Fifth Sunday of Lent
Reflection: ‘Sin no more’
By SISTER MARY McGLONE
Last week we heard about a wild child whose self-destructive behavior ended up sending him right back into the arms of his father.
This week, John tells us the same story with different characters. In this account, self-righteous people figure they can ensnare Jesus between fidelity to tradition and mercy.
First, a look at tradition. The Hebrew scriptures give a rather mixed message on the question of prostitution, but the strict law demanded that adultery be proven and then punished by death — for both of the people involved (Deuteronomy 20:10). In that light, the group testing Jesus was rather remiss: they did not bring witnesses, nor, most pointedly, did they bring the man who should have been stoned with her.
When the morality posse pushed Jesus to pronounce a judgment, he refused — just as he would when Pilate demanded an answer (John 19:9). Instead of letting himself be caught in their trap, Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. The point of this gesture has little to do with what he wrote, but rather how he did it. His antagonists were talking about the law, and they all knew that their law came from the finger of God (Exodus 31:18). Jesus demonstrated his authority over the law and refused to condemn the woman.
Then, in a marvelous, merciful turning of the tables, Jesus confronted the accusers, inviting anyone who had never sinned to begin the stoning. As soon as prayerful people would have heard that, Psalm 130:3 could have come to mind: “If you, Lord, mark iniquity, Lord, who can stand?” In spite of the theatrical scene they had contrived, no one dared make a public declaration that they were sinless; the others knew them far too well. What an embarrassment! Their righteousness boomeranged.
The woman in this story was nameless and had been treated as an object from the time the scene opened. The accusers barely paid her any attention. They used her as nothing more than a prop, disregarding her personhood. Yet Jesus dealt with them as human beings. He didn’t retort or defend either himself or her. One can only imagine the look on his face when he dusted off his finger and stood up to look them in the eye. Did he look angry or did he gaze on each of them with compassion? Which would have been harder on them, reprimand or benevolence? (Think of the father greeting his wayward son with love that didn’t even mention the words sin or forgiveness.)
John tells us that after the troupe disappeared, Jesus “straightened her up” and, perhaps with a great grin, he asked her, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, Lord.”
What a declaration! Standing before the man she called Lord, she herself proclaimed that no one condemned her. At that moment she could understand Isaiah’s joyful proclamation, “Thus says the Lord who opens a way in the sea . . . Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing a new thing.”
Note that Jesus did not ask her to repent before he said, “Neither do I condemn you.” The very experience of his care for her would bring about her metanoia. After this, she knew her own value and was beyond selling herself out for anyone, especially anyone who would abandon her as her illicit partner had obviously done. She had also experienced a mercy too great to keep to herself. Like the woman at the well (John 4), love would impel her to become an evangelizer.
St. Paul knew the same truth she had discovered. He admitted he had no righteousness of his own. Everything he was flowed from “the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus.” Because of that, no title or prestige was worth more than dung — literally. Both Paul and this woman could humbly glory in knowing they were loved beyond all reason.
As we move toward Holy Week, these readings invite us to approach the mysteries with eyes ready to perceive God’s love working through everything — even the worst events imaginable. At every moment, God is doing something new. We’re invited to recognize its springing forth.
These Scriptures suggest that God does not mark iniquity. Like Jesus raising this woman up or the father putting a ring on his errant son’s finger, God’s focus is on the future, on what can happen, not what is over and done. That’s what Jesus meant by saying, “Go, and from now on, sin no more.”
Let us pray that we can approach this Holy Week ready to perceive God’s invitation to “sin no more,” as an invitation to be ambassadors set on fire by God’s creative love and mercy.
Reading I
(Isaiah 43: 16-21)
Thus says the LORD,
who opens a way in the sea
and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen,
a powerful army,
till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,
snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way,
in the wasteland, rivers.
Wild beasts honor me,
jackals and ostriches,
for I put water in the desert
and rivers in the wasteland
for my chosen people to drink,
the people whom I formed for myself,
that they might announce my praise.
Responsorial Psalm
Reading II
(Philippians 3: 8-14)
Brothers and sisters:
I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having any righteousness of my own based on the law
but that which comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God,
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
It is not that I have already taken hold of it
or have already attained perfect maturity,
but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,
since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I for my part
do not consider myself to have taken possession.
Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.
Gospel
(John 8: 1-11)
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,
and all the people started coming to him,
and he sat down and taught them.
Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman
who had been caught in adultery
and made her stand in the middle.
They said to him,
“Teacher, this woman was caught
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?”
They said this to test him,
so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
But when they continued asking him,
he straightened up and said to them,
“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one,
beginning with the elders.
So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”