April 7 2019 - Year C
Fifth Sunday of Lent – Year C
Thus says the Lord,
who opens a way in the sea
and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen,
a powerful army,
till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,
snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way,
in the wasteland, rivers.
Wild beasts honor me,
jackals and ostriches,
for I put water in the desert
and rivers in the wasteland
for my chosen people to drink,
the people whom I formed for myself,
that they might announce my praise.
R. (3) The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,
we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with rejoicing.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad indeed.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like the torrents in the southern desert.
Those that sow in tears
shall reap rejoicing.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Although they go forth weeping,
carrying the seed to be sown,
They shall come back rejoicing,
carrying their sheaves.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Brothers and sisters:
I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having any righteousness of my own based on the law
but that which comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God,
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
It is not that I have already taken hold of it
or have already attained perfect maturity,
but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,
since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I for my part
do not consider myself to have taken possession.
Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,
and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them.
Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery
and made her stand in the middle.
They said to him,
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?”
They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them,
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders.
So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.
As one with the sinner
The story is just so familiar. Even the tag line about 'the one without sin' is a commonplace. We might even find comfort these days when so many are throwing stones: maybe we're not in such bad shape after all.
Death my stoning is not dead by a long shot. The death penalty for the crimes of adultery and for homosexual activity has been brought back in Brunei - death by stoning. Another jolt as the world implodes. Is pharisaism on the rise - that hypocritical holier-than-thou stance that would pass judgement on the behaviour of others with the conviction that we know what's good or bad, and you are bad?
The gospel doesn't debate philosophical assumptions like What is 'good'? 'What is the nature of 'evil'? It throws the question straight back at the questioner, and leaves him to find his own answer. 'Would the one with no sin on his conscience throw the first rock, please?' Conscience itself recoils at the risk of claiming myself to have no sin, and makes me duck for cover. I slip away, in the hope of getting out unnoticed.
Nor does the gospel confront the craziness of the lynch mob mentality, that mindless self-righteous madness that rides on the surging blood lust of a violent crowd, while claiming its hell-driven vengeance is what the law demands. In a mob it's dangerous to pause and think your own thoughts. Either you'll be knocked down and trampled on, or you'll be pointed out as 'one of them' and suffer the same fate. But that's not the concern in this episode. Jeshua disperses the mob with a couple of words.
Those who fight for women's rights find good starting points in this story. Where is the male accomplice? Was this woman driven to this extreme in desperation, finding no human comfort or support from the one she's bound to serve and obey? Did Jeshua show an empathy for her that was revolutionary in his day? ...But the story is not a feminist statement. Adultery is still wrong for both parties because it is an infringement on the most personal rights of one's legitimate partner, and that is why it hurts so very much when discovered.
Is Jeshua in this story a lawless revolutionary. That's certainly what the Pharisees will take from it, claiming that he denied the law of Moses, but is this the message of the gospel writer as he puts on record a much talked about memory from those final weeks?
Perhaps one modern view among Christians would be that the demands of mercy are superior to the demands of law. Has that been the thinking that led bishops to hide the sins of priests, even when those sins were the gravest of crimes, for they felt their place was to show mercy while protecting the flock as best they could? 'He will not break the bruised reed', but the civil law seems to have no such compassion for the wrong-doer but instead is intent on breaking his spirit, so we must protect our criminals from the law.
Actually there is nothing in the text to support such a position. It is not the Law that is criticised, nor is it advocated that we disobey it. The sole purpose of Jeshua is to direct our attention to our motives, to our own 'conversion' first, and the rest will follow from that. It's a big ask, to expect that the human community down through history can be transformed by the transformation of individuals, one by one. But conscience is entirely individual. Moral choices, for good or for evil, are made within each one of us. We may be helped or hindered by the mob, by society with its laws, its cultures and traditions and its flawed influence, but the choice is made only within each one of us, in the lonely centre of the self.
.....
Without anger, without bloodshed, without even a fight, Jeshua disperses the lynch mob and saves the woman from a humiliating and painful death in the street. How did he work this magic?
After disdainfully scribbling in the dust he 'straightened up', John writes. Inviting anyone without sin to start the execution, he returned to doodling. When they had all gone he 'straightened up' again and said to the woman, 'Where are they? Has no one passed judgement on you.' 'Neither do I pass judgement on you'.
The point is made on other occasions that Jeshua looked at someone, looked them in the eye, but here he is almost indifferent to them. He simply 'straightens up'. (He was already sitting, teaching, when the mob arrived. Nowhere is it said that he stood up to confront them.) The only confrontation in this whole episode takes place in the dark interior of each participant. Given a puzzle to solve (who will go first?), they pause to reflect for a moment. The older men with a degree of self-knowledge ahead of the younger, see the problem and are the first to withdraw. From treating the woman as a scapegoat who could be punished for their sins, they find judgement deflected back and they actually judge themselves also guilty of sin.
It is a masterly performance for any peacemaker. In closing, Jeshua said to the woman: 'Neither do I pass judgment on you,' When we see him as God in human form we can easily imagine this is God's word of forgiveness, but of course this does not work, logically. He would have had to say, 'Well, I forgive you, so you can go free.' But using the same form of words as for the accusers 'passing judgement' he says 'neither am I passing judgement on you.' The simplest meaning here is that it is not his role in this situation to pass judgement, for he is one with her, vulnerable as she is, lonely at times and tormented by the search for identity, for belonging, finding it hard to find reasons to remain loyal to a partner who seems uncaring, to a spouse too often absent.
No, Jeshua was not married, but all this he felt, as we all do, about God his Father. As Aquinas taught, Jesus did not have the 'beatific vision' during his life. That is, while he was one with the Father he did not see the Father face to face any more than we do. He too had to work things out, and suffer the confusing paradox of life as we do. To live in hope for him was even harder than for most because he lived harder. He took up the fight for truth and justice in peril of his life, and finally hit the wall. In the darkness he would cling to hope. Just like us.
So reflecting on her plight while he doodled in the dust, as an equal he could only say to the confused, distraught and fearful stranger, 'It's not for me to judge you either. You'd better get going.' I find it hard to justify the last word: 'From now on, no more sin.' Only someone acting 'superior' says that, unless it's too a child who still needs to be told to keep out of trouble. Perhaps it was just the preachers' way of making sure they didn't leave their hearers thinking their sins might not be as bad as the Law says they are.
.....
These investigations into this short moment in the life of Jesus of Nazareth have brought me to an interpretation I have not read or heard before. I wonder is it a 'valid' way of understanding this gospel passage? I surely would not propose it as the story's only meaning, nor would I declare false what others see. But I would suggest that as we go through life we need to draw different kinds of nourishment from the Word of God to meet our different growing needs. It seems to be that way with our normal food intake. Growing bones need milk, they used to say. Old folk don't want so much meat as the workers, that's for sure. The system takes what it needs from stage to stage. We should take what we need from the gospel as day by daywe live in hope.