Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR C FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT Is 43,16-21; Phil 3,8-14; Jn 8,1-11 Throwing the first stone ‘The
finger of God’. Today’s
Gospel is beautifully depicted in Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion of the Christ’.
Here, the woman caught in adultery appears only an the end, in a state of
complete amazement, and of knowing to be fully accepted, free and forgiven. And
whereas the entire Passion Play comes as a story of horrendous cruelty, mad
degradation of man’s inhumanity to man, the role of women, (all surrounding
Mary, the mother of Christ) provides the play with profound wisdom,
long-suffering and tragic compassion. In one of the movie’s
‘flash-back’, we see Jesus being yelled & howled at, by the accusers who
are ready to attack the woman with stones in their hands. Jesus instead is busy
‘writing in the sand’. Many biblical scholars have attempted to find
significance in Jesus’ gesture at this specific occasion: was Jesus writing
down the many sins of the men who were ready to cast stones? Or was He
re-writing on sand the ten commandments which (as we know from Ex. 8,19 +) were
written on stone by the ‘finger of God’, or was He indicating that even now,
he was accomplishing his mission with miracles of grace & forgiveness, ‘by
the finger of God’?... At any rate, it is here that Jesus says: ‘Let him who
is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’ (Jn 8,7). The flash-back
closes with men throwing to the ground their stones, in utter despair, defeat
and angry, guilty exposure. This Lent, the Church invites us to see that we are that woman; we are
to trust in his mercy; and are to leave any judgment to God, while reaffirming
our resolve to follow Christ, who came not to condemn, but to save. The story is
told as a catch 22 situation: The crime & punishment are fully admitted, since the culprit is
caught in the act. But the accusers intend to set a trap to catch Jesus in his
very words: If he said: ‘Kill her’, he would contravene Roman Law, to which
capital punishment was reserved. If he said: ‘Spare her’, he would
contravene Jewish Law, the Torah, which imposed killing by stoning for such a
crime (Num 5,13 or Deut 22,23+) Neither
do I condemn you. Our
story is part of a larger section where each individual is called to make
his/her final judgment, choice & decision: to be for or against Christ. The
story is told as a challenge to identify with: either those hypocrites,
intending to condemn while they themselves were guilty of sin, or with the woman
accepting as she did, God’s forgiveness with surprise, gratitude and resolve
to live-on with dignity. In either option we are left with the obligation to
accept all consequences. If we dare to cast the first stone, as those howling
accusers were doing in the story, then let us receive and experience the full
weight of Christ’s condemnation: how dare we (and the older we are the more it
fits!) condemn anyone of wrong-doing, when we know we are guilty of wrong doing
ourselves. A key concept in the Bible (& in Mel Gibson’s movie) is that
before God every sin is a disobedience, betrayal and unfaithfulness against God;
and for all sins Our Lord paid the costly price of
blood, suffering and death. By his own witness of life, Mel Gibson is
inviting us to reflect that when all is said and done, collectively and
individually, we are all sinners, people who have abandoned our loving God. In
the end, every time we doubt and rebel against God, we abandon our true God who
all along is the ever faithful lover & husband, while we sinners -as harlots
on heat- get seduced by empty Gods, like arrogance, cheap pleasure, lust for
control... Lesson: to the point of
adultery, never be judgmental, never condemnatory, never dare to throw
stones. ______________________________________ |
