Lent Sun 5, C April 3, 2022
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Imagine if this scenario went a bit differently. Let’s say Jesus was walking through Jerusalem and came across a small group of people. Let’s say one of them was this woman who had committed adultery and that someone else in the group casually mentioned that fact and then, after some awkward moments, the rest of the group walks away and Jesus is left alone with the woman. He then looks at her and says, “don’t worry about your past, just try to do better” and she goes on her way.
Do you think this woman would take this encounter seriously? Do you think she would take it as seriously as what we see in the story that the Gospel tells? Of course not! It is precisely the seriousness of it, the real prospect of judgment and death that made the encounter with mercy so powerful. She sinned, was caught, deserved to be punished, and then was set free by mercy. Mercy cannot exist without judgment. It cannot exist without justice. If we forget that, we take mercy for granted and ultimately fail to really receive it.
So, the question is, do we understand the seriousness of sin? We can start with this very story. Do you recognize that this woman really does deserve to die? I bet many of you tensed up a little when I said that. I don’t like saying it. But it’s true. Of course, we must not forget that the man she was with also deserves to die… it’s yet one more fault of the pharisees that they single out this woman but not the man who sinned with her. A reminder of how women are so often treated unfairly.
Nonetheless, in the eyes of God, adultery by anyone deserves death. In the Old Testament, all sins against the Ten Commandments do. The New Testament doesn’t change that. In fact, for the New Testament to make any sense at all, it must first presuppose the objective moral truths made known in the Old Testament. That truth is this: some actions are so evil that we deserve to die for committing them.
Why? Because they contradict the very nature of who and what we are. Each of the Ten Commandments points to something fundamental about the universe and about the God who made it all and keeps it in existence. To commit a mortal sin is like cutting the rope that’s holding you up over a cliff. Mortal Sin is called “mortal” because it is a choice to deny the very power that keeps us alive… a choice for death.
Why is adultery so bad? For two reasons, one vertical and one horizontal: Vertically, because we are made in God’s image, what we do reflects on God. Every marriage is a sign, a reminder of God’s faithful love. To knowingly violate that is kind of like worshipping a false God. Indeed, the prophets repeatedly compare idolatry and adultery. Horizontally, since marriage is the starting place for the family, it is the starting place for all society. When that basic trust is violated, it casts doubt on the entire system of human relationships. Even if you cringe to hear this, surely you recognize on some level that this makes sense? Just think about how divorce rates and a general loss of social stability both seem to rise and fall together.
So adultery was once punished by death at God’s command – a visible sign of the spiritual truths behind marriage, family, and society. And Jesus never denies that Moses taught this at God’s command. He never says she can’t be stoned. What he does is add context. “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”
Perhaps she deserves death – from God’s perspective, she does – but the reality is that all of us do. And because of that, are we really right to be the ones to give out such a death? There was a time and a place where God wanted this death penalty enforced in a specific society. These laws of ancient Israel are a living, historical lesson in the fundamental laws of our existence: sin deserves death. That time has passed, and without losing that first lesson, we learn the next, even greater one. God asks “Do I find pleasure in the death of the wicked? Do I not rejoice when they turn from their evil way and live?”
This is the good news! God sternly warns us that sin deserves death precisely because he does not want us to die! For this to work, however, we have to truly understand, to fully grasp the severity of what we deserve. Jesus Christ is God… he is the judge. When the pharisees hypocritically charged this woman, he could have looked them in the eye and said “I am the judge… I pass the sentence and I declare that she is forgiven.” It would have been true. Yet, Jesus seems to go out of his way to avoid even the appearance of breaking the Mosaic law.
To put someone to death in Mosaic law, you need two or more witnesses. Once everyone had left, there was only one: Jesus himself. As God, he knew what she did and had authority to act alone, but he used that authority to forgive. “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” This is the meaning of mercy… of repentance: to recognize the evil I’ve committed, to recognize I am justly condemned, and then to rejoice in God’s merciful decision to spare my life… to celebrate it most of all by staying away from sin going forward.
The point of this gospel is not to pile shame onto this woman. The point is that we all deserve to be dragged into public and sentenced to death for our sins… if we don’t grasp that, if we don’t believe that, then we don’t yet understand the depth of God’s mercy.
Adultery is but one example and not the worst. Judas and St. Peter both betray Jesus… St. Paul actively persecutes believers. All three eventually realize the horror of their actions and that they deserve death. Judas makes it worse by taking it up on himself to carry that out, but Peter and Paul become two of the greatest saints in all of existence.
Why? Not because they never sinned again… they did. Only that, recognizing what they deserved, they joyfully embraced God’s mercy and “forgetting what lies behind” they “strain[ed] forward to what lies ahead.” It’s a fine line to walk, but we must walk it: Take seriously your sins and what they deserve… but do not despair… take them seriously only so that you can take God’s mercy that much more seriously. Do not take one without the other: Justice to point us home, Mercy to actually get us there. Do not despair! Rather rejoice that God does not want you to die the eternal death and that no matter how great the sin, so long as you continue to seek his mercy, you won’t!