5th Sunday of Lent_SAP

Let’s put ourselves in the Scribes and Pharisees’s shoes for a second. Here we have Jesus going around from place to place, gathering a crowd, and he is super annoying. Seemingly every chance he gets, he challenges your authority. On top of that, you can’t even do anything about it, because the minute you do, the crowd following him around will cause havoc.

So here’s the question: how can you get rid of this nuisance without raising havoc? Well, here’s an idea. You set a trap. A trap where, either way, you are not responsible for what happens. Either Jesus contradicts the Law, and delegitimizes himself, or you trick him into doing something illegal, like inflicting capital punishment, which the Jews were outlawed by the Romans from doing. It’s a win win! Either way, you are not responsible! It’s not on you!

You’ve set your trap. All the pieces are in place. It’s time. You lead Jesus right into the trap: “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?”

And what does Jesus do? He doodles, and then he turns the responsibility right back on you! “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus is king of the blame-game. You, the Scribes and Pharisees, set up everything so that you weren’t to blame for Jesus leaving the picture. Now you have no other option but to leave. It’s on you.

But what’s with the doodling? That was really weird. You attempt to put Jesus between a rock and a hard place, and he just bends down to write in the dirt with his finger. It is here that we know that the Scribes and Pharisees never stood a chance.

This is the only instance recounted in the Gospels where Jesus writes something, and there are many many ideas of what he might have been writing. Was he writing down the sins of those condemning the woman? Was he writing down their names, threatening to turn them in to the Roman authorities? I think that if what he was writing was important, the Gospel writers would have recounted it to us. It’s not so much what he was writing that is important but what he was writing with.

He wrote with his finger. Not a stick, not some kind of pen, but with his finger. Here we see how futile the trap was. “Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” Listen to this passage from Exodus: “And [God] gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the covenant, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” God made man writes with his finger as if to say, “You dare question me about the Law? I who wrote the Law!”

However, brothers and sisters, there is something much more profound going on here than Jesus’s one-upping the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus first writes on the dust of the earth, to remind us that it is he who wrote the Law, then he writes his New Law on the heart of the woman. He who places water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland now, with his finger, etches ravines into the heart of this woman so that the water of his Spirit might flow in her heart, cleansing her of impurities, changing her heart of stone into a heart of flesh. A heart so refreshed with the life-giving Spirit, that Jesus can say, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

But weren’t the Scribes and Pharisees just as much in the wrong as her? They who misused the gift of God’s Law for their own advantage? Why did she receive forgiveness, and they didn’t? Because she stayed. She who was dragged there against her will did not run away when her accusers left. She stayed. She knew that she had done wrong. Unlike the Scribes and Pharisees, who with all their might attempted to shift the blame away from themselves, she, in some way, took responsibility for her actions and awaited her sentence from the just, divine, judge.

By accepting responsibility for her actions, and remaining at the feet of Jesus, she exposed her heart so that Jesus might refresh it with the life-giving water of forgiveness. When was the last time you placed yourself at the feet of Jesus, opening up your heart to him so that you might hear him say “Neither do I condemn you. [I absolve you from your sin.] Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” How much more do we, who willingly go to the feet of Jesus in the Sacrament of Confession, receive forgiveness for our sins, when the woman who was forcibly dragged there received forgiveness for hers?

How often do we, like the Scribes and Pharisees, attempt to shift the blame away from ourselves, to downplay our responsibility for our sinfulness and brokenness. To tell ourselves, “I didn’t really mean it.” “He made me do it.” “This is just who I am.” How often do we, like in our first reading from Isaiah today, not perceive that God wishes to do something new in our lives, in our hearts, if only we open ourselves up to him by taking responsibility for the times when we have turned away from him?

Go to Jesus. Go and kneel at his feet, and open your heart to him, accepting responsibility for the things you have done. Prepare your hearts to worthily celebrate his glorious resurrection in two weeks, by going to confession. Go to Jesus, in his minister the priest, who eagerly awaits to flood your broken heart with his life-giving Spirit of forgiveness. Allow him to refresh your weary soul. You whom he lovingly formed for himself, so that you might declare his praise for all eternity.