Sunday Meditation: The Finger in the Sand

Today, the Fifth and last Sunday of Lent, the Sunday before Holy Week, in Year C we have the Woman Caught in Adultery.  The Pharisees throw before Jesus a woman who was caught in the act of adultery.  Strangely they only have the woman and not the man.  The key here is that once again the Pharisees are putting Jesus to the test.  They ask Him what should be done.  If Jesus agrees to have her stoned, He will have violated the Roman’s law that executions can only be performed by the Roman authorities.  If He lets her go, He will have violated the law from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. 

 

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,

and all the people started coming to him,

and he sat down and taught them.

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman

who had been caught in adultery

and made her stand in the middle.

They said to him,

“Teacher, this woman was caught

in the very act of committing adultery.

Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say?”

They said this to test him,

so that they could have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.

But when they continued asking him,

he straightened up and said to them,

“Let the one among you who is without sin

be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

And in response, they went away one by one,

beginning with the elders.

So he was left alone with the woman before him.

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,

“Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?”

She replied, “No one, sir.”

Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.

Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

~Jn 8:1-11

Jesus defies the Pharisees’ test. They have presented a false set of options.  Three years ago I embedded a clip the movie Jesus of Nazareth with the dramatization of this event.  I also had embedded a clip of Dr. Brant Pitre explaining the various theories of what Jesus was doing by writing in the sand.  You might want to check that out.

But this year, Fr. Tim Peters gives the superb exegesis of this passage.

Oh my Gosh, Fr. Tim finds more wrinkles in this I had not heard before.  This story connects with the false claim of adultery found in the Book of Daniel regarding the story of Susanna.  Fr. Tim also brings out the allusion from the Torah that the commandments were written on stone tablets by the “finger of God.”  Well, Jesus is writing in the earth with His finger, and, yes, the Pharisees have hearts of stone.  Are their hearts softened by whatever Jesus wrote in the sand?  Was the woman even an adulterous or just set up like Susanna?  All questions that show us the depth of this passage.

Fr. Vincent Bernhard O.P., who is slowly becoming one of my favorite homilist, gives a wonderful pastoral homily on this passage.  Strangely Fr. Vincent refers to the woman as Mary Magdalene.  I had never heard anyone connect this woman with Mary Magdalene.  I would love to ask him where he got that.

What is really insightful from Fr. Vincent is that Jesus writing in the dirt is an “image of the new creation.”  Yes, that works too, especially since Jesus calls her “woman,” which is an allusion to Eve in Genesis chapter 3.  Perhaps we can see thise woman as a “new Eve,” not the new Eve as the Virgin Mary, but one who comes out of sin. 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?”

 

We sang the Negro Spiritual, “Somebody's Knockin' at Your Door” at our Mass today for the Communion Hymn.  It’s perfect as an ending for this post.

 

“O sinner, why don’t you answer, somebody’s knockin’ at your door.”  I think I love every Negro Spiritual I have ever heard.