Today’s Gospel Story (John 8:1-11) is the Woman caught in Adultery. Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more”. The Gospel Verse is “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart; for I am gracious and merciful”. In the Reading from Isaiah we hear, “see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”.
The majority report sees this Story as reminding us that Jesus shows us a merciful and forgiving Abba, and it is not up to us to judge people. For the minority report the Story can be as personal as I want it to be, or not. It speaks on many levels. Like all of us I am reading this Story in the setting of terrible evil and nastiness happening in our own country and throughout the world, and this is the filter through which I am processing it. Public shaming, blaming, and denial have become a normal part of life.
Everything, even the nastiness, is the unfolding of Abba being Abba. I can’t demonstrate or prove this, but I believe it. I also believe that somehow I am a part of it either as a bystander or as someone trying to respond to Abba’s grace and do something about it, hopefully not causing it. Which begs the question what is Abba saying to me in all the nastiness and evil that is going on throughout the world, is there something Abba is asking me to do?
This is a story of trust and forgiveness. The woman stands before Jesus who has just saved her life. He tells her, “you can do better than that, so go and get your life together”. This is pretty much what he keeps telling me. I know better than to keep doing the dumb things that I’ve been doing for so much of my life, and yet . . . I know I don’t want to be like the Scribes and Pharisees in the Story, completely focused on the laws and rules to the point of causing good folks to be hurt. They saw themselves as the only true followers of Yahweh, and even they had differences of opinion, sects, as to who was going to be saved. Jesus was most interested in knocking down any institutions or system that caused people to suffer. By the way he lived he reach out to the folks who were hurt and welcomed them into his life and so to his Abba’s life.
In the Story the woman is accused of adultery. But she could not have committed adultery by herself. Where is the man? Why isn’t he accused along with her? Again the followers of the system are causing people to suffer. Am I doing anything like that in my own life? In my Army service I worked with many fine woman chaplains, and others, whose faith in Abba was as strong as mine, even though we had some different understandings. I worked for women, with women, and supervised women. It was a growing experience. The women chaplains had a pastoral sense that no male, celibate or not, could have, because it was based on their lived experience as women. Yet today women are kept out of certain positions by celibate males, clericalism. Is there something we are afraid of? Pope Francis is trying to move the church towards recognizing this. He is going too slow for some, and too fast for others.
Jesus calmly said, “Has no one condemned you?, neither do I condemn you”. You can do better. I hear him saying this to me, again, telling me, “you can do better, keep at it”. I know the freeing it gives me to say that same this to others, as happens in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But I am asked to live these words in my ordinary every day living too, where it is a lot harder than saying them in a Ritual. With all the evil and nastiness going on these days it really is difficult.
In the reading from Isaiah Abba says, “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!”. Somehow in all the nastiness and evil going on these days Abba is being Abba, doing something new. I don’t understand this but I believe it. The Story is telling me to be careful that I don’t become like the Scribes and Pharisees with their smug self-righteousness. I don’t have all the answers, sometimes I don’t even understand the questions. Last week I spoke a few words at a Vietnam Veterans ceremony where I said it was in Vietnam that I learned how to be a priest – take care of my people and do what has to be done, help the person in front of me whoever they are. Sometimes this means protection, sometimes it means tough love. I need to watch my own attitudes towards people I just don’t like for whatever reason, towards folks who’s views on any number of things are significantly different from mine. Abba is not condemning me, so how do I get away with condemning folks who do not think the way I want them to?
I know Abba is doing something new in my life, and I am most grateful for this. Yet I can do better than I am doing, and keep trying to get my life together. This is no simple thing. There is always room for improvement. I think I’m being reminded that my life is exactly where it needs to be for me to become more open to Abba in everything. I don’t have to judge anybody, except myself. Everybody in my life, even the annoying folks that I just don’t like, have the right and the need to be in my life because, in the providence of Abba we need each other. This is not just a pious idea, it is reality. “What’s in the way is the way.” Even in these difficult days. Perhaps I need to ask myself if there is any way in my daily living where I am being like the Scribes and Pharisees towards anybody at all. As I try prayerfully to read this Story, I need to remember it is speaking to me about how Abba is asking me to live, not how I am to expect others to live. It is not a matter of me “pleasing” Abba, as much as it is of following and imitating Jesus as he shows me his Abba, and gradually coming to recognize him happening in my life. Just sayin . . .