Previous Weeks' Homilies
2002 2003
This woman was caught in the very act of adultery...
To understand what Jesus does in this story
we need to understand the law about adultery
as the scribes and the Pharisees understood it at the time.
The Book of Deuteronomy states that law in stark terms:
If a man is discovered having relations
with a woman who is married to another man,
both the man and the woman with whom he has had relations
shall die.
Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deut 22:22)
The punishment for adulterers (both the man and woman)
was capital punishment.
This is the sentence the scribes and the Pharisees are ready to impose
on the woman standing before them.
And what does Jesus do?
He bends down and begins to doodle on the ground,
a gesture common, at the time, among Mediterranean peasants
when they were distraught.
Jesus is distraught because the law he brings, the law of love,
is so at odds with the cold, merciless, even vindictive judgement
of the scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus’ first concern is with the woman, not with the law,
for he understands that the law was made for human beings,
not human beings for the law.
This story of the woman caught in adultery
did not appear in the earliest manuscripts of the gospel.
Many scholars believe this story may have been, for a time,
suppressed by the early church
because the depth of mercy shown here
was simply too much too believe,
or at least too much for the average person to understand correctly.
How is it that some 2,000 years later,
2,000 years after Jesus bent down and doodled on the ground,
how is it that so many people believe that their sin or sins
somehow puts them beyond the reach of God’s mercy?
Have we failed as a church to lead people to see and believe in
the extraordinary depth and breadth and generosity
of the mercy of God?
Have we somehow continued to “suppress” the stories
of how freely God’s mercy is given to us?
Notice how, in the story at hand,
the woman caught in adultery says almost nothing:
-she does not confess her sin to Jesus
-she does not say how many times she committed adultery
-she does not say that she is sorry
-she does not ask to be forgiven
-she does not say an Act of Contrition
-she doesn’t promise not to sin again.
And still, Jesus forgives her fully and freely,
not because of any plea or prayer from her
but only because he desired to forgive her.
This is the mercy of God that many find hard to believe.
The scribes and Pharisees could only see the law and the sin.
Jesus, obedient to his own law of love,
saw beyond the sin and into the woman’s heart
and his only desire was that she be forgiven
and freed from the sin that burdened her.
Although the woman is virtually silent in the story,
her behavior has been brought to public attention
and she does not deny having committed adultery.
Her sin has been brought into the light of judgement.
Sometimes we try to hide our sins from God.
Sometimes, in our denial, we try to hide from our own sins.
Jesus only asks that we stand before him with our sins
so that we can claim the gift of mercy he has ready for us.
When we stand before him,
he asks no questions,
he gives no lectures,
he points no finger,
he does not so much as raise an eyebrow.
All he does is to doodle on the ground...
He says simply,
“I forgive you because I love you.
Go now, and sin no more.”
I fear that the church, over the past 2,000 years,
may have been more successful in teaching us about sin
than about the mercy of God
and how freely and fully God forgives us.
The heart of the good news of the gospel
is not that we are sinners,
but there is, in Jesus, mercy for all who sin.
This table is one that Jesus prepares for sinners.
Here, he offers his body and blood, as once he did on the cross.
He offers his body and blood not for saints deserving of a reward
but for sinners in need of grace.
May the sacred food of this table
nourish God’s mercy within us
and lead us to sin no more.
-Rev. Austin Fleming
“Coming to his senses the son thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger?’”
This is the “prodigal son’s” moment of conversion, his
turning point,
his “Duh!” - his, “I could be having a V-8!”
If the story of the prodigal son were a comic strip or cartoon,
this is where there’d be a light bulb over his head,
indicating that he’d just had a great idea.
The son’s conversion has several sources.
First of all: he’s embarrassed!
He’s a Jewish boy whose job is slopping and feeding the pigs.
Very non-kosher work: pigs and pork everywhere!
Second: he’s hungry!
He’s so hungry that he would eat the garbage the pigs are eating -
but no one offers him even that...
Third: he’s a devious son of a gun!
He hatches a plan to sweet-talk his dad into taking him back.
“Oh, father! I no longer deserve to be called your son!
Just treat me like one of your hired hands.”
Right! Treat me like one of your hired hands:
who don’t have to feed pigs; who get to sleep in the bunk house;
and who eat three square meals a day!
The son’s intentions may not be as noble, selfless and contrite
as we have imagined.
It may have been less a matter of self incrimination
and more a matter of self preservation.
But the motives do not matter to his father.
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY.
The father doesn’t care WHY the son came home:
the father only cares THAT his son came home.
The father was not looking for his son’s confession.
The father was not looking for his son’s contrition.
The father was only looking for - his son!
“While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”
The father was out looking for his son
long before his son “came to his senses.”
Such is God’s love for us.
So! Where do I, like the son, need to “come to my senses?”
What foolishness,
what foolish decisions have been running my life?
Where do I need to honestly confront my own circumstances
and head in a new direction?
Where do I need to have a moment of “Duh!” before God?
Where do I need the light bulb to go on over my head?
Have I, like the son in the story,
wasted or been selfish with the gifts I’ve received?
Would I find deeper satisfaction and peace
in giving rather than in grabbing more for myself and my family?
Have I, like the son in the story,
been starving for something I truly need,
something that would truly nourish me?
Might it be true that I know exactly where and how
to satisfy that hunger in a healthy way?
Have I, like the son in the story,
been thinking only of myself and my own needs?
Do I already know the ways I might give more of myself
in service to others?
Perhaps the place where the light bulb needs to go on is:
in my marriage, my family, my ministry, my school, my work place,
my parish, my prayer life, my community...
We might “come to our senses” by asking:
- what have I squandered? - whom have I neglected?
- what are my real hungers? - what hungers have I been feeding?
- where is the real home for my heart?
- how will I make my way there?
- what must I leave behind? - what must I learn to embrace?
When and where in the week ahead, might I “come to my senses”
and see an opportunity for conversion?
Will I trust that God is waiting for me?
that God is not waiting for my condemnation
or confession or contrition: that God is waiting only for me?
Will I trust that no matter what the reason
for my turning my heart around
God will joyfully welcome me home?
Or will I be like the older brother and brood,
and stew in my own juices
and fail to see the light when dawns?
The story of the two sons ends with a feast,
to which are invited a wasteful, ungrateful, devious son
and his jealous, angry, stubborn older brother.
Not unlike our own table here
to which are invited the likes of us:
in many ways, in different ways:
all prodigal sons and daughters,
all older brothers and sisters,
all sinners looking for a place at our Father’s table...
...the Father who welcomes us all,
waiting not for our confession or contrition,
but only for us...
Rev. Austin Fleming
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