Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent, C

They place the woman alone beside Jesus, which, as it turns out, is exactly where Jesus wished to be. Beside the sinner. 

I have Mass on Saturday, April 5, at St. Andrew, 5:00 pm

I have Mass on Sunday, April 6, at St. Isidore, 7:30/9:30 am

the 7:30 am Mass will be live-streamed https://stisidore.church/worship-online/

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel According to John. 

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 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 anymore." 

The Gospel of the Lord 

We know this story all too well. Our group is pointing a finger at someone who is outside of our group. We spend a great deal of time pointing fingers to make sure that somebody else occupies that space rather than us. In fact, they're really hoping to trap Jesus so that they could have some reason to point their finger at him. 

What I find interesting is that this is happening in the temple area, as if God were somehow involved in pointing fingers and casting others out. We've been playing this tiresome game since Cain became jealous of Abel's sacrifice. We try to deal with divisions in the community by finding someone else to blame and pushing them out. 

The Scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They placed the woman alone beside Jesus, which, as it turns out, is exactly where Jesus wished to be beside the sinner. 

All of us break the community in different ways. It may not be through adultery, but through malice, hardness of heart, untruthfulness, and the refusal to forgive. Since all of us sin, all of us are in need of salvation. 

In the Passion from the Gospel of John, which we read on Good Friday, Pilate put an inscription on the cross which read, "The King of the Jews." The Jewish leaders complained and said, "You should have written, 'This man said I am the King of the Jews.'" Pilate famously responds, "What I have written, I have written." 

Thanks be to God that God always writes a second time. Like the Israelites exiled in Babylon longing for home, we need to be shaken out of a faith that has nothing to learn about God's activity. Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do not perceive it. 

In the Gospel story, our focus is on the woman caught in adultery. We see her as the sinner. But Jesus sees right through this. "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Jesus breaks up the mob that has been focused on the woman caught in sin. Jesus himself will become the victim of a mob. On Palm Sunday, we will hear them shout, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" In taking the place of the victim, Jesus becomes the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb. In refusing the usual pattern of revenge, Jesus exposes the real sin of the world. 

Jesus replaced the myth of redemptive violence with the truth of redemptive suffering. Jesus showed us on the cross how to hold the pain and let it transform us rather than pass it on to others. That is how Jesus took away the sin of the world. He refused to pass it on. He absorbs the sin of the world until it becomes resurrection. And after the resurrection, Jesus comes among us with forgiveness. 

Jesus is trying to break our hearts of stone because that is what forgiveness always looks like. The opposite of holding in sin is forgiving for life. We are invited to step into a new future. 

On the Damascus Road, St. Paul had the experience of being approached by the forgiving victim, and it changed everything for him. "Christ Jesus has made me his own," Paul writes. "Now there is only one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead. Every human being is poised on the edge of a future that promises to be more aligned with the deepest truth about ourselves." 

We are not identified with the past. But with the future that we are struggling toward, we need others to help us toward this new future, to "forgive" us. The "for" before the verb "give" is an intensive. It signals a complete and total giving into the future that is emerging. 

The Desert Fathers tell the story of a brother who had committed a fault, so they called a meeting and invited Abba Moses. He refused to go. The priest sent someone to say to him, "They are all waiting for you." So Moses got up and set off. He took a leaky jug and filled it with water and took it with him. The others came out to meet him and said, "What is this, Father?" The old man said to them, "My sins run out behind me, and I cannot see them. Yet here I am, coming to sit in judgment on the mistakes of somebody else." When they heard this, they called off the meeting. 

God wishes to gather us from exile and bring us home. If we wish to accept this invitation, then we must dare to join the accused woman at the center of the circle, because that is where Jesus is to be found.