A Scriptural Reflection on the Fifth Sunday of Lent | Carl E. Olson | March 21, 2010
Readings for Sunday, March 21, 2010:
• Isa. 43:16-21Lent is a time to grapple with difficult questions about ourselves, our sins, and our relationship with God. Two related questions I often confront are: Do I examine my conscience, my actions, and my attitudes too carelessly? And do I examine the actions and attitudes of others too carefully? Put another way, do I spend more effort and energy finding fault in others than I do in finding and admitting my faults?
• Psa. 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6
• Phil. 3:8-14
• Jn. 8:1-11
Today’s Gospel reading raises these questions in dramatic fashion. It describes an encounter between Jesus, who was teaching the crowds during the Feast of Booths, and the scribes and Pharisees, intent on teaching Jesus a lesson by entrapping Him. They were apparently annoyed that a man who was seemingly lenient about keeping the Law was teaching so authoritatively about it. What better time to so than in the Temple area during a busy, important feast?
In bringing forward a woman who had committed adultery, the scribes and Pharisees undoubtedly had in mind the Law’s command to put to death “both the adulterer and the adulteress” (Lev. 20:10), which was to take place by stoning (Dt. 22:23-24). Which raises the not insignificant question: if she was caught “in adultery”, where was the other offending party? This suggests, as Jesus recognized, that their motivation had little to do with fervently keeping the Law and everything to do with destroying their competition and saving their reputation.
Jesus’ response has fascinated commentators, and ordinary readers for centuries. He stooped, wrote something in the ground, and said, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He then resumed writing. Silenced, they went away.
We can only guess, of course, at what Jesus wrote, but isn’t that part of what makes the confrontation so intriguing?
St. Jerome surmised that Jesus had written “the sins, to be sure, of those who were making the accusation,” perhaps a reflection of his own combative personality. St. Augustine took a more theological tact, musing that Jesus “wrote on the ground to signify that the time had now arrived when his law should be written on soil that would bear fruit and not on sterile stone, as before.” He, as well as other Church fathers, noted that the same God who had written His Law into stone at Mount Sinai was now stooping before sinners to write something in the dirt that would convict the hardened hearts of those who taught the Law, but did not love or live it.
It might appear that Jesus, when left alone with the adulterous woman, had no interest in addressing her sin. In fact, this story is sometimes misused to argue that Jesus came not to judge, but to forgive, and so we must never judge the actions of others. Yet that is a subtle and distorted misreading, for there is a difference between judging and condemning; it is the difference between identifying the sin and destroying the sinner. Jesus knew that the woman was well aware of her sin. How could she not be? And so He said, “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
This story highlights the Lenten challenge I noted at the start. Most people do not deny outright the existence of evil, or sin, even if they won’t use that word. But many refuse to believe that they could have anything to do with evil. “Sure,” they say, “evil is personal and is committed by persons—but not by me.” The danger is that by comparing ourselves to others we ignore or miss that holiness and salvation do not come by us being better than others, but, as Saint Paul wrote, “through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God.”
Only the Law Giver can save us from the condemnation of the Law. Only the Person who wrote the Law can stoop and write the truth of His love in the soil of our souls.
(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in a slightly different form in the March 25, 2007, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
Related Ignatius Insight Articles and Book Excerpts:
• Hardships and Sonships: A Scriptural Reflection on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 14, 2010 | Carl E. Olson
• The Lessons of the Desert: A Scriptural Reflection on the Third Sunday of Lent, March 7, 2010 | Carl E. Olson
• The Cross, the Key to the Glory of Heaven: A Lenten Reflection for the Second Sunday of Lent, Feb. 28, 2010 | Carl E. Olson
• Who Creates Anew? A Lenten Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent, Feb. 21, 2010 | Carl E. Olson
• Lent: Why the Christian Must Deny Himself | Brother Austin G. Murphy, O.S.B.
• Lord, Teach Us To Pray | Fr. Jerome Bertram
• The Question of Suffering, the Response of the Cross | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• The Cross--For Us | Hans Urs von Balthasar
• The Premises of Gospel Poverty | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• Lent and "Our Father": The Path of Prayer | Carl E. Olson
• Thirsting and Quenching | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• Seeking Deep Conversion | From Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• "Lord, teach us to pray" | From Earthen Vessels | Gabriel Bunge, O.S.B.
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