March 19, 2010
The Second Half
Guilty, as charged
BY DEACON JIM AND ANN CAVERA
It was a small thing. The local Ladies’ Study Club owned a set of dessert dishes to be passed from house to house so each hostess in turn could serve dessert on fancy plates. One hostess had used them and, at each meeting for the next few months, she had tried to get someone to take the plates and continue passing them around. No one needed them or wanted to store them. Two years later when the meeting was again held at this woman’s home, she served dessert on the fancy plates and insisted that this time those plates had to move on. The women were surprised because they had forgotten who had the dishes. Some in the group had decided a certain other woman had kept the dishes when she had hosted the club. One or two women had jumped to a false conclusion and then persuaded others to think as they did.
The scribes and Pharisees had caught a woman in adultery, but then as now, adultery requires two people. Where was the man? Why didn’t he face charges? Perhaps both the man and the woman were well-known to the accusers. We wonder if the man was a respected member of the community and the woman was someone whom the community had already judged as worthless. Besides, adultery wasn’t the most important issue here. The accusers had already determined Jesus was the one they wanted to get and they had come to gather information to support their conviction. The scribes and Pharisees were only doing what all of us have done at one time or another. We assume we see things clearly, know the real story, and treat our assumptions as facts. We pronounce judgment, persuade others to join us and then look for evidence to back up conclusions we have already made.
One of the things we find particularly disturbing today is the “us” against “them” mentality that divides people into angry groups. From politics to families, everybody seems to be angry with somebody else. The same divisive spirit sometimes finds its way into faith communities as well. One group wants to tear down the old rectory. Another group wants to preserve it. One bunch wants to go back to the way things were before Vatican II. Another bunch thinks we can’t leave old ways behind fast enough. Each group thinks they see more clearly and imagines themselves superior to the others. People defend their conclusions, refuse to listen to one another, and the distance between groups increases. Solutions to problems become more and more remote.
In Lent we are called to let go of whatever keeps us from being filled with Christ, and yet the most difficult things to let go of are the assumptions we have made about other people. In I Corinthians 13:12 we are reminded “For now we see in a glass, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully . . .” We forget that the dark glass through which we view the world may be the one we carry in our own minds. While we are still in Lent, the best thing we can choose to let dry up in the desert may be the assumptions we have made about other groups of people. As long as we think in terms of “us” and “them” all of us will stand guilty, as charged.
Deacon Jim and Ann Cavera are former residents of Evansville; their award-winning column is a regular feature of the Message. Contact them at www.catholicseniorspirit.com.