Turning to the Lord

Sometimes our observance of Lent can be disappointing. We began with hope of “turning to the Lord,” but ended up living life as usual. Maybe the best remedy is to experience Lent as a time of God’s activity, not our own activity. This is Isaiah’s perspective in the first reading.

He addresses Israel in its darkest hour, after the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, seemingly voiding God’s promise to protect and bless Israel. The first thing the prophet does is to remember the event that brought the people into being, “the Lord, who opens a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters.” But then Isaiah makes a shocking change in the traditional story. “Remember not the things of the past, things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!” The prophet is announcing that God is doing once again that foundational event – leading the people in a new exodus, not from Egypt this time but from Babylon.

The Gospel of John dramatizes the Lord’s saving power in three stages: (1) religious officials bring the woman before Jesus and lay out their accusation (8:3-6a); (2) an exchange between Jesus and the accusers (8:6b-9); and (3) an exchange between Jesus and the woman (8:10-11). The accusers’ primary goal is not to punish the woman but to trap Jesus. She is simply a pawn in their scheme. Faced with her guilt, which is not in question, Jesus must either step back from his policy of mercy toward sinners or else defy the prescriptions of the law.

Jesus’s stooping down and writing on the ground is a wordless refusal to engage the issue as the officials present it. When the accusers press their suit (v. 7a), it is from his lowly posture that he “looks up” at them and puts his searing proposition, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus does not confront the law directly. He just points out that the only person who has a perfect right to condemn another is someone who has never sinned.

The accusation falls to the side. Jesus has a better way of dealing with sin than condemnation and punishment. He neither denies nor condones sin. His concern is to rescue the woman from her terrible plight and set her free for a new direction of life: “Go and from now on sin no more.” A subtle point is that Jesus never actually looks at the woman while she is being accused. It is only when her accusers have melted away that he looks up and speaks to the woman, now free from accusation. He does not judge her from “on high” but lowers himself to restore her dignity and self-esteem. The scene is thus a parable of his whole saving work, just as later when he kneels to wash his disciples’ feet.

Richard Clifford, S.J. former President of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and Founding Dean of the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry