Fifth Sunday of Lent
“Neither do I condemn you.” Jn. 8:11
(NOTE: The Church gives a variety of choices for this Sunday. I have chosen the following powerful story that is one among those choices)
Imagine.
Imagine for a moment that you are the woman in today’s Gospel of John.
Imagine the experience of crippling shame while being led out in front of these hate-filled men taunting you with words of total revulsion.
Imagine the self-righteousness of the men whose hands are wrapped around stones – stones that will be used to smash your head into smithereens.
Imagine the horror, the terror, the utter sense of hopelessness in your heart.
Just imagine.
In today’s world, we use one word to describe the experience of this woman:
Trauma.
Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman posits it as “an affliction of the powerless.” A person faced with this moment of horror is, to use Dr. Herman’s phrase, “a victim rendered helpless by overwhelming force … and confronted with the extremities of helplessness and terror. The experience evokes the response of catastrophe.”
And, as if this were not enough in itself, today’s Gospel story also highlights another appalling reality … a missing person.
Where is the man in this sin of adultery?
Remarkably, he is nowhere to be seen or even mentioned! Jewish law at the time savaged only women. Men were exempt.
So, aside from the obvious issue of horrible trauma being imposed on this woman, this story also raises the challenge of the century’s old degradation of women. Even two thousand years after this story was first told in our so-called “Christian” countries, rape, domestic violence, incest, sexual abuse, and other mal treatments of women persist.
Historically, women have been non-entities. Only in the last decades of the twentieth century have laws been passed that grant women and children equal protection under the law.
Now, in the light of all this, notice the words and demeanor of Jesus.
He does not side with such hypocrisy. He does not accept either the death sentence or the male arrogance attached to it.
Instead, Jesus utters one of the most famous sentences of all time:
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
In this one strong, memorable statement, the accusers become the accused.
Once again, Jesus, by both his words and his actions, shows us the God he has been sent to reveal: “mercy, within mercy, within mercy,” as Thomas Merton famously described it.
But Jesus doesn’t just stop there.
As St. Augustine says, “Only two remain, the relieved woman and the incarnation of mercy.”
Jesus now addresses the woman – a woman most likely experiencing untold relief.
And Jesus addresses her in a whole new way. She is no longer just a victim caught in a terrible dilemma; rather she is now an adult who can enter into a relationship with Jesus and the God he has come to reveal to her: a God of forgiveness, a God of welcome, a God who desires her to be fully renewed and revitalized, a God of second and third and fourth … even infinite chances.
Jesus offers her, not only protection from her accusers, but so much more: the possibility of a whole new life.
“Go, and from this moment on do not sin again.”
A new beginning is possible for her. A new way of living has opened up before her, and a new sense of hope, of promise must be beating within her heart.
The woman in this beautiful and treasured story naturally represents each one of us.
Our sins need no longer be a place of shame and rejection within us. Our sins need no longer be a stumbling block to a full embrace by the God of Jesus.
In truth, we are each being addressed in this famous story. We are each being told, along with that cherished woman, that new life is always possible, new beginnings can always be made, new hope is always available.
Always.
Imagine that!
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
