capital punishment, only the
Romans could put a person to death, but they were sure they had Jesus.
|
|
The trap was clever and legally air-tight.
If Jesus spoke against the woman’s execution, they would discredit Him
before the religious establishment for speaking against Mosaic Law. If,
on the other hand, He sanctioned stoning, He would not only lose His
reputation for love and forgiveness but He could be tried as a criminal
for disregarding the law of Rome. It was a no-win situation.
|
|
But Jesus was not going to let the law
become a barrier between Him and the person in front of Him, she was His
first concern. Jesus does not say anything. He bends over and writes in
the sand. The crowd is silent, the temple courtyard comes to a
standstill, watching, waiting; the silence is deafening. The woman
stands in front of Jesus surrounded by her accusers who are fast
becoming embarrassed by the silence. This is not what they expected.
What is He up to? What is He writing?
|
|
So they try again: this woman was caught in
adultery. The Law of Moses says she must be stoned, what do You say?
Jesus looks up, and utters one sentence: “Let the one among you who has
not sinned cast the first stone.” Then He leans over and continues to
write in the sand.
|
|
Jesus sees the situation from another
perspective, a different focus. Only this woman is to be condemned, the
man is not mentioned. There is a double standard, a double standard
rejected by Jesus. He takes the side of the woman who is being used as a
ploy to catch Him in a legal trap. Jesus offers her forgiveness. She is
forgiven. She is free.
|
|
In contrast He calls her accusers sinners.
They all depart, one by one, beginning with the eldest. The situation at
first appeared legal and air-tight, but it takes on an entirely new
perspective from the focus of equality and justice.
|
|
We see something radically new in Jesus. He
tells us, do not be so quick to condemn, so quick to highlight the
wrongdoing of others while concealing your own. Do not be so caught up
only in what a person has been that you fail to see what they could
become. Jesus does not say that what the sinner has done did not matter,
broken laws and broken hearts always matter. Instead Jesus points out
to us that every person, no matter how sinful, has a future, as well as a
past. It is not, of course, that there is no place for accountability.
It is just that there is no place for condemnation.
|
|
Once we face our own sins, the problem is
simply that there is no place for stoning If we are the ones supposed to
be pure enough to do it. And what of the woman? We know nothing about
her. We never hear of her again. She has no name. The risk for her may
well have been her sense of guilt. How can a God who prizes fidelity
ever forgive my infidelity? How can I expect my husband to forgive me?
Above all, how can I ever forgive myself? This strange, unique,
compassionate Man has told me that He does not condemn me, and that no
other Jew is this area dares to condemn me, but how can I live with
their leering looks? Live with my husband? Live with myself?
|
|
So what happened next? After the crowd
dispersed and the rocks fell from their hands to the dust, after the
woman heard the voice of Jesus pointing her to her future instead of
always reminding her of her past, what happened then? Where did the
woman go? How did people treat her after all of this?
|
|
I hope someone came forward with a shawl and
an embrace. Raised her to her feet, and took her home to get cleaned
up. I hope someone helped her find a job and gave her a way to provide
for herself with dignity. I hope that people continued to treat her in a
way that reminded her of the forgiving love of God that she first
experienced in the face of Jesus that day in the dust. I also hope that,
perhaps for the first time, the pieces of her life started to fit.
|
|
| Yours in Christ, |
|
| Fr. Bob Warren, SA |
|
|
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment