We are told that the woman
was brought to Jesus as a test.
The dilemma is whether or not to stone her,
which was commanded in the Law of Moses
as the penalty for adultery,
but which violated the Roman ban
on the Jews carrying out death sentences,
a privilege they reserved for themselves.
If Jesus said to stone the woman,
he would be speaking contrary to Roman law,
but if he said not to stone her
he would be speaking contrary to the Law of Moses.
So it is a test, a trap, a trick
designed either to discredit Jesus
in the eyes of his fellow Jews
by showing his disregard for Jewish Law,
or to mark him out in the eyes of the Romans
as one who flouted the laws of Rome.
But what of the woman?
To those who bring her before Jesus
she is merely a means to test Jesus,
a tool they can use to trap and trick him.
They do not care about the terror on her face.
They do not care about her public humiliation.
They do not even care how Jesus decides her fate,
for whichever way he decides
they will have caught him in their trap.
She is simply a pawn to be sacrificed
in the game they are playing.
It is as if they do not see her.
To those who bring her before Jesus
she is merely a means to test Jesus,
a tool they can use to trap and trick him.
They do not care about the terror on her face.
They do not care about her public humiliation.
They do not even care how Jesus decides her fate,
for whichever way he decides
they will have caught him in their trap.
She is simply a pawn to be sacrificed
in the game they are playing.
It is as if they do not see her.
But Jesus sees her.
He sees her fear and her shame.
He sees the deep pain of the wound
that sin has inflicted on her soul.
He sees her accusers as well.
He sees that they seek to trap him
because they too are afraid,
afraid of Jesus and the threat he poses
to their all-too-complacent picture
of themselves as people of virtue,
people with whom God must be well-pleased.
He sees that they too bear the wound
that sin has inflicted on their souls.
He sees her fear and her shame.
He sees the deep pain of the wound
that sin has inflicted on her soul.
He sees her accusers as well.
He sees that they seek to trap him
because they too are afraid,
afraid of Jesus and the threat he poses
to their all-too-complacent picture
of themselves as people of virtue,
people with whom God must be well-pleased.
He sees that they too bear the wound
that sin has inflicted on their souls.
Some say that when Jesus bends down
to write in the sand
he is writing the sins of the woman’s accusers.
But perhaps he is simply pausing
to create a space in which they can begin
to examine their own consciences,
a pause in the frenzy of accusation
for a moment of self-awareness.
And when the accusers persist,
Jesus says “Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her,”
and then resumes his writing,
letting them realize to their shame that they
have been caught in their own trap.
He keeps his eyes on his writing,
giving them a chance to drift away
unseen by the one who has already
seen into their hearts.
to write in the sand
he is writing the sins of the woman’s accusers.
But perhaps he is simply pausing
to create a space in which they can begin
to examine their own consciences,
a pause in the frenzy of accusation
for a moment of self-awareness.
And when the accusers persist,
Jesus says “Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her,”
and then resumes his writing,
letting them realize to their shame that they
have been caught in their own trap.
He keeps his eyes on his writing,
giving them a chance to drift away
unseen by the one who has already
seen into their hearts.
St. Augustine paints a striking picture
of that moment when the crowd has melted away
and the woman is left standing before Jesus.
He writes, “The two of them alone remained:
mercy with misery” (On the Gospel of John 33.5).
Augustine is playing on the connection between
the Latin word for misery—miseria—
and the Latin word for mercy—misericordia,
which combines the word miseria
with the word cordia, which means “heart.”
To have mercy on someone,
to have misericordia,
is to take that person’s misery
into one’s own heart,
to know within oneself another’s suffering
and to act accordingly.
To have mercy on someone,
we must see them,
see the beloved creature of God
whom fear and shame afflicts.
Jesus sees the woman for who she is,
both her glory as God’s creature
and her sinful, shameful misery,
and in his heart that misery
is washed away in a flood of mercy.
“Go, and sin no more.”
The voice of God speaks:
“Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!”
of that moment when the crowd has melted away
and the woman is left standing before Jesus.
He writes, “The two of them alone remained:
mercy with misery” (On the Gospel of John 33.5).
Augustine is playing on the connection between
the Latin word for misery—miseria—
and the Latin word for mercy—misericordia,
which combines the word miseria
with the word cordia, which means “heart.”
To have mercy on someone,
to have misericordia,
is to take that person’s misery
into one’s own heart,
to know within oneself another’s suffering
and to act accordingly.
To have mercy on someone,
we must see them,
see the beloved creature of God
whom fear and shame afflicts.
Jesus sees the woman for who she is,
both her glory as God’s creature
and her sinful, shameful misery,
and in his heart that misery
is washed away in a flood of mercy.
“Go, and sin no more.”
The voice of God speaks:
“Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!”
In this holy season of Lent
the Church asks us to prepare
to celebrate the Pascal Mystery
through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
We usually think of almsgiving
in terms of monetary giving and material support.
But our word “alms”
comes from the Greek word eleemosyne,
which in turn comes from the word eleos,
which means “mercy,”
as in the phrase Kyrie eleison—“Lord have mercy.”
The call to give alms in Lent
is at its root a call to plunge into the heart of mercy.
It is a call to seek mercy for ourselves
through the sacrament of penance,
in which we allow Christ to see us
as he saw the woman caught in adultery:
God’s beloved creature afflicted by misery.
But it is above all a call
to open our own hearts to the misery of others—
the misery of human suffering
that our material support can alleviate,
but also the misery of sinners,
especially those who have sinned against us.
These are the alms we often find most difficult to give:
the alms of forgiveness to those who have hurt us,
the alms of seeing enemies as God’s beloved children,
burdened with fear and shame;
the alms of opening our hearts to them in mercy,
so that the mercy we have received from God
might flow forth from us into the world,
like “water in the desert
and rivers in the wasteland.”
through the sacrament of penance,
in which we allow Christ to see us
as he saw the woman caught in adultery:
God’s beloved creature afflicted by misery.
But it is above all a call
to open our own hearts to the misery of others—
the misery of human suffering
that our material support can alleviate,
but also the misery of sinners,
especially those who have sinned against us.
These are the alms we often find most difficult to give:
the alms of forgiveness to those who have hurt us,
the alms of seeing enemies as God’s beloved children,
burdened with fear and shame;
the alms of opening our hearts to them in mercy,
so that the mercy we have received from God
might flow forth from us into the world,
like “water in the desert
and rivers in the wasteland.”
The days of Lent are growing short,
but it is never too late to seek mercy—
to receive mercy and to give mercy
so that misery and mercy might meet.
May God who is rich in mercy
have mercy on us all.
but it is never too late to seek mercy—
to receive mercy and to give mercy
so that misery and mercy might meet.
May God who is rich in mercy
have mercy on us all.
