Sunday April 3, 2022

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

 

Look First into Your Own Heart

When they have sinned, especially when grievously, some people are afraid that God is out to catch them, like a policeman who has to implement the law. Today we learn from Jesus that God goes beyond the law, for he forgives and keeps forgiving. This is the attitude we learn from God. Look into your own heart and see that you need forgiveness. And repeatedly so. Then you will also easily forgive others. Let us ask Jesus for this attitude, even when we still feel the hurt inflicted.

                                         

First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21

This is what God says,
    the God who builds a road right through the ocean,
    who carves a path through pounding waves,
The God who summons horses and chariots and armies—
    they lie down and then can’t get up;
    they’re snuffed out like so many candles:
“Forget about what’s happened;
    don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
    rivers in the badlands.
Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’
    —the coyotes and the buzzards—
Because I provided water in the desert,
    rivers through the sun-baked earth,
Drinking water for the people I chose,
    the people I made especially for myself,
    a people custom-made to praise me.

 

Second Reading: Philippians 3:8-14

Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.

I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

 

Gospel: John 8:1-11

Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them.

The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.

Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”

 “No one, Master.”

“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”

 

Prayer
God of life,
this is the Good News you let us hear today
through your living image, Jesus Christ:
Love is stronger than death,
you want the sinner to live
and to become all new.
Let us no longer live in the past of sin
but make us free for life and for love.
Give us hearts as merciful to one another
as you have been lenient and loving to us.
We ask you this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection:

“I do not condemn you” neither today nor tomorrow nor ever!

Although the author of the gospel penned this episode of the adulteress, but the leaders of the early Church could not accept a God who contradict the law of Moses. They were afraid that Jesus’ words, Neither do I condemn you, could lead to the justification of adultery as licit and permissible.

It helps us understand how difficult it is to accept the image of a God that Jesus presents to us. It is not the woman’s adultery that the scribes and the Pharisees could not accept, but it is the image of God that Jesus preached that they could not accept. This woman’s adultery is only an excuse for them to set a trap for Jesus.

They bring the woman to Jesus because of his reputation of being a friend of the poor and the sinners. If he sided now with law enforcing Jews, he would be contradicting the messages of mercy and forgiveness that he was advocating. If he spoke for the woman, they could accuse him of breaking the law of Moses.

Jesus does not respond. He bends down and begins to write on the ground. Writing on the ground has a clear reference to the only text in the Bible where the finger of God wrote on the stone, on the two tablets, the Ten Commandments. The commandments tell you how you must live, the mistakes you must avoid, and the positions you must take.

With this gesture, Jesus is asking, ‘Are you still stuck to the law written on the stone? The prophet Jeremiah had announced that ‘one day, God would write his law not on stone, but in their hearts.’ The crowd grew uneasy because they had been exposed. Their hypocrisy has been revealed. They moved away, starting with the elders – the ‘priests,’—says the Greek text.

Today we are invited to examine our conscience. Are we not the ones who delight in throwing stones at others through gossip and slanders. Are we in any way better than the Pharisees? The Lord says, “Do not judge.”

However, Jesus challenges those who continue to claim righteousness and respectability and hurl stones, no longer with hands though, but through defaming, isolating, uttering harsh judgments, and spreading gossips. Jesus does not tolerate anyone who throws these cruel stones at those, already bent under the weight of their sins.

Do we still believe that at the end of times God will judge and punish the sinners for the evil committed? Let us pay attention. Jesus did not say to the sinful woman: ‘For this time, I do not condemn you.’ Instead, He says: “I do not condemn you” (v. 11), neither today nor tomorrow nor ever.

 

Video available on Youtube : “I do not condemn you” neither today nor tomorrow nor ever!