March 19, 2010
Sunday Scripture
Fifth Sunday of Lent
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
John gives the setting of this catechetical lesson on forgiveness, judging others, and hypocrisy. Jesus had spent the night on the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he went up to the temple in Jerusalem, sat down, and taught the people who approached him. The religious police brought before him a woman caught in adultery. They asked him what to do about her. According to the Torah, Leviticus 20:10, both adulterer and adulteress must be executed. Deuteronomy 22:22-24 commands the same and imposes the manner of execution — stoning to death. On the other hand, we are told in John 18:31 that the Roman occupation government deprived the Judeans of the right to impose the death penalty. As John notes, it’s a trap. Would Jesus ignore the Torah or ignore the Romans? In either case, he would be in trouble.
Jesus is still sitting at his teaching position. He bends down and “with his finger he writes on the ground.” The entrapment-team continues to press him for an answer. Jesus gives an evasive yet profound answer, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” He bent over and continued writing on the ground with his finger. The tricksters had enough. They left the scene, one by one, beginning with the oldest among them. The questions have always been: why did he respond by writing on the ground with finger and what did he write?
John does not say that this episode occurred on the Sabbath. If it did, John may be using the story not only as a lesson in forgiveness, on judging others, and hypocrisy, but also to proclaim the divinity of Jesus. All work, including writing, was forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus had already responded to those who criticized him for working on the Sabbath, “My Father is working still, and I am working.” He is Lord of the Sabbath, Mark 2:28 tells us. There is another approach to validate the idea that John here proclaims that Jesus is God. In Exodus 31:18 and Deut. 9:10, the commandments of God are written “with the finger of God.” Thus John says of Jesus, “He wrote with his finger . . . .” Another instance of God writing “with the fingers” is Daniel 5:5, where God writes judgment on the wall.
What did Jesus write? It could have been the names and the sins of the accusers in reference to Jeremiah 17:13, “O Lord, . . . those who turn away from you shall be written in the dust, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” Jesus was asked to judge the woman. He exercises the role his Father gave him according to John 8:26, “I have much to say about you and much to judge,” and John 5:30, “As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just.” A young offender in a Bible class for juveniles in San Diego had the same insight, and expressed it in this way, “Jesus probably wrote the names of the group’s leaders and then began listing their sins under their names. That was probably why the old guys left first,” a solution St. Jerome proposed in the fifth century. Another juvenile in the same class had this insight about Jesus bending down, “He ducked in case some jerk started throwing stones.”
Apart from these attempts to solve a mystery, the story definitely is concerned with divine forgiveness. Last Sunday the father of the prodigal son was portrayed as the Divine Fool or the Divine Father who will forgive anything. Today’s gospel continues to recognize the overabundance of God’s forgiving love by another story of divine forgiveness, urging us to turn to God in repentance. Thus we read in Isaiah 43:25, “I, I Am, the One who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” In John’s gospel Jesus is the I AM who freely forgives. How true the proverb: To err is human: to forgive is divine.”
This part of Isaiah is addressed to the Israelites exiled in Babylon (Iraq) about 540 B.C. The prophet is a divinely sent cheerleader. He announced to the exiles that all is forgiven and God would lead them in a second Exodus back to their homeland in Judea. The prophet’s words are addressed as an appeal to every repentant Christian, “Remember not the events of the past. Do not consider the things of long ago. See! I am doing a new thing!” What is that “new thing?” The prophet will reveal it later in the same chapter, “I will remember your sins no more.” Divine forgiveness!
Paul puts his past behind him, especially his persecution of the Church. He has lost the prestige he had in his former way of life, “For Christ’s sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them as so much (Greek: skubala) dung.” Thus the theme of today’s liturgy continues: putting the past behind us, turning to God, accepting God’s forgiving love. Paul is not at all beyond expressing himself in crude ways. He was not only a scholar but also part of the workaday world, making tents and sails and therefore accustomed to language well understood by his major clients, naval and military. For Paul, his past sins were so much excrement to be buried with and in the past.