Archbishop’s Journal
“Let the one among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her.” That’s one of the most famous sayings of Jesus. One writer has described it as “words we have grown to love and failed to live by.” This story in John’s Gospel shows Jesus on trial: He is teaching one morning in the temple in Jerusalem and a group of scribes and Pharisees – religious officials who have come to hate him – try to trap him into a no-win situation: if he says that the woman captured in adultery should not be stoned to death, he will discredit himself by seeming to contradict the Law of Moses; if Jesus says that she should be stoned to death, he will go against his reputation for mercy and compassion, and he will also defy the Roman officials, who have forbidden the Jewish people to condemn anyone to death without Roman approval.
Let’s not miss the contrast here between the heartlessness of the Pharisees and the compassion of Jesus. To the Pharisees, the woman is not a person, she is merely a weapon to be used against Jesus, to be used and humiliated publicly. She is a “case in point,” convenient for starting an argument they feel they can win. Jesus, however, doesn’t want to condemn her; instead, he wishes to understand and reclaim a sinner. For that reason, she stands for every person who is in need of compassion, and that is how Catholics have always understood the story: it’s not a story about adultery; it’s a story about sin and forgiveness.
Once Jesus has shamed her accusers into slinking away, one by one, he savors the irony of the situation when he asks the woman, standing alone beside him: “Woman, where did they all disappear to? Has no one condemned you?” She answers, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus speaks those words which are the perfect illustration of the ancient advice to Christians, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” He says to her: “Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on, avoid this sin.” Jesus forgives the sinner without denying the sin; he doesn’t want to let her off the hook – instead, he asks her for conversion of her heart and her life. He doesn’t engage in the fuzzy thinking and psychobabble so common in our conversations today: “Now, my dear. . . .” Jesus gives her a second chance, because he believes in her, he believes that she can do it. With faith in Jesus, she can let his love change her life.
”Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” Remember, these are words we have grown to love, but failed to live by. God, the giver of repentance, is never the problem – we are. We get discouraged in our pride and tell ourselves that we cannot change, cannot do better. Just as often we cast stones of thought and word and judgment against others. We turn the subject to others’ sins because it helps us feel better about our own. How we enjoy gathering with others to deplore the behavior of someone who’s not around! Sometimes we toss pebbles and sometimes we hurl boulders, but the action is the same.
This habit is so strong, and so deeply ingrained in us and in society’s behavior, that we had better not tell ourselves “Oh, I can stop that whenever I want to – or at least cut back a bit from my worst harsh judgments.” It’s probably easier to quit smoking than it is to quit this habit “cold turkey.”
But our first two readings today are so important and so encouraging. We cannot change ourselves by ourselves, but God can change us, if we ask him to, and let him do so. As Jesus says elsewhere, “For people it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
In fact, that is his promise to us. The prophet Isaiah in the first reading speaks for God, saying what a difference he wants to make in our lives: “I am doing something new. I will make the same difference that water makes in the desert. Remember not the events of the past – I am doing something new.”
How does God work this wonder in our lives, if we let him? Jesus Christ makes the difference. For the Catholic, Jesus is the most significant other in life, and everything is held up to the light of Christ to test its place in our lives. If we do something bad, there are people in our lives about whom we say: “I hope she doesn’t find out.” “I hope no one tells him.” And if we accomplish something good, they are the first people with whom we wish to share it.
That’s who Jesus wants to be for us, his followers. That’s what Paul is saying about himself in that second reading, when he says that he has come to rate all else as loss in the light of his Lord Jesus Christ. He says: “I give no thought to what lies behind but push on to what is ahead.” What is Paul’s goal in life? “I wish to know Christ and the power flowing from his resurrection.” Does Paul think he has it made? “Not that I have reached it yet. . . but I am racing to grasp the prize if possible, since I have been grasped by Christ Jesus. I do not think of myself as having reached the finish line. My entire attention is on the finish line as I run toward the prize to which God calls me – life on high in Christ Jesus.”
That’s who Jesus wants to be for each believer, for each Christian: the goal and the means. The goal: Easter resurrection, through a sharing in all that goes before (Lent and Holy Week). The means: the one we turn to; the one we imagine there (because he is); the one with whom we do everything and in front of whom we say everything – not as a policeman or bodyguard but a loving companion, our guide and savior. Jesus Christ stands by us in all our moments; and in the worst and weakest and most sinful of those moments we hear him say: “Nor do I condemn you.”
Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the homily above on the Fifth Sunday of Lent at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, March 21, 2010.
By Archbishop George H. Niederauer
From March 26, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
