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.)
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A good piece, well worth being repeated – again and again. A good discussion of this most important lesson. The scene is masterfully depicted in the movie
‘Jesus of Nazareth’ from 1977.
“Therefore the Lord did also condemn,” insisted Augustine, “but condemned sins, not the sinner” (Olson).
She [in my mind’s eye] was standing there naked and embarrassed in the fading sunset. And thankful as alluded by Olson. Remarkably, there’s no indication she begged forgiveness. Outwardly, though inwardly like the sinful woman who wept at his feet at the pharisees home grace seems to have been imparted, the woman deeply grateful for Jesus’ intervention. Sufficient cause for forgiveness of her sin.
As Olson probably correctly points out she was entrapped, her accusers knowledgeable of her ongoing affair. Her husband likely aware, the woman’s lover not of great interest. Misogynists? Likely. We never hear of men stoned to death for adultery.
There are two throwing of stones episodes [one real the other figurative] that I wish to compare. The first addressed here, the other 2014 the first Synod on the family, the impersonator of Christ, Pope Francis. At the Synod messianic Francis accused the bishops, presumably traditional on the issue of adultery, of throwing stones at the laity again presumably, not those caught, rather those in ongoing adulterous relationships. Although Francis wasn’t referring to women and men secretly having an affair outside of marriage, but as would be revealed as parties who abandoned a sacramental marriage and publicly remarried outside the Church. Those he would argue in Amoris Laetitia, were giving Our Lord the best they were capable in their concrete circumstances. Was this too a setup?
Bishops since have suffered flummox. Is adherence to the ‘Law’ Pharisaical? Shouldn’t we be like Christ, that is, Christ as marvelously portrayed by His talented Holiness. Call it adultery, manifest as it is, and we’re stone throwing Pharisees. Let it ride, give them the Holy Eucharist, and we’re merciful. Considerate of their inner anguish, they’re trying their best to please God. How do we settle the issue? Discernment. They seem repentant, acting in good conscience, give them communion and be merciful. Be Godlike.
The woman caught in adultery made no such plea. She recognized adultery as it is in reality, not an imaginative self assurance that abandoning a family is okay with Christ, that adultery is simply in the eyes of the wicked beholder.