5th Sunday of Lent
My dear parishioners,
God is Good!!! All the time!!! And all the time!!! God is Good!!!
In spite of Isaiah’s tireless efforts to steer kings and people in the right direction, they chose to invest in earthly forms of security rather than in God. The result of this choice was the collapse of the kingdom into the hands of the Babylonian Empire. Thousands were taken into exile. In this reading, however, God prepares to bring healing to a weary people.
This story about a woman caught in adultery is not found in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John. In many ways it fits better with synoptic tradition, especially Luke’s Gospel. Nevertheless, it has ended up here in John’s Gospel, and it is from that perspective that it must be understood and interpreted. Regardless of its origins, this is one of the most popular stories found in the entire New Testament.
Scribes and Pharisees test Jesus. The story is located in the temple area where many people have gathered to hear the teaching of Jesus. In the midst of this, some scribes and Pharisees bring a woman they claim was caught in the act of adultery. They claim that the law of Moses required such a woman to be stoned. They bring no witnesses (required by the law), and they also fail to indicate that the law condemned both the man and woman engaged in adultery (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22). The scribes and the Pharisees are clearly concerned neither with this woman nor justice; rather, they seek to trap Jesus into judging an embarrassing legal situation.
Jesus writes on the ground. Jesus does not give a verbal reply to the scribes and Pharisees. Instead, he simply begins to write on the ground. This symbolic gesture indicates that Jesus is not even going to engage the question of the scribes and Pharisees. He clearly sees through their motives, and he will not play into their hands. Such a gesture was equal to shunning a question by treating it as totally irrelevant. The content of the writing—if there was any—is unimportant. The meaning is in the gesture itself. Jesus does finally give a verbal response to the scribes and Pharisees: Whoever is without sin gets to cast the first stone. They all leave without one stone being cast.
Has no one condemned you? When all had left, Jesus asks the woman if anyone has condemned her. No one has. He then tells the woman to go and sin no more. He does not pretend that she has not sinned or that her sins are insignificant. Instead, Jesus is giving her an opportunity to start over and from now on to sin no more. The woman has been acquitted—and thus presented with the opportunity to begin a new life.
Excerpts from “Sunday Homily Helps”, is used by permission of Franciscan Media. www.FranciscanMedia.org. All rights reserved
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Aloysius