John 8: 1-11 is a
powerful social concerns gospel passage. But it
also made some in the early Church uncomfortable
and it is almost excluded from the biblical canon.
It raises a number of issues: women's rights,
structural sin, cultural oppression, strategy,
moral sin and social sin. This is a sermon given
on April 1, 2001 at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic
Church, Cheung Chau. There is a wealth of
reflection material in consult biblical
commentaries.
MERCY
FOR THE MERCILESS
04/30/01 5th Sunday of Lent (c) JOHN 8: 1-11
Some years ago
I was visiting the Philippines. On one particular
day, a Catholic women's group formed a parade and
marched through Manila's red-light district. They
had loud speakers and encouraged the prostitutes
to repent and to give up their evil occupation. I
hope that because of the urging of these
apostolic Christian women some of these "fallen"
women gave up their profession and became good
wives and mothers. These Catholic women would
certainly have welcomed each of them with
merciful love.
But today in
the gospel, Jesus adds another dimension to
merciful love. He challenges these Catholic women
in Manila and we at Our Lady of Fatima to expand
our idea of mercy.
It is obvious
that Jesus shows mercy to the woman taken in
adultery. But we often overlook that Jesus also
showed mercy to another group of people in
today's gospel: the Pharisees.
The young woman
in today's gospel was a sinner and she
knew it! She felt awfully bad about
it. She knew she had done wrong. She knew she
deserved punishment. She was scared.
In today's
gospel, the Pharisees present Jesus with a
problem.
The Pharisees
addressed their question to Jesus with solemnity
and deference. But Jesus smelt skunk. It was a
trap!
First, we will
give a little background. According to Jewish
law, two witnesses were
required to prove something bad happened. How
convenient that there just "happened to be"
two witnesses present.
It is quite possible that the Pharisees with the
cooperation of her husband, conspired to entrap
her and the "fellow"? I wonder what
happened to him. Was he was a track star and
evaded the witnesses. Or was he the son of an
important official and the Pharisees agreed to
make an exception in his case?
Now if Jesus
said: "Let her go?", the Pharisees
would say Jesus was soft on sins against marriage
and didn't follow the law. On the other hand, if
Jesus condemned her to death and said: "Take
your rocks and bash her to death", he would
have big trouble with the Roman government. You
see according to Roman law, adultery was not a
capital offense. Jesus could have been arrested
for inciting a lynching.
The purpose of
these laws was to preserve the sanctity of
marriage and to discourage other young men and
women from doing bad things.
According to
the law if a married woman did something, she
would die by strangulation. On the other hand, if
a betrothed girl did
something before her
wedding day, she was to be stoned to death. Since
girls married quite young this young woman
standing before Jesus was probably between twelve
and fifteen years old.
Jesus was so
shocked and angry that he just couldn't say
anything. That girl standing in front of him made
him think of another fifteen year old young
woman, his mother, Mary. She had been with child
before she married. If Joseph had not been a
loving person, these same Pharisees might have
self-righteously threw rocks at his mother until
she was an bloody sack of broken bones.
Jesus was fully
human like us. What a temptation it was for Jesus
to give these fellows the beating of their lives.
Instead he just sat down and doodled [NAB: "tracing"
Jn. 8:6] until he gained complete control of his
anger.
When at length
his nerves had settled, Jesus got up and
performed the day's first act of mercy. JESUS
SHOWED MERCY TO THE PHARISEES! First, he said to
them: "He who is without sin, cast the first
stone." Secondly, he again sat down but
instead of doodling he "wrote" [NAB: Jn.
8. 8] words on the sand. The oldest guy was
curious and took a peek. He turned pale. For the
first time in his life, he saw his real sins. He
quietly slipped away.
Jesus wrote
about the time that Pharisee had been fasting and
praying. On one particular day, he was in a bad
mood. The children were playing outside the
synagogue and he scolded them severely and chased
them away. The sad creature standing in front of
them was only a little girl then but from that
time on she and the other children didn't come to
play around Our Lady of Fatima Church anymore.
Perhaps if he had been friendlier, she would have
come to talk to him about the friendly man she
met and spoke romantic words to her. The Pharisee
took a peek and walked away.
Jesus then
wrote about a retired Pharisee who was asked to
start a youth program. But the Pharisee pretended
to be humble and said that he didn't have any
skills in working with children and didn't think
he could learn. So this young lady started to
hang around Pak Tai Miu playground. She met some
people who did welcome her and one day a man came
back and spoke tender words to her. That Pharisee
quietly slipped away with the realization that
false humility had terrible consequences.
Another man in
the crowd was a leader in the village. He knew
that the influential Triad gang was setting up a
brothel. He feared reprisals and ignored the
situation. So one day a man from the Triads spoke
kind words to this young lady. That Pharisee
likewise went away worried. He wondered whether
God could possibly be merciful to those who
committed serious sins of omission. Jesus smiled
kindly at him.
From the oldest
to the youngest, each Pharisee had lost his
appetite for debate. Instead each had to do some
heavy thinking.
Jesus showed
mercy to these men by gently (or maybe not so
gently) uncovering the evil sickness in their
hearts. In our own time, we too show mercy by
exposing the injustices in the world. When
Christians confront a situation of misery, they
are not only merciful to the miserable, they are
also merciful to the people who cause this misery.
Christians are always open to discovering new
dimensions of sin in their lives and in the
behavior of others.
Let us look
once again at the Catholic ladies in the Manila
who paraded through the red light district
telling the prostitutes to repent. Afterwards
perhaps these ladies were challenged to look at
some of the causes that led young women to come
to Manila. They were challenged to ask if they
participated in these sins through their
luxurious living, indifference and through their
tolerance of the behavior of their husbands and
sons. They were challenged to discover the
economic, political and cultural pressures that
made life in a "Happy House" the better
of two evils. Perhaps in this way the Catholic
women of Manila were able to be
merciful
to those who knew they
were miserable sinners
and
merciful
to those who did not yet
know they were miserable sinners.
RESPONSE
Last
week who were the people I met who were miserable
and knew they needed God's mercy? Last week who
were the people who did not
want mercy but needed it? Am I of them? How can
Our Lady of Fatima community, in small groups and
with the Hong Kong Church, address the causes of
misery?
FINALE
Please
think carefully before responding to this
question. If you need God's mercy but don't know
it, please stand up to recite the Creed.
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