Today’s readings: Isaiah 43, 16-21; Philippians 3, 8-14; John 8, 1-11.
The narrative in today’s gospel of St John depicting the woman caught in adultery standing before Jesus is two-edged.
It shows on one hand how cruel religion can be, and on the other, how easy it is for us to be driven by what St Benedict calls “a bitter zeal”.
The scene is one of entrapment. The scribes and the Pharisees leave Jesus no choice: either condemn the woman or condemn yourself as opponent of the law of Moses. They were supposedly demanding justice in the name of religion. But Jesus shows what true justice is.
He uncovers their hollowness inside, their hard-heartedness. He shows how the corruption of religion breeds hypocrisy and how grace can be at work even when we are blind to it from our religious standpoints.
In the context of St John’s gospel, this account can be seen as one in a series of signs Jesus performed, starting with the changing of water into wine at Cana and ending with the raising of Lazarus from death.
These signs taken together are a build-up of creative actions on the part of Jesus, making it possible for us all to live life fully, in abundance.
The adulterous woman can here be seen as representative of us all. It is only when we know God, and to the measure we know Him that we know the measure of sin.
In the dynamic of our journey of life, the community where we belong always has an important role to play. It can turn itself into a mob with an accusing finger, naming and shaming, and simply block our growth and liberation. But it can be, or rather it should be, the community that supports and sustains those who are vulnerable all along until they are given back their dignity and freedom.
Furthermore, in the place of the adulterous woman, we can even see the religion of the Pharisees, or even our modern-day church communities, with Jesus re-directing them to desist from being preoccupied in the first place with the exteriors of religion, devoid of charity, zealous for justice yet ignorant of what true justice is.
As Pope Francis writes in The Joy of the Gospel: “If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life”.
Seeing this gospel account together with the other two readings today, from Isaiah and from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians, the focus on this fifth Sunday of Lent is that the Lord’s mercy liberates us from our past.
For many, the past can easily be a prison they choose to live in, the prison of a reduced identity, the prison of a dignity lost, the prison of guilt trips that enslave and lead to nowhere.
This is what the prophet Isaiah is proclaiming when he says there is “no need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before”. St Paul writes: “I have not yet won, but I am still running. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come”.
We cannot persist in contrasting justice with mercy. They go together. The real contrast that indeed surfaces as demeaning of human dignity is that between God’s justice and human justice.
Human justice not always enhances the dignity of the vulnerable or the accused.
God’s justice is merciful because it liberates and empowers, it transcends the past and recomposes the brokenness and the distorted image of whoever dreams rehabilitation.