Why Aren’t Any Rocks Flying?
Many say that one of the most memorable scenes in their religious imagination is the scene depicted in our Gospel today, viz., Jesus and the Women Taken in Adultery. Even St Augustine, 1,500 years ago, said the scene is an archetypal depiction of “the person in need of mercy in the the Presence of Mercy Incarnate.”
However, others point out that the story is memorable because it comes close to home for everyone of us. However, the crowd, then, might differ in ways from the crowd now. Then, everyone in the crowd disappears. Then, everyone in the crowd cannot claim to be without sin. Then, everyone in that crowd, at least, when Jesus set the ground rules for the event was honest and left the premises.
Is it so now? One wonders whether such would happen now . Someone made the remark once that shook a lot of “good churchgoers”, “The Church was meant to be a hospital for sinners; not a hotel for the saints.”
There is a theory that this Gospel passage is located in the wrong Gospel. Nobody has ever disputed the divine inspiration of the Gospel today. However, biblical commentators feel that it would more appropriately be at home in the Gospel of St Luke. (Luke’s Gospel is the one that we are hearing on most Sundays during this Church year. Hence, even those in Rome who devised the three year Sunday cycle of liturgical readings accept this theory by its being placed in a “Year of St Luke”. In St Luke’s Gospel during the last week of Jesus’ life, He was embroiled in controversies with various groups within institutional religion at the time and certainly, this Gospel fills the bill for that motif, big time!) Its insertion in John’s Gospel which is not testified to until the eighth century places it in a context of controversy, but strikingly out of place where it is. Some have conjectured that this story of the tremendous Mercy of Jesus was intolerable for some of the pious ones, the “Church lady types from SNL” who were committed to the “hotel for the saints” motif.
Several pertinent ideas emanate from today’s Gospel. First is the very simple fact that Jesus could write!! Most people back then were probably illiterate, which is why the spoken tradition and the memorization of prayers and religious poetry were so crucial. Jesus was writing something on the ground. St Jerome conjectured that it was the sins of the crowd there that Jesus was listing. Other theories refer to biblical passages in which “God write the names of sinners in the dirt”, according to Jeremiah 17.13.
Finally, when the crowd begins to dissipate, the Gospel writer (Luke or John) states that the dispersal begins with the eldest first. Some think that those around the longest have the longest list of sins which is why they flee the scene first. If the truth were ever to be known, what would people say?
Around here, we try to call to mind our sins as we begin our liturgies. This is not to lay a deliberate guilt trip on anyone. It is an honest admission that somehow, all of us – no exceptions – have missed the mark. (Within Buddhist tradition, there is a threefold admission of guilt before group meditation commences.) We need to be reminded that all of us are family; all of us are favored by God; all of us are flawed in some way; all of us have fallen at one time or another; all of us are forgiven; all of us flounder when we forget these basic realities of human living. USA theologian Joan Chittister says there are two types of sinners, viz., those who admit they are and those who don’t admit it. Another area theologian comments, “Every saint has a past; every sinner has a future.”
Last week, we heard the Parable that defies a name, viz., prodigal son, unforgiving brother, merciful father, dysfunctional family. Only we can name the parable depending upon where we see ourselves in it. With which character, do I identify? Later this year, we will hear on a fall Sunday the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, one of Jesus’ most clever. The moment you try to put yourself into the parable, probably 50% of hearers automatically say, “Well, I am not like that Pharisee. I sin (once in a while, true), but I am not as bad as the Pharisee in the parable. The moment you make that self-judgment, You might become the Pharisee in the parable.
We need to hear this Gospel story today with the realization that we can be characterized as sinful converts or converted sinners. We are all cases of a work in progress. Jesus has spoken to us all once or twice during life.” Let the one without sin cast the first stone” “Go and sin no more.) We all live lives three steps forward and two steps backward. We all are a mass of contradictions -- no exceptions. We can’t figure ourselves out, so how come it is so easy for “church lady types” to judge others? Think about it!! This Gospel’s popularity speaks to the depths of honest Christians. 031713AD jfq
