Homily
for March 25, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
5th Sunday of Lent
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
God's Mercy
+ + +
Gospel
Reading:
John 8:1-11
"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 the 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
any more.'"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The last three Sundays, the theme of the Gospel has been that of mercy
and this reading is perhaps the most beautiful of the readings.
“Daughter, has no one condemned you?” “No one.” “Then neither do I. Go
and do not sin anymore.” I don’t know why these three Gospels were
chosen for three weeks in a row during lent. As you know, we don’t read
from the Bible here, we read from the Lectionary, which is a
compilation of scripture from the Bible but I don’t think the editor
was being redundant. I think the Church is trying to drive something
home to us by repeating this theme again and again. God is the God of
mercy and if we are to follow him, we must be people of mercy. Similar
to last week with the story of the prodigal son, it is good to put
ourselves in this story. This is not a parable. It’s an event in the
life of Jesus. It may well have occurred during Holy week on his way to
his death in Jerusalem. I would ask you, could you identify with the
woman? Now, just to engage our imaginations a little bit, I would like
you to imagine, we will make this (pointing to the left) the sinner’s
side. Just imagine you are all sitting over there (to the right) and
we’ll see if we can fill up this side. Can you identify with the woman
who was caught in adultery?
All of you who have been shamed or shamefully exposed in sin in your
life, you have to move over here. That is many of you, many of us. If
you have ever been in prison, you have been shamefully exposed, if you
have ever been arrested, if you have ever been caught in adultery,
etc... We’re not finished yet though. Now, those of you who have done
those same things but not been caught, you move over here. Now, if
there’s anyone else left, listen to Matthew 5. “You have heard that it
was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill and whoever kills will
be liable to judgment’, but I say to you, ‘Whoever is angry with his
brother will be liable to judgment and whoever says to his brother,
‘Raca.’ (It means you imbecile or blockhead.), will be answerable to
the Sanhedrin and whoever says you fool will be liable to fiery
Gehenna”, over here. If there is anyone else left, “You have heard that
it was said that you should not commit adultery but I say to you
everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery
with her in his heart.” Get over here. Of course, we mean women and men
as well.
It seems that we can all identify with the woman. Can you identify with
the Pharisees and the Scribes? We don’t like those guys. They were
quick to judge or condemn another. Are you quick to talk about someone
else? Even if the things you are saying are true but hurtful; have you
done that? Do you remind people of their past sins constantly? This is
one of the great sins of married couples. They never forget anything,
decades later. My poor father was reminded thirty years later about
that Christmas he got drunk and knocked down the Christmas tree. He
paid for that for thirty years. In a parish I was at years ago, there
was this couple, they were in church every day, and the man was
particularly pious. It wasn’t a false pious. He was genuinely holy. You
could see it. His wife was just nagging him all of the time. I asked
the secretary, “What’s the story with that old couple?” She said, “Oh
Father, years go when he was young, he was infamous. He was never in
church except for funerals. He was terrible and she suffered a lot and
now it’s his turn.” I’m afraid a lot of us can identify with the
Pharisees and the Scribes, maybe all of us.
Can you identify with Jesus? Do you see past the sin to the heart of
the person? That’s what he did. He didn’t see an adulteress. He saw a
woman who was wounded by her sin and vulnerable and hurting. He
identified her with who she was, a child of God, not what she had done.
Notice he doesn’t condone sin. He tells her, “Go and sin no more”;
however, it is not so much, because sin violates the law but because
sin wounds the sinner. That’s why Jesus hated sin and that’s why we
should hate sin because it hurts us. It is ironic but the only one who
was qualified that day to cast that first stone was Jesus. Not only
didn’t he cast it, later on that week, he died for her.
These last three weeks this theme of mercy, I think Jesus is saying to
all of us, “Will you just take it easy on each other? Can you treat
each other with kindness, gentleness and love and respect?” Indeed,
maybe that’s the whole goal of lent. We look at lent sometimes as a
period where we deprive ourselves of things. It is similar to a boot
camp for the soul. I don’t think that’s what it’s intended to be. I
think the purpose of lent is so that at the end of this period and it’s
only two more weeks before Easter, is to present to God a humble and
contrite heart. He says, “The humble, contrite heart I will not spurn.”
You know, maybe that is all any of us are capable of doing. Maybe our
best effort is to stand before God and present Him a humble, contrite
heart. That is all He asks of us and that is all we can give Him.