Deacon Bob Homily Lent5C
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This gospel passage is always relevant. Human nature not has
changed throughout history. Shakespeare, after all, has captured it in
its various nuances through his timeless peak at humanity in his
works. I would like to place the gospel in the original context and
then move it forward in time.
Jesus was preaching in the area; he was becoming known. So one
day in an effort to trap him and, perhaps, quiet him, a woman was
brought to him by a group of proud, judgmental Pharisees. She had
been caught in the very act of adultery. Perhaps, she was dragged
half naked. Quickly a crowd gathered to leer and lust and condemn
and execute her. This was a blood-thirsty mob just waiting to move.
The Pharisees put Jesus on the spot by asking him what should be
done to her. The law of Moses was clear. She should be stoned to
death.
Jesus knelt and wrote in the sand. Someone has suggested that
Jesus wrote, "Where is the man?" What made her guiltier than him?
Then Jesus stood and declared, "Let him who is without sin cast the
first stone at her." Jesus was saying, "You may stone her, but only if
you have never done or wanted to do the same thing she did." The
Deacon Bob Homily Lent5C
Pharisees all slunk away. Even they could stomach only so much
hypocrisy.
We can look at this and say this is history; nice to know but it is so
far removed from 2013. If Jesus came down the aisle of this church
and moved from person to person, my guess is he would be able to
see our into very souls and all those things that we keep hidden from
everyone else. This is what happened to the Pharisees; he looks at
the double standards and walks away. They, for that moment,
anyway, saw their own sins; their own guilt.
Recently, in our own world we read about that poor young Indian
woman, with so much life ahead of her, brutally taken off a bus in
India, raped and brutalized eventually dying from internal injuries. In
the follow up stories, I read that this is all too a common occurrence
in the poor areas of India; nothing much is ever done about the
crimes, and in many cases because of the stigma attached to such
an assault; the victim is made to marry her attacker to redeem the
family’s name.
The US too has had many of its own public scandals; too many to
mention. And in the political, public shaming of the individauls some
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Deacon Bob Homily Lent5C
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of those railing are just as guilty as we come to found out later in
many cases, and then they slink away too. I have lived long enough
to know what goes around eventually comes around – even it takes a
lifetime. It is the Pharisaical story moved forward in time again and
again.
It turns out, it is always easy to point the finger at some else, while
secretly hiding our own sins. It went on 2000 years ago – it goes on
today. Lent is a call for to change. What Jesus said to the woman –
he says to us.
“Your sin is real whatever it is. You are guilty of it. But your life is
not over yet. You have another chance.” We are all sinners in some
way. However, Christ catches our sins as if they are arrows that
pierce his heart. In his time, he was rejected by the majority, but he
was still there for all of humanity.
At any point he could have said; “I quit. I’ve had enough. They are a
lost cause.” Why didn’t he? What kept him from giving up?
Why doesn’t he quit on humanity? We really are a sorry bunch.
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Because his love for us, his children, is greater than the pain of the
journey. He came to pull us out. To move us away from our sins
whatever they are.
Lent is a time for letting go of those things that drag us down; all
those secrets; all those hurts; all that finger pointing. His love covers
them all . The years of broken promises, drugs taken, pennies stolen.
Every harsh word; His love covers all things.
What did he write in the sand? I think he wrote:
“Go home – your sins are forgiven; they are now mine.”
The good news for us is even better than that woman received, for
we live on this side of Easter morning. We know the possibilities of
that sunrise…and we have yet another chance.