Homily Lent 5C: Both compassion and conversion

Homily for 5^th Sunday of Lent Year C 2022

 Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

Introduction

As you can tell from my foreign accident, I am not from around here. Perhaps some of you think I am from Mississippi.  But actually, I am from Uganda.

When I first came to this country as a young seminarian years ago, I was invited to a fancy wedding dinner.  The RSVP card required a choice of entrée, between chicken or steak.  Now you have to understand that at weddings in Uganda, we usually have a buffet, and you get a bit of this and a bit of that.  So, I thought, I will have both; and so, I asked for both chicken and steak.  As you can imagine, because of this faux pas, I was never invited to another wedding by that family.

Scripture and Theology

While my difficulty was choosing between two goods, in today’s gospel Jesus is presented with a situation of choosing between two evils.  The Pharisees and scribes have brought him a woman, who is clearly guilty of adultery.  They set a trap for him by asking if she should be condemned to death, as the Law of Moses prescribed for adultery.  Jesus is caught between a rock and a hard place.

·        On the one hand, the rock is that should Jesus stop them from stoning her to death, he would be going against the Law of Moses that prescribed death for such serious sins; as a rabbi he would appear weak on sin.

·        But on the other hand, the hard place is that if Jesus agrees with them that she should be stoned, he would not only be going against the Roman law that reserved capital punishment to itself as the occupying government, but he would also be contradicting his own teaching about the mercy of God.

How does Jesus escape the horns of this dilemma, the stark choices of this trap?

We heard that Jesus began to write on the ground with his finger.  St. Augustine suggests that Jesus was writing down the sins of the accusers.  Others suggest that he was simply doodling, as a strategy to give the accusers time to think about their own sinfulness.  Whatever it was, it did not seem to work, for the men urged him to stop dilly-dallying and take a stand on the matter, make a choice.

Jesus responds by going to the heart of the matter and asking: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And as he continued writing on the ground, they begin to leave one by one, starting with the oldest.  Perhaps having lived the longest, the older men probably had more sins.  And so, Jesus was left alone with the accused woman.  And after establishing that nobody had condemned her, he told her: “Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

With these words Jesus resolved the dilemma, without taking one side or the other, without choosing any of the undesirable outcomes.  Instead, he chose both goods.  His words taught that God is both a God of compassion and a God of righteousness.  In compassion God tells her “Go, I have forgiven you for your serious sin; I am not going to condemn you."  And in righteousness God tells her: "But do not sin again; I challenge you to live an upright life from now on.”

It is with this double-barrelled approach of both compassion and commitment, forgiveness and righteousness, mercy and justice that Jesus usually encounters other sinners like the Samaritan woman at the Well, Zacchaeus the tax-collector.

Christian Life

Unfortunately, today, this double-barrelled approach to life is not very popular.  Many people want either/or choices, black or white answers.  For example, the story is told that President Harry Truman was exasperated by his advisers whose advise often consisted of "Mr. President if you take this action, on the one hand this will happen; but on the other hand, that will happen.”  So finally, a frustrated Truman said: “GIVE me a one-handed economist."

Even in our daily lives we know that the complexity of life itself does not lend itself to one-sided or one-handed advice, or these black or white solutions.

·        Good parents, for example, know that they must be, both pleasant to their children, and at the same time teach them discipline, not one or the other.

·        Successful football coaches are, both drill sergeants and also sympathetic mentors to their athletes, not one or the other.

·        The teachers who leave a lasting impact on their students are those who both challenged their students and encouraged them, not one or the other.

It should then not surprise us that the teaching of Jesus on many moral issues, including this passage about the woman caught in adultery, takes the form of, "both . . . and," essentially rejecting sin but not the sinner’s hope for redemption.

Let us look at the teaching of the Church on some of the hot-button issues of our society, to see how it reflects this both/and approach of Jesus.

·        The US Bishops, for example, ask for an economic policy and system that both encourages industry, hard work, personal responsibility but also provides for workers and the needy members of society.

·        They want an immigration policy that is concerned both with security of the nation and care for the needy stranger, including those who came to this country as children.

·        They ask for a criminal-justice policy that both punishes the criminal and also gives him an opportunity to turn his life around; that is why they teach against draconian sentencing guidelines.  Moreover, even though we no longer execute people by stoning like the pharisees wanted to do to the woman, capital punishment should have no place among Christians.

·        Regarding sexual morality, the Church teaches both that marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman – that is why Jesus told the woman do not sin again; but the Church also spiritually accompanies those who somehow fall short of this ideal like the woman in the gospel.

·        And how can we forget the overtures of both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis to non-Catholics, even non-Christians, Muslims!  The popes both acknowledge our differences in doctrine, but they also dialogue and work together on areas of agreement regarding morality, charity and peace.

Of course, there are binary situations, like pregnancy, where a woman is either pregnant or not, for she can’t both.  Similarly, there are binary choices especially when we must choose between good and evil, or between a greater good and a lesser good, or the RSVP card that pressured into making a choice of entre.  And we must be courageous to make those choices.

How much easier life would be, if all the choices before us where as simple either/or choices!  But more often than not, we are dealing with far more complex moral situations in life, and we must remember the double-barrelled advice of Jesus, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more."

Conclusion

As we come to the end of the Lenten season, today’s gospel should guide us on the home stretch to Easter.

·        When we are like the Pharisees and scribes that brought the woman, Jesus tells us: “be merciful just as your heavenly father is merciful.”

·        But when we are caught up in sin like the woman, Jesus says to us: “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”

The invitation to heaven asks us to RSVP, not checking one entree but both mercy and righteousness, compassion and conversion, repentance and perfection.