Behold, I Do Something New

 

To the church in the diaspora[1]

& to the church of the unchurched[2]

March 25, 2007: Fifth Sunday of Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21    Philippians 3:8-14     John 8:1-11
 
The woman caught in adultery

In Jesus’ day every good Jew went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tents   (The Feast of Sukkot in Hebrew). It was a harvest feast. During harvest Jews lived in tents, and it reminded them of the days when their ancestors had lived in tents as they wandered in the wilderness.  But because there were some who were out to get Jesus, he declined to go to Jerusalem for the feast of Sukkot but stayed on in Galilee (Jn 7: 8). Once his brothers had gone to the feast, Jesus also decided to go but incognito (Jn 7: 10). In Jerusalem he remained in the shadows and tried to be unnoticed. But half way through the celebration he went into the temple and began to teach openly (Jn 7: 14). The people were impressed, but the scribes and the Pharisees were incensed.

 

These men who were always in hot pursuit of other people’s sins managed to come upon a woman in the very act of adultery. They seized and dragged her before Jesus. There she stood scarcely clothed, face-down in her shame and surrounded by men in the temple during the very busy time of Sukkot. They said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The Law of Moses commands us to stone such women (Lv 20: 10; Dt. 22: 22). Now what do you have to say about that” (Jn 8: 4-5)? The woman’s accusers were quoting only part of the Law which required that both parties in the sin be executed. In anyone’s book adultery always take two.

 

 

A trap

It was a trap they set for Jesus. In Jesus’ day, a Jew had no say in the corporal punishment of such a crime; that was Rome’s prerogative. So, if Jesus said “Stone her,” he would be contravening Rome, and that would be politically incorrect. But if Jesus said “Don’t stone her” that wouldn’t be good either. He would be flagrantly disregarding the Law of Moses.

 

Jesus did not buy into their trap. Rather than answering them, he bent down to the floor and began to write with his finger in the dust caused by construction going on in the temple. Then he stood up and said, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.” Dismissing these busybodies, he again bent down to the floor and started to scribble in the dust. The scribes and Pharisees got the point and started to sleek away one by one. Left alone with the woman caught in adultery, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you.” Then he commanded her to, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:1-11).

Not condemn nor condone

That great spiritual leader and bishop of Saginaw, Ken Untener, once said that he wished the church would get out of the marriage business. He certainly didn’t mean the business of uniting one man to one woman in holy matrimony until till death do they part. Rather he meant the church’s busyness with marriage which tries to sort out who can validly marry and who can't; which marriages can be annulled and which can’t. In such busyness, he said, “We can become quite inappropriate.”

 

Without any doubt Bishop Untener preached life-long commitment. But he asked,

What if, for some reason, it all falls apart? I like the distinction Jesus carefully used upon the woman caught in adultery. He said, “Neither do I condemn you.”  But some people think the opposite of condemn is condone. Condemn comes from the Latin word “to damn.” And the opposite of damning someone is helping someone.

 

The compassionate Bishop Untener said, “I am not here to condemn divorced people nor am I here condone them. I am here to help them.” Untener was like the compassionate Jesus who did not condemn the woman caught in adultery nor condone her but helped her with his compassion.

 

 

The compassion of Jesus

Contrast the cruelty of the scribes and Pharisees with the compassion of Jesus. They had no regard for the woman.  They were only interested in using her to trap Jesus.  On the other hand, Jesus is filled with compassion for her. If she was caught in the very act of adultery, she probably was very sparsely clothed. Maybe she hastily had to cover herself with a bed sheet. It is no stretch of the imagination to see Jesus taking off his outer garment and wrapping her in it. Perhaps he even stood in front of her to hide her nakedness. He tells the frightened woman whom her accusers want to stone to death that he doesn’t condemn her. His compassion restores her spiritually, and she heeds his command to go and sin no more.

 

This narrative of the woman caught in the very act of adultery makes almost everyone's top ten list of favorite scriptures.

 

A wandering passage in search of a home

But strange to say this favorite passage has no fixed place in the gospels! Some editions of the gospels do not contain the passage at all. The New American Bible puts this story in brackets because it is not included in the best and oldest manuscripts of John. When it is included in the gospel of John, it is sometimes placed in the 7th chapter or the 8th chapter (as today) or even in the 21st chapter of John.  Some even place this story not in the gospel of St. John but in Luke’s gospel (in the 21st chapter after the 38th verse), for the vocabulary, style and theology are not John's but Luke's. After 20 centuries, this poor wandering passage looking for a permanent place in one of the four gospels is still around, comforting good folk who are sinners and have troubled consciences. Its punch line - "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her!" - has deeply endeared itself to us and has placed this passage in the top ten list of scripture favorites.

 

Why no home

For cultural and psychological reasons we've always been obsessed with sexual moralism which strongly implies that the heights of all morality as well as the depths of all immorality is somewhere in the area of sex. Some time ago Bishop Sanchez of Santa Fe and Bishop Marino of Atlanta were "caught in an act of adultery." Though these two shepherds were very beloved by their flocks, they were removed from office with electronic speed. That was sexual moralism at work. It swiftly removes someone who has a bad reputation for being too human but almost never removes someone who has a bad reputation for not being human at all. That type is allowed to hang on forever. 

 

Sexual moralism zeros in on sex so nervously and swiftly that it neglects to heed the morality Jesus teaches in the Parable of the Prodigal Son which forgives a wayward son (Lk 15: 1-32).  It also neglects to heed the morality which Jesus displays when he forgives a wayward daughter caught in an act of adultery.  If that forgiveness morality of Jesus had inspired Holy Mother Church, she would have forgiven her two wayward bishop sons and said to them what Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; your sins are forgiven you. Go your way and sin no more" (Jn 8: 11). And that, indeed,  would have been an inspiring example to the entire church to be forgiving of human weakness and to go, instead, in hot pursuit of  “the weightier matters of the Law like justice, mercy and compassion” (Mt 23:23). Instead a different and prevailing morality was heeded which said, “If we forgive these two prodigal sons, what are people going to think?”The church’s assiduous care to avoid scandal is itself scandalous![3]

 

The Prodigal Son didn’t fall from grace; he fell into grace—the grace of his father. The woman caught in adultery didn’t fall from grace; she fell into grace—the grace of Jesus.  The two bishops caught in adultery didn’t fall from grace. If the church had been more like Jesus, they, too, could have fallen into grace. And that would have edified (built up) both them and the entire church.

 

We wonder why this passage of the woman caught in adultery had to wander about searching for a stable resting place in the gospels.  Was sexual moralism alive and well in the early church? And does that explain the tendency to disown the passage or to give it a wandering location in the gospels? Was it sexual moralism which turned the passage into a wandering Jew in search of a place to rest?

 

Behold, I am doing something new

There is no ambiguity in the Old Testament concerning adultery; it is crystal clear about how it should be handled. “If a man commits adultery with the wife of a fellow Israelite, both he and the woman shall be put to death” (Lv 20: 10). “If a man is caught having intercourse with another man’s wife, both of them are to be put to death. In this way you will get rid of this evil” (Dt. 22: 22ff). With the arrival of Jesus that crystal clear clarity which gets rid of the evil of adultery by stoning the two to death has been swept away.

 

In the first reading from Isaiah the Lord God exclaims,”Behold, I am doing something new” (Is 43: 19)!  When, in the moral climate of his day, Jesus says to a woman caught in an act of adultery, “I do not condemn you” he is, indeed, announcing, “Behold, I am doing something new!” When on another occasion he tells the same scribes and Pharisees who caught the woman in adultery that tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the kingdom of God ahead of them (Mt 21:31) he is again announcing, “Behold,  I am doing something new!”  If, instead of heeding the prevailing morality, the pope would have forgiven his two wayward bishop sons caught in an act of adultery, he, indeed, would have been announcing, “Behold, I am doing something new!”

 

When Jesus was scribbling with his finger in the dust on the temple floor we wonder what he wrote. Some say he wrote “ho-hum” for the benefit of those busybodies who were not busy with their own sins but the sins of others. Some say he scribbled a list of the names of all the men in her life (adultery takes two), and a list also of all their other sins. Still others say he was writing, “Behold I am doing something new!”

 

Jesus' exchange with the sinful woman is a constant reminder to his followers that he is doing something new-- that he does not stop at the boundaries which Christian churches and theologians and busybodies set for him, but rather he does something new.  Jesus does not buy into a sexual morality which stones adulterers. But he does buy into a compassion morality which stones a Jewish priest and Levite for not stopping to pour the oil of compassion into a man waylaid by robbers and left half-dead.

 

Compassion: the highest morality

With a marvelously crafted and immortal parable he tells the story of two men who commit a grossly immoral act right out on an open highway for all to see. A man journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho was waylaid by robbers, beaten to a pulp and left half-dead. Along came two”religious” men. One was a Jewish priest who saw the poor man, did nothing and passed him by. The other was a Levite (the priest’s helper) who saw him, did nothing and passed him by. My gosh! How much more grossly immoral than that can you get!

 

Then along came a Samaritan. He wasn’t a very religious man. For one thing, he worshipped in the “wrong” place (Jn 4: 20). He even had a reputation in town for being a rounder of the first water. Still he was seized with compassion, slammed on his brakes and stopped to pour the oil of comfort into the poor guy’s wounds. Then he hoisted the man’s dead weight unto his beast of burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn, where he dug deeply into his pocket to pay for the man’s care and cure. My gosh! How much more superbly moral than that can you get! (Lk 10: 25-37)

Conclusion

A church that does something new

The period immediately following the close of Vatican II in 1965 was, indeed, a stormy period.  But it was also a period filled with vitality and excitement. At the end of the day, that Council had given us a church which, at long last, was saying, “Behold, I am doing something new! Behold I am pouring new wine!” That was a great relief, for the church had done nothing new for four hundred years. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) had put everything into deep freeze. That was a great relief, for the old wine was beginning to turn into vinegar.

 

On Feb. 24, 2007, Detroit’s Auxiliary Bishop, Thomas Gumbleton (who did not retire but was retired) told a gathering of the Voice of the Faithful that it was going to be difficult to regain the vitality and excitement of that early post-Vatican II church. He said the key test for a potential bishop today is loyalty -- to his own bishop and to the pope. “So you begin to get a structure,” he said, “where everything comes from the top and works its way down, so you don’t get people who have initiative, who have imagination, who are creative, who are the type of people you need as leaders.” You begin to get a structure which says, “Behold, I am doing nothing new”—a structure which keeps pouring old wine that has turned into vinegar.  Today we look for that promising church which good Pope John XXIII and his Council gave us--a church which says, “Behold I am doing something new” about the shortage of priests and about the ordination of women and about birth control and about sexual orientation and about all the other things about which the Voice of the Faithful wants to speak.

 

You can’t put new wine into old wine skins. It’s time for the old skins to burst apart so that a church according to Vatican II and the Spirit of God can pour new wine (Mt 9: 17).


[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!

[2] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!

 

 

[3] When New Ways Ministry was holding a three-day symposium attended by 500 people in a hotel in Minneapolis, March 16-18, to discuss gay and lesbian Catholics and the sacraments, Archbishop Harry Flynn of the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese denied the group permission to celebrate Mass during the event. Archdiocesan spokesman Dennis McGrath said that when the archbishop found out that some of the speakers consistently challenged church policy and teaching, the bishop just couldn’t allow Mass to be said at that event “because it was a cause for, among other things, scandal!"