The Woman Caught in Adultery

5^th Sunday of Lent (C); April 7, 2019

Is 43:16-21   Ps 126   Phil 3:8-14   Jn 8:1-11

Deacon Jim McFadden

 

People of God, what an overflow of rich Lenten readings we have, which are so richly textured and challenging. Last week we had what some consider the greatest story ever told, the parable of the Prodigal Son. This week we have the story of the woman caught in adultery from John’s Gospel—a tale that has beguiled Christians and non-Christians for two millennia, in which Jesus reaches out in mercy in order to bring sinners back to life.

Listen how the story gets underway. We hear that “the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery” (Jn 8:3) Use your imagination and let this sink in. Where were these people positioned? Was this a set-up? What were they looking at when they caught her in the very act of adultery? These people were carefully looking for someone they could blame. Are they doing this as an act of love, to help her grow spiritually. Give me a break! They are doing this to attack her, to humiliate her. We know this because what did they do? They drag her out, which could not have been more humiliating for the woman. First, she is caught in the very act of adultery—I mean, how embarrassing would that be?! On top of that, she can’t just slink away and hide, but they drag her out and make her stand in the middle of the crowd. Just how incomparable cruel and insensitive is this! Can you imagine being in that situation?

Then what do they do: being the “professional religious,” they are the keepers of the law, enforcing the law, just as Moses told them they’re using her to get at Jesus, their real target. They just don’t want to hurt her, but to hurt Jesus himself.   So, they try backing the Lord into an impossible corner. If he says , “Show mercy and let her go,” they can say “Oh, you don’t love the Law.” If he says, “Follow the Law, stone her to death”, they can say, “Look at this guy who purports to be compassionate and merciful; he’s just a hypocrite” So, it seems that they have caught Jesus.

What John is so brilliantly showing us in one fell swoop, the corruption of Law, ritual, Temple on full display. In one gesture, he’s showing everything wrong with the Temple, which had become self-referential, which is why Jesus would overturn the money-changing tables on Palm Sunday.

John wants us to watch Jesus because he is Immanuel, coming to renew the Temple. So, we’re meant to see in him what the Law, the ritual, the sacrifice looks like when the glory of God returns and has inhabited them once again.

Jesus bends down and writes on the ground—the only time in the Gospels that he is ever depicted writing anything, which is a fascinating detail.   St. Augustine has speculated that he was writing all the sins of the those who were accusing the woman. Wonderful suggestion—it may be true. Then he stands up and utters one of the more famous lines in the New Testament tradition, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast the first stone at her” (v. 7).

We hear that one of the prime purposes of the Law is to make us humble. Do you see what’s going on- what are they doing with the Law? They’re not allowing it to make them humble, but they are using it as a weapon to humiliate someone else.   And, again, fellow sinners, brothers and sisters, we all do this: whether it’s through gossip, blaming—we use the Law not to humble ourselves recognizing how fall short I have fallen, but to humiliate others and, in so doing, superficially inflating my moral stature and superiority.

In contrast,   watch how Jesus relates to the woman. At its intended purpose, the Temple was always meant to be a place of mercy, a place where sins are forgiven, and where friendship with God is re-established. Well, Jesus is the NEW TEMPLE! He is the return of Yahweh’s glory to the Temple. Therefore, what do we see in him in contrast to the scribes and Pharisees? We see mercy, within mercy, within mercy. We see God reaching out to the sinner in non-condemnation.

But, mind you, to use Dietrich Bonhoffer’s phrase, this is not cheap grace. The Lord reaches out in mercy, yes, indeed! Then he says, “Do not sin anymore (v. 11). See, he’s not denigrating the Law, but using it to bring a sinner back to life. All that remains is what Augustine said, “Miserea Misercordia”—misery and mercy. The Temple, and Jesus is the New Temple, is where those two meet. Amen.