A Very Comforting Scripture

 

“Habemus papam!” “We have a pope.”

Pope Francis  

 This past Tuesday March 12, 115 cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI who resigned on February 28. One by one the cardinals walked up to the altar beneath Michelangelo's painting of the Last Judgment and the Creation of Adam with its famous depiction of God and Adam touching fingers. At the altar each cardinal knelt briefly in a moment of prayer and then, before dropping his ballot into a special urn, he recited in Latin:

"I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected."

 Then on Wednesday March 13, white smoke from a temporary chimney on the Sistine Chapel announced to the world outside: “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a pope!”) Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a Jesuit, received the required two-thirds of the 115 voting cardinals to make him pope.

 Then the Dean of the College of Cardinals asked Cardinal Bergoglio two solemn questions. First: "Do you freely accept your election?" He replied: "I do.” At that moment he became pope. The Dean then asked: "By what name shall you be called?" Cardinal Bergoglio replied: “I shall be called Francis.” The new pope was then led through the `Door of Tears’ to a dressing room where three sets of white cassocks were waiting: small, medium, and large. Donning the appropriate size, the new pope reentered the Sistine Chapel where he was given the Fisherman’s Ring.

 Then the senior Cardinal Deacon appeared on the great central loggia of St. Peter’s and proclaimed: 

I announce to you a great joy: we have a Pope!
The most eminent and most reverend Lord,
Lord Jorge Mario  Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Bergoglio,
who takes for himself the name of Pope Francis.

 Pope Francis is the son of middle-class Italian immigrants, and is known as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed. He often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina's capital. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the Church. Catholics are still buzzing over his speech last year accusing fellow church officials of hypocrisy for forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

Pope Francis - elected to repair a Church fallen into ruin?

Pope Francis has chosen a much-beloved Italian saint who is identified with peace, poverty and a simple lifestyle. He is the first pontiff from Latin America, and the first pontiff to choose the name of that rich young man from Assisi who renounced wealth, and founded the Order of Friars Minor in the 13^th century. Franciscan history tells us that it was a voice from a crucifix in the rickety old chapel of San Damiano fallen into ruin that spoke to Francis, saying, ”Repair my Church.” Has Pope Francis been elected to repair a Church fallen into ruin?

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“Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger

 in the dust on the temple floor.” (Jn. 8:6)

A Very Comforting Scripture

March 17, 2013, 5^th Sunday of lent

Isaiah 43:16-21    Philippians 3:8-14     John 8:1-11

Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Glory to you, Lord.

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 teachers of the Law and the Pharisees dragged in a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the front of everyone. They said to Him, “Master, we caught this woman in the very act of committing adultery. In our Law Moses gave a commandment that such a woman should be stoned to death. Now what do you say about that?” They said this to trap Him, so they could have some charge to bring against Him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dust on the temple floor. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.”

Again He bent down and continued to write on the Temple floor. 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 anymore.”

A passage in search of a rightful place

Strange to say, this powerful passage about a woman caught in adultery and rescued from stoning by Jesus has had to wander down through the centuries in search of a rightful place in the canonical gospels. A few editions of the New Testament do not contain this wonderful passage at all! When editions do contain it, they betray an ambiguity or a misgiving about it. The New American Bible or Good News for Modern Man, for example, puts the story of the woman caught in adultery in brackets (“because it’s not included in the best and oldest Greek manuscripts”). Other bibles place the story of the adulteress in the 7^th chapter instead of the 8^th chapter (as in today’s reading), or even in the 21^st chapter of John. Some even place the passage not in John’s but in Luke’s gospel, in the 21^st chapter after the 38^th verse (“because the vocabulary, style and theology of the passage are not John's but Luke’s”).

 

Sexual moralism alive and well 

Why did this passage about the adulteress, rescued from being stoned and forgiven by Jesus, have to wander down the centuries in search of a fixed and rightful place in the canonical scriptures? Was it because `sexual moralism’ (which makes sexual `purity’ the height of all morality, and sexual `impurity’ the depth of all immorality) was alive and well in the early Church? Just as it is alive and well in every age. Did such moralism cause the early Church to feel uncomfortable and even a bit embarrassed by this passage which portrays Jesus dealing forgivingly and lovingly with an adulteress? Did Jesus’ behavior, in fact, directly clash with the Law of Moses? (Lv. 20:10; Dt. 20:22)

 Nowhere do we find sexual moralism (with its peculiar frame of mind) in the words of Jesus. It’s not in his words to the chief priests and Jewish elders: “I tell you that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” (Mt. 21:32) It’s not in his words to the woman in this Sunday’s gospel, who was caught “in the very act of  committing adultery:” “Neither do I condemn you.” (Jn. 8:11)

A Cardinal who criticized the emphasis

Cardinal Oscar Rodriquez Maradiaga, 70, who is currently the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is critical of sexual moralism. He strongly criticized the US media’s treatment of the clergy sex abuse in the USA. In fiery language he compared it to the persecution of Christians under the emperors Nero and Diocletian, and under the dictators Hitler and Stalin. The Cardinal, however, was sharply criticized for being too reactionary and too defensive. But he stuck to his guns. In an interview he made it clear that not for a moment did he question the sufferings of sex abuse victims or deny the failures of some shepherds to intervene when they should have. But what he criticized was the emphasis. The sex abuse issue got such extensive coverage precisely because of our sexual moralism which in so many words says that the height of all morality or the depths of all immorality has something to do with sex.

 That’s not true, said the Cardinal. Then he launched off into a whole litany of issues that deserve just as much coverage and even more than the sex abuse issue: Millions of people in the world go hungry every day. A whole generation of Africans are being killed off by the AIDS pandemic. 1.2 billion people drink polluted water. The combined salary of 12,000 Nike workers in Indonesia for a whole year doesn’t add up to what one basketball star gets for one endorsement. For him those issues deserve just as much and even more coverage than any sex scandal. What the Cardinal criticized was the emphasis

A Bishop who neither condemned nor condoned

 Bishop, Kenneth Untener (1937- 2004) of Saginaw, Michigan, was an outstanding shepherd of God’s people. Without any doubt he preached that marriage is a life-long commitment. But he asked, “What if, for some reason, it all falls apart? I like the distinction which Jesus carefully used upon the woman caught in adultery. He said, `Neither do I condemn you.’  But some people think the opposite of condemn is condone. Condemn comes from the Latin word `to damn.’ And the opposite of damning someone is helping someone.” Then Bishop Untener said, “I am not here to condemn divorced people nor am I here to condone them. I am here to help them. Jesus did not come to condemn or condone the woman caught in adultery; He came to help her.”

Not a man’s world anymore

The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees dragged a woman into the Temple, whom they had “caught in the very act of adultery.” They were ready to stone her to death in accordance with the Law of Moses. (Lv. 20:10)  Since the Temple was always in a state of repair, there was always plenty of masonry stone lying around to accommodate them. If the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees caught the woman “in the very act of adultery,” they must have caught her partner as well, for it takes two to commit adultery! The poor woman’s partner, however, was not dragged into the Temple with her, even though Leviticus says that both the adulterous woman and man should be stoned. (Lv. 20:10)

 Culturally and historically, however, it’s only been the adulterous woman who gets singled out for stoning. That’s because it’s always been a man’s world, but it isn’t any more! Now men like John Edwards (former U.S. Senator from North Carolina)  or like Mark Sanford (former Governor of South Carolina) or like Tiger Woods (world’s most famous golfer) all have been caught in an act of adultery and all have been publicly stoned.

What did He write in the dust?

When the teachers of the Law and Pharisees asked Jesus how He felt about the law commanding an adulteress to be stoned to death, they were setting a trap; they were hoping to impale Him on the horns of a dilemma: If He said she should be stoned, He’d be contradicting the Roman occupiers who took away the right of capital punishment from the Jews. If He said she should not be stoned, He’d be contradicting the Law of Moses. (Lv. 20:10; Dt. 20:22)

 Jesus refused to fall into their trap; He didn’t answer them; instead He bent down and wrote with his finger in the dust on the Temple floor. Then He straightened up and gave their tricky question a tricky answer which bypassed Rome and the Law of Moses: “Let the one without sin among you cast the first stone.” (Jn. 8:7) Bending down again Jesus continued to write with his finger in the dust on the Temple floor. What did He write in the dust?  Some guess He wrote `Ho-hum!’ Others guess He wrote the names of all the men who had her!

A priest and Levite who walked right by

The Parable of the Good Samaritan would, indeed, be a very appropriate gospel reading for Lent.  And yet, it’s not prescribed for any Sunday of Lent, whether in Cycle A, B or C. The parable is about a gross act of immorality which a Jewish priest and Levite committed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A man journeying on that road was waylaid by thieves who beat him to a pulp, robbed him of his money and left him half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest and Levite who saw the poor man, didn’t lift a finger to help him, and passed him by. How much more immoral than that can one get!  Then along came a despised Samaritan who worshipped God `in the wrong place,’ that is, on Mount Gerizim instead of in the Temple in Jerusalem. (Jn. 4: 20) This guy who worshipped `in the wrong place’ stops to pour the oil of compassion into the poor man’s wounds, hoists him on his beast of burden and hurries him off to the nearest inn, where he pays for the man’s care and cure. How more moral than that can one get! (Lk. 10:25-37)

The Scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we caught this woman in the very act of adultery.” There’s a religiosity and moralism in us which catches people “in the very act of adultery,” but doesn’t catch people like the Jewish priest and Levite in the very act of walking right by someone in need! Most of us by all means would confess having committed adultery. Not too many of us would confess walking right by and not having stopped to pour the oil of compassion upon someone in need.

Conclusion

A very comforting Scripture

Unlike the early Church, we are not ashamed of the Scripture passage which portrays Jesus dealing lovingly and forgivingly with the woman “caught in the very act of adultery.” We happily remove the brackets around this wonderful but poor wandering passage, and we give it a rightful and fixed place in the canonical gospels. What’s more, we are by no means ashamed of this Scripture passage which has Jesus neither condemning nor condoning but forgiving the adulteress. That’s a very comforting Scripture, for side by side with the adulteress stand John Edwards, Mark Sanford, Tiger Woods and all of us, “For none of us is righteous; no not one. We have all sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rm. 3:23) To all of us Jesus says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.” (Jn. 8:7)