Fifth Sunday of Lent

   ‘This rabble knows nothing about the Law.  They are damned’

Confident in their own righteousness, Pharisees felt free to pour this scorn on the crowds who gathered around Jesus wherever he went. In today’s story, a crowd is listening to him teaching in the temple.  For their own purpose, some Pharisees join the rabble on this occasion, bringing with them a woman guilty of adultery. They have in mind a drama they hope will incriminate Jesus and discredit him with the crowd.  

Invoking a law in Leviticus which imposed the death penalty for adulterers, they pose as genuine inquirers: ‘Master, ...  What do you have to say in this matter?’ What Jesus has to say confounds them by creating a very different drama from the one they had in mind; a drama in which men’s foolishness comes face to face with the wisdom of God, and human frailty meets God’s compassion.

Against the law of retribution, Jesus sets the law of love; and applies it to both the accusers and the accused.  The accusers are not condemned, but challenged to recognise how thin is the veneer of righteousness they present to the world. Defenceless in her shame, the woman is blessed by divine mercy before she can find her voice to plead for it.

Meanwhile, if we join the listening rabble standing by, what message does the drama have for  us as disciples ?  Perhaps a  warning to abandon judging others in favour of honest recognition of my own need for God’s mercy.  Perhaps a call to forgive some past or present unfair judgement against me. Perhaps an invitation to rely not on my own fragile wisdom, strength or reputation but, in Paul’s words, to rely instead on faith in Christ and the power of his resurrection.

We may hear also a challenge to the Church, the community of faith commissioned to carry the light of Christ’s wisdom and the warmth of his love to even the darkest corners of human life.  We are aware that many are excluded from that light and warmth by adherence to the letter of the law rather than its spirit. 

Does Isaiah today have a message for the Church?

‘No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light. Can you not see it?’

Jesus constantly did new deeds, inspired by the Spirit of God. Borrowing Paul’s words again, we may pray that the Church be inspired by the same Spirit to ‘strain ahead for what is still to come’ in our understanding of the law of love and fidelity to its demands.    

Mary Britt OP