Daily Reflection Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s first reading (Daniel 13) is one of the longest first readings we have in the Catholic liturgy. It is among what are known as deuterocanonical or apocryphal works of the Old Testament, basically works not written in Hebrew originally but in Greek and added later. Protestantism does not recognize them as being on the same level as the Hebrew bible (putting them in separate sections if they even include them) and Judaism does not recognize them at all. Nevertheless, this is a great story. Alas, we cannot comment on both it and today’s gospel reading as well.

The gospel passage today, from the beginning of John 8, is also, interestingly, somewhat contested, not being found in some of the earliest manuscripts of the gospels that we have. However, it is part of all Christian bibles, with Protestant bibles explicitly noting this fact about it (often putting the whole passage, John 7:53-8:1-11, in double brackets to signify such). And it too is a great story, one of the greatest of the seven or so incredible encounters Jesus has with women in the gospels. It begins the eighth chapter of John that contains a fierce encounter of Jesus with the Pharisees, ending with them trying to stone Jesus for the first time in John. But here, in this story of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus leaves them defeated, with all of them (one by one, beginning with the eldest) leaving him alone with the poor accused woman.

It is an amazing story on many levels. The fact that it is included in the gospels at all in the utterly patriarchal society of their origin, is very remarkable since it directly and forcefully challenges that patriarchy. Even now, it can challenge our own assumptions and understandings (as does Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well- not to mention the parable of the prodigal son). Here, this unnamed woman, probably a young woman, is dragged, we must assume, through the town by the scribes and Pharisees and forced to stand before everyone and Jesus, who has been sitting and teaching the crowd. She has been “caught in the very act of committing adultery” and we are left to imagine what that means. It is something severe enough to warrant their stoning her to death, or so they threaten. She is being cruelly used by the Pharisees to trap Jesus. Jesus refuses at first to answer their challenge, and mysteriously bends over and writes in the dusty dirt with his finger, seeming to ignore them. As they persist, he finally straightens up and pronounces his famous challenge, returning to writing in the dirt as one by one they all leave without Jesus even watching. Someone once theorized that what Jesus was writing in the dirt were the secret sins of the accusers, and then each seeing his own written in the dirt as they came up to challenge Jesus, and then quickly slink away in fright. Sounds good to me.

Whatever it was, they all leave and Jesus is alone with the poor woman, who must have been stunned. Speaking to her for the first time, he asks her where they have gone and if any have condemned her. She tells him that no one has, and he responds, memorably, “Neither do I condemn you.” He sends her home urging her to sin no more. Adultery, as it threatened the family (and thus the entire community), was understood as one of the most serious offenses in ancient Israel. It is the only sexual sin forbidden by the ten commandments. Although it was rarely accompanied by stoning to death since strict parameters had to be met first, both parties were subject to that fate. However, women were far more the victims than men (men could suspect their wives but wives could not legitimately suspect their husbands), if not of actual stoning, then of being completely shamed and then shunned by the community. This imbalance of justice must have been very much a part of Jesus’ showing this woman such mercy.

It reminds us of Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. There too, that woman who “had five husbands and the man you are living with now is not your husband” was also shunned, being alone at the well at noon instead of earlier with the other women of the town. Yet it was to such a woman (and a Samaritan as well) that Jesus revealed himself as well as promising her “living water.” The next time we are tempted to rush to judgement or assume someone guilty and deserving of what they get, we ought remember these encounters of Jesus with these two (yes, guilty) women and it should give us much pause. “Go and learn the meaning of the words: ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice!’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Who do you consider yourself to be? Because only one receives that mercy.