5th Sunday of Lent – March 13, 2016

Is 43:16-21; Phil 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

Dr. A.J. Cronin was a great Christian physician in England. One night he assigned a young nurse to a little boy who had been brought to the hospital suffering from diphtheria, and given only a slight chance to live. A tube was inserted into the boy's throat to help him breathe. It was the nurse's job periodically to clean out the tube. As the nurse sat beside the boy's bed, she accidentally dozed off. She awakened to find that the tube had become blocked. Instead of following instructions, she was immobilized by panic. Hysterically she called the doctor from his home. By the time he got to the boy, he was dead. Dr. Cronin was angry beyond expression. That night Dr. Cronin went to his office and wrote his recommendation to the board demanding the immediate expulsion of the nurse. He called her in and read it, his voice trembling with anger. She stood there in pitiful silence, a tall, thin, gawky Welsh girl. She nearly fainted with shame and remorse. "Well," asked Dr. Cronin in a harsh voice, "have you nothing to say for yourself?" There was more silence. Then she uttered this pitiful plea, "...please give me another chance." Dr. Cronin sent her away. But he could not sleep that night. He kept hearing some words from the dark distance: "Forgive us our trespasses." The next morning Dr. Cronin went to his desk and tore up the report. In the years that followed he watched as this slim, nervous girl became the head of a large hospital and one of the more honored nurses in England. Thank God for a second chance, and a third chance, and fourth chance! Do you need to encounter God's forgiveness? He died on a cross to make it available.

Introduction: Reminding us of God’s readiness to forgive sin and to restore people to His friendship, today’s readings challenge us to show the same mercy to the sinners around us and to live as forgiven people, actively seeking reconciliation. The central theme of all three readings is a merciful God’s steadfast love. Both the Responsorial Psalm verses and the reading from Paul invite us to respond to such Divine graciousness with joy and gratitude.  The readings also encourage us to reflect seriously on the ultimate example of God’s compassionate love for us. They remind us that we cannot stand by self-righteously and condemn the lives of others when God is calling them tenderly to conversion. Repentance is not something we do. Rather, it is allowing the forgiving power of God to touch our lives and lead us along new paths. Explaining how a merciful God forgives the sins of His chosen people and leads them back from the Babylonian exile, the first reading reminds us that we too are forgiven, and that we are saved from our own sinfulness. In the second reading, Paul presents himself as a forgiven sinner who has been completely transformed by his Faith in Christ Jesus. His life is an example of obedience to the Gospel exhortation, “Sin no more.” Paul loves Christ so much that he wants to share in His sufferings and even in His death so that he may share in Christ’s Resurrection. The sinful woman’s story of sin committed and sin forgiven in today’s Gospel also shows the inexhaustible mercy and compassion Jesus grants to sinners. It invites us to recognize and experience in our lives both God’s Justice and His Mercy. We bear witness to the Justice of God by confessing our sinfulness and determining to avoid sin, and we bear witness to God’s Mercy by accepting the forgiveness of our sins and by determining to forgive those who have offended us.

First reading: Is 43: 16-21: Today’s Old Testament passage comes from the part of the Book of Isaiah that celebrates the permission from Cyrus the Great (538 BC), for Israel to return to Jerusalem from its exile in Babylon. After blaming the people, through His prophet Isaiah, for the unfaithfulness that had led to their exile, the Lord God assures the Babylonian exiles that He is going to end their prophesied 70 years' exile in Babylon. By having Isaiah remind them of how God had liberated their ancestors from their slavery in Egypt eight centuries earlier, (miraculously destroying the army of the Pharaoh and providing their food and water in the desert), the Lord God assures the exiles that He has forgiven their sins. He tells them He will provide for their return journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, giving them food, water and protection from wild animals in the desert. The reading gives us the message that we, too, are forgiven, and we are, with His grace, walking His Way of Salvation away from our own sinfulness and toward Heaven. 

Second reading: Phil 3: 8-14: Saint Paul had tried all his life to earn God's favor by carefully keeping the Law of Moses and by zealously doing what he thought God wanted. His conversion to Christ made him re-evaluate all that "as loss" and "rubbish." Thus, Paul expresses his deep regret and repentance for having persecuted Jesus in His Church and for his own futile attempts at earning righteousness by strict observance of the Mosaic Law before his conversion. Now he understands that the only real way to righteousness is to accept it as an undeserved gift of God's grace. Faith here means belief that Jesus Christ has won this righteousness for us. Faith also means making the honest admission that we, by ourselves, cannot keep any law well enough to earn righteousness, with the confidence that God is good enough to give it to us anyway. Paul does not renounce the moral law, but he sees the righteousness that comes through Faith in Christ as the righteousness from God.  As a result, he loves Christ so much he wants to share in His sufferings, even in His death, so that he may share in Christ’s Resurrection. Just as Judah is invited by a forgiving God to forget its past sins and their dreadful consequences in the first reading, Paul acknowledges how the merciful Lord has unconditionally pardoned his sins against Christians. Paul regards himself as having “been taken possession of by Christ Jesus,” and as constantly striving to be ever more conformed to the pattern set by Christ.

Exegesis: Text omitted by ancient manuscripts: This powerful narrative of Jesus and the accused woman is not found in the earliest and best manuscripts of John and appears in other important manuscripts after Lk. 21:38. Still, early Church authors, such as Papias (ca. A.D. 120) and the author of the Syriac “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” (3rd cent.), knew of such an incident, and Jerome included it in his translation. For these reasons the story is judged canonical by Catholics. It might have been omitted in some early rigorist traditions because the early Church, in its struggle to maintain strict penitential discipline, perhaps could not deal with the ease with which Jesus forgave the woman. In this episode Jesus seemed too “soft” on sin. Perhaps for this reason, the story was temporarily set aside by the early Church and was only later granted canonical approbation.

The context and the trap: The incident happened in Jerusalem, in the precincts of the Temple where Jesus had been teaching. His opponents brought forward a woman caught in the act of adultery. The Mosaic penalty for such an offense was death by stoning, although there is no evidence that this ever took place, certainly not in Roman times. Stoning was mostly done in cases of blasphemy; such was the case with Stephen, whom we read about in the book of Acts. The Jewish civil and criminal code considered three grave sins as punishable by death, namely idolatry, murder and adultery. Deuteronomy prescribes death by strangulation for a married woman caught in adultery. If the guilty woman is betrothed she has to be stoned. In both cases they have violated God’s sixth commandment and have destroyed the fidelity and unity of marriage. His opponents wanted to use the occasion to embarrass Jesus, because he had the reputation of proclaiming God’s mercy toward sinners. If he insisted on following the Law exactly, his reputation as a prophet of God’s mercy would be open to question. Besides, if Jesus consented to her death by strangulation or stoning he would be violating the Roman law, which forbade killing by private citizens. If he took the side of the adulterous woman, he was open to the charge of ignoring God’s Law and God’s Justice as given by Moses. This was the ingenious trap they had set for Jesus.

Jesus’ fair verdict: Initially, Jesus showed his lack of interest in the case by simply writing on the ground. But he was the only one in the group who could rightly judge the woman. The woman waited to hear Jesus' verdict. She knew that she was guilty. She had passed the judgment on herself, and she accepted Jesus' right to do the same. Perfectly understanding the secret intentions of her self-righteous accusers and the helplessness of the repentant sinner, Jesus gave his verdict:  “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Thus, Jesus turned the accusers’ attention back on themselves and made them realize that they, too, were sinners. St. Augustine puts Jesus’ stand as follows: “Let this woman be punished, but not by sinners; let the law be applied, but not by its transgressors.” Thus Jesus ingeniously escaped from the trap by leaving the judgment to the consciences of the accusers. This reduced the accusers to silence, prompting them to leave in shame. According to Jewish custom, the eldest should have begun the stoning. But the accusers melted away, beginning with the elders, who, like the elders in the story of Susannah (Daniel 13), had probably brought the charge.  Since the elders left scene first followed by youngsters the case against the woman was dismissed.  By appealing to the Justice of God and the injustice of humans, Jesus upheld God’s mercy.

Judgment with a stern warning: Since Jesus knew that her sin was a violation of the sixth commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” he gave the woman the strong warning, “Go, and from now on, do not sin any more.” Jesus did not shrink from calling her deed a sin, inappropriate and offensive to the Justice of God. He forgave the sinner, but he upheld the Justice of God by not excusing or explaining away the sin. Without minimizing her sinfulness, Jesus showed the sinner the respect she deserved as a human being, treating her with compassion. Clearly, he valued repentance and conversion more than simple reprisal. Not only did Jesus not condemn the woman, he even gave her hope for the future. Jesus is thus portrayed as a living expression of the Divine mercy, a wise and kind judge, more concerned with forgiveness and rehabilitation than with punishment and death. St. Augustine captures this scene with his apt remark: relicti sunt duo miseria et misericordia (“There are but two left: misery and mercy”). Her story of sin committed and sin forgiven is an example of the inexhaustible mercy and compassion shown by Jesus to sinners. When we repent and express sorrow for our sins Jesus will say “Neither will I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

Life messages: 1: We need to become forgiving people, ready for reconciliation: Jesus has shown inexhaustible mercy and compassion to sinners by dying for our sins. But we are often self-righteous like the Pharisees, and ready to spread scandal about others with a bit of spicy gossip. We are judgmental about the unmarried mother, the alcoholic, the drug addict and the shop-lifter, ignoring Jesus’ command: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Let us learn to acknowledge our sins, ask God’s forgiveness every day and extend the same forgiveness to our erring brothers and sisters. We too should learn to hate the sin and love the sinners showing them mercy, compassion, sympathy and acceptance, leading them to noble ways by our own exemplary lives.

2) We have no right to judge others: We have no right to judge others because we often commit the very faults we condemn, we are often partial and prejudiced in our judgment and we do not know the circumstances which have led someone to sin. Hence, let us leave the judgment to our just and merciful God who reads people’s hearts. We should show mercy and compassion to those who sin because we ourselves are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. The apostle Paul reminds us: “But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.” (1 Cor 11:31).

In his book, A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, Ron Lee Davis tells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much- loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years ago. He had repented but still had no peace about it. In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ. The priest, however, was skeptical about that. To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, ask him what sin I committed while I was in the high school." The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked, "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?" "Yes, he did," she replied. "And did you ask him what sin I committed back in high school?" "Yes." "And what did he say?" She smiled and answered, "Christ said, 'I don't remember.' “

(Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil)