This Gospel text is so hot that the early Church
did not accept it till about the sixth century. I guess the thinking was, if we
told people that Jesus went around forgiving people who had committed adultery,
then people might get the idea, not that Jesus forgives, but that adultery is
not all that bad.
Unfortunately we still see the church choosing to
downplay forgiveness and mercy for fear that some might get the idea that God
is, perish the thought, a forgiving and merciful Father. But that is what he
is, and mercy and forgiveness are the themes in this Sunday’s readings.
It is a dramatic scene. The Pharisees had pulled
a woman away from the very act of adultery. She was probably standing before
Jesus and the whole crowd of leering religious leaders, clutching whatever
makeshift piece of clothing she had been able to put around herself. The ones
who should have been ashamed were these hypocritical religious leaders, and not
the poor woman.
The question they posed to Jesus was meant to
entrap him. They said the woman had just been caught in the act of adultery. We
can well ask, how would they have known unless they set this act up themselves?
They pointed out to Jesus that the Jewish law said such a woman should be
stoned to death. What did he say?
The dilemma they were putting Jesus in is that if
he agreed to her being stoned, he would be undermining his whole teaching of
forgiveness. Then the Pharisees could have held Jesus and his teachings up to
ridicule. If Jesus said, however, as the law stipulated, that the woman should
not be stoned, he would be going against the Jewish law. In this case, the
hypocritical Pharisees could accuse Jesus of being a breaker of the revered
Jewish law. Finally, if Jesus said she should be stoned, he was going against
the Roman law, which forbade the Jews to carry out any capital punishment on
their own.
So Jesus was being set up in an airtight
conundrum. No matter which of the three courses he took, he would be either a
laughing stock or guilty of breaking the Jewish or Roman law. Jesus did a
peculiar thing. He squatted down and started drawing lines in the sand. This
gesture of squatting was what Jewish men often did to show their utter
disinterest in the topic at hand. Jesus was saying by this gesture, I choose
not at all to involved in your hypocritical kangaroo court against this woman.
See to it yourselves.
But rather than say, "See to it
yourselves," he said something else that was a stroke of genius. He said,
"Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone." This was
such a beautiful comeback, for Jesus was saying "I recognize the Jewish
laws and the Roman laws; but if you are so eager to see this woman stoned, let
he among you who has never committed the same sin as this woman, let that
person cast the first stone." Then we read that Jesus went on drawing
lines in the sand. Some commentators say he was writing the sins of each man,
or at least that each man, walking by and looking down at Jesus' lines in the
sand, saw written there his own sins of adultery and worse. And the text says
they all walked away, beginning from the eldest.
Then Jesus did a most beautiful thing. He
recognized the woman as a human person deserving of respect. He showed he
sympathized with her feelings of shame and confusion. He asked simply of the
woman: "Has no one accused you?" She probably hung her head when she
answered softly, "No one, Lord." Then Jesus showed his divine mercy
in saying softly also, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, then, and do not
commit this sin again," or more simply, as some translations, "Go,
now, and sin no more."
Let us pray and reflect: “Do not, O Lord,
withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep
me safe forever.” (Psalm 40:11).
Lord,
I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who have done foolish, sinful things. Let us
put our trust in your mercy to take us by the hands and say: Ha s
no one accused you, then neither do I.”
