FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

[cappie]

The Gospel for the fifth Sunday of Lent continues to offer lessons about God's mercy and forgiveness. Last Sunday we heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke. Today we hear not a parable, but the report from John's Gospel of an encounter among Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees, and a woman caught in adultery.

In the chapter preceding today's Gospel, Jesus was teaching in the Temple area. Feeling threatened by his teaching and his actions, the chief priests and the Pharisees are already sending guards to arrest Jesus. The guards return, however, without arresting Jesus because they have been impressed by his words. Even more than this, some among the crowds are considering the possibility that Jesus is the Messiah. The chief priests and the Pharisees change their plan. Before making an arrest, they seek to gather more evidence against Jesus by posing a question intended to trap Jesus.

The scribes and the Pharisees approach Jesus, bringing a woman who has been caught in the act of adultery. They put to Jesus the question of what ought to be done in this case.

The Pharisees state clearly that according to the Law of Moses, those caught in the act of adultery were to be stoned to death. Under Roman occupation, however, the Jewish people did not have the authority to execute people; this is cited in John's passion narrative. To answer the Pharisees' question, Jesus must propose an action that will be either contrary to the Law of Moses or contrary to Roman law. The purpose of the question appears to be similar to the question about paying taxes found in Mark 12:13-17. Either answer, yes or no, will support the Pharisees' case against Jesus.

Jesus avoids the trap, however, by offering an answer that was not anticipated by those who posed the question. Jesus, after writing on the ground with his finger, addresses those who stand before him and suggests that the one without sin cast the first stone.  They all dropped their stones and walked away because none of them in honesty could claim to be sinless, and I suspect each of them had been accomplices to the sins of others.  They  had an intimate knowledge of shame. Even Jesus in his humanity experienced great anxiety and discomfort at the knowledge of what he would have to undertake in order to fulfil the will of his Father.

And so perhaps we can take some comfort in that.  Jesus knows the experience of shame.  Jesus understands why we are prone to hide and cover up.  Jesus is aware that the pathway of healing leading to wholeness is often very difficult and painful before we find relief and wholeness.  Jesus knows this because Jesus brought shame out of the darkness and into the light when he was crucified.  He hung exposed and naked on the cross and bore the shame of our hubris as the ultimate expression of love.  He took on our shame so that we would never have to experience separation from God if we would but follow him into the light where we can know him as he knows us.  To take off the clothing of shame that we have dressed ourselves in and expose the beauty of who God has created us to be:  children of God, children of Light.  In his book The Kingdom Within, John Sanford says we can only experience salvation when we take off our masks and expose the real essence of our creation.

Left alone with the woman, Jesus asks where the accusers have gone. With no one remaining to condemn the woman, Jesus (the one who truly is without sin) sends the woman on her way, refusing to pass judgment on her and exhorting her to avoid future sin.

Our God is ever a God of the future, not of the past. We are to live with hopeful hearts, “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead,” as Paul tells us. His salvation, Paul says, is power in the present, “the power of His resurrection.”

 May we learn from the lesson of today's Scripture readings to avoid dwelling on the sins of the past but rather always offer hope and healing to those who rely on our kindness and compassion.