Word to the Wise
Monday, March 10, 2008 - Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
[Daniel 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62 and John 8:1-11]Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.
Does Jesus condone adultery in this scene? No! Does Jesus comment on the rightness or wrongness of the Mosaic Law which calls for capital punishment in cases of adultery? No! Does Jesus fall into the "trap" that the scribes and Pharisees try to set for him (Mosaic Law v. Roman Law)? No! Then what DOES Jesus do in this incident? He shows wisdom and compassion. Revenge - legal or not, public or private - has no place in Jesus' teaching. Perhaps it is not the woman's offense that Jesus is responding to. Perhaps it is the sheer lust for revenge and killing in the name of "justice" and the additional shaming of the woman by using her to get at Jesus! His response is to show what is clearly absent: wisdom and compassion. Writers such as Rene Giraud have pointed out the deep seated need that seems to exist in some societies to have a scapegoat. What may appear to be the "impartial" administration of justice turns out to be an exercise in heaping our own collective guilt on someone who has been convicted of an offense by inflicting the worst punishment permitted by the law. This conduct is cloaked in righteous indignation, appeals to "justice," and claims about deterrence in case anybody else (perhaps amongst us judges) might be thinking of doing the same thing. A recent startling study shows that nearly 1 in every 100 adults in this country is now incarcerated. Our prison population is one of the largest in the world! Wisdom and compassion should intimate to us that such a figure says more than we care to admit about ourselves. If we were to happen on this scene by accident, where would we "stand?" With the authorities who demand "justice?" With the woman who does not deny she committed adultery? With Jesus who wisely dodges the ideological trap and shows compassion to the woman? Would we have "mixed feelings" about it all? The woman stands forgiven, not excused, by Jesus. Forgiveness is much harder to show than judgment. How do we stand? AMEN
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