The Homily

Lent 5

Sunday, March 21, 2010
Isaiah 43: 16-21 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 3:8-14 + John 8: 1-11
Audio version of homily

There is something timely about this Gospel story that gives our age something to reflect upon revealing two serious issues in our life style that are in conflict with the Will of God as Jesus reveals it. One cuts through every element of our society; every age, every culture, every neighborhood. The other is a more “adult” issue, but its seeds are planted early and when we look at it more seriously, it becomes a painful, sad, and serious challenge to our way of doing business as usual.

In the law of Moses, both parties to adultery are guilty and are to experience the same punishment leaving us to wonder why only the woman is brought to judgment. Herein lies the two issues. The first issue is that she got caught. More and more often in our culture it seems that getting caught is now the most serious issue. What you do, if you can get away with it is just fine. The real disgrace in our days is getting caught. I see this in our children and it frightens me. Talk with any teacher anywhere and I believe they will affirm that today’s children are more concerned with getting caught and spend more time thinking about how to avoid getting caught than they do deciding whether something is right or wrong. The shame they feel comes from getting caught not from what they did.

The problem in this Gospel story is that she got caught. Her partner seems to have avoided that scandal: never mind what the two of them were doing. At another layer of the story, the stone throwers seem very interested in dealing with the one who got caught perhaps relieved that they have not been caught. Do you not wonder if her partner in this sin might have stood there with the biggest rock relieved that he had not been caught?

Let’s not get out of here today without some serious thought about this matter. The white-collar crime of our age is the first tip of the ice berg warning us that concerns about being caught are not the best of motives for a just, moral, and good life. From athlete celebrities to politicians, the disgrace these days seems to be found in getting caught while we just shrug off real failures and sins. Not getting caught seem to give permission for continuing immorality. There is something wrong with this picture suggests the eight chapter of John’s Gospel.

The other problem exposed by this story comes from the fact that the woman stands there alone. Again, where is he? Did he get away? Was he well known? Did he have friends? Regardless of the answers, the Law they were invoking called for both to be judged and punished. Something is out of order here and a just society should be troubled. Unequal justice is not justice. The injustice of sexism is not easy to avoid. This “good-old boy” system that has a crowd of men holding rocks bringing a woman to justice while one of them is absent doesn’t seem quite right to Jesus. And so something in our culture and society comes into critique by the Gospel: sexism. Whether it has to do with adultery or more subtle forms of injustice, something is out of synch with the Gospel, and the truth is; it is evil. It worms its way through our so-called Christian society from top level boardrooms through court rooms down to classrooms and it isn’t just about equal pay for equal work either. It shows itself in divorce courts, entertainment, and commerce. The treatment of women all over this earth can be called into question by any serious reflection on this Gospel, and the Gospel intends it to be so.

Reducing this story to a lesson on the sixth or ninth commandment trivializes the bigger and more serious issues of Justice, Mercy, Compassion, and Repentance it raises.

Getting out of here today without reflecting upon this matter too should not be possible. In the Kingdom of God there will be no male and female, there will be no two levels of justice, no good old boy system, and no advantages for men over women. In fact, if we listen carefully to the Magnificat and it’s promise, the great reversal expected at the coming of the holy one might give us cause to get anxious about maintaining things the way they are.

So what seems to be a simple Gospel story we have heard enough times to recite by memory is not so simple. It is fun but very distracting to sit back and wonder what Jesus was writing on the ground when in fact we’re never going to know. To even be distracted by that gesture is to avoid and deny some very challenging things being raised by the Gospel itself. In the end, the one being accused in this story is not the woman. The one being accused is Jesus, and we use this Gospel in this season to prepare ourselves for the accusations to come in the next ten days. The trial of Jesus has begun.

Judgments are about acts not about people. Jesus condemns the act between this woman and some man, but he does not condemn the woman. The crowd wants to judge the person and thereby avoid any judgment of acts perhaps because in judging the act they will have to look at themselves. Let’s take a look at how much we are concerned with getting caught and how that shapes our choices. Isn’t it odd that sometimes we spend more time thinking about how to cover our actions or excuse ourselves than we do considering whether something is simply right or wrong? And then a deeper awareness of the evil and the power of sexism might awaken us to greater justice and compassion that makes us more ready for this Kingdom that Jesus proclaims has already begun.

— Fr. Boyer