Saint Anthony Messenger<\/a>. Given that this was the Sunday reading, I thought it appropriate to reprint it here.<\/em><\/p>\nThe story of the woman taken in adultery stands out in Scripture for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n
First and foremost, it stands out because it is reckoned as Scripture at all.\u00a0 The story doesn\u2019t have a fixed home in the gospels.\u00a0 There is a lot of back and forth in the manuscripts of the New Testament about whether and where to include the story but, in the end, the Church simply could not bear to let it go.\u00a0 So the story settles down to its place in John 7:53-8:11.\u00a0 The Church seems to have never quite made up its mind about who the human author was (rather as it never made up its mind about who wrote Hebrews).\u00a0 But the Church was quite fixed in its conviction that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Author and that it preserves a real memory of something Jesus did and said.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t say for certain that John wrote the story, but I can say for certain that, if he did not, whoever did so has definitely got John\u2019s talent for economy of words and his ability to cram a ton of meaning into just a few terse sentences.\u00a0 More than that, what interests me here is what John shows us about the judgment of God and its unexpected paradoxes\u2014and what that tells us about the Judgment we may expect on the Last Day.<\/p>\n
We know the story well\u2014and for that reason we may well be blind to it.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 enemies bring to him a woman taken in adultery: \u201cin the act\u201d.\u00a0 There is, in short, no question about her guilt.\u00a0 She was taken in flagrante delicto<\/em>. Nor do the ones bringing her to Jesus have the slightest question of what is to be done with her according to the law of Moses.<\/p>\nBut here is where things become interesting and, by turns, horrifying, astonishing, and beautiful.<\/p>\n
The men bringing this woman to Jesus have not the slightest interest in her.\u00a0 Indeed, in a certain sense, they are not even interested in her guilty\u2014only in her utility in entrapping him.\u00a0 Notably, they have not brought the man<\/em> with whom she was committing adultery.\u00a0 It is not clear if she has been cheating on her husband or he on his wife.\u00a0 But the law to which the mob are appealing is clear: \u201cIf a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death\u201d (Leviticus 20:10).\u00a0 That they have not bothered to bring the man makes clear that this kangaroo court is not really interested in pressing the demands of the Mosaic law, but in finding some pretext to condemn Jesus.\u00a0 The woman was weak and easy to grab (and quite possibly not as fleet-footed as her paramour, or simply not as rich or well-connected in the good ol\u2019 boys club that now hefts stones and awaits their chance for a kill).\u00a0 At any rate, they have nabbed her and let her lover go.\u00a0 And now they are here, not to see justice done but to put this up-country messiah in a bind from which he cannot escape.<\/p>\nThe bind is this: if Jesus affirms the law of Moses and its command for death, then he usurps Roman authority which alone can inflict the death penalty in occupied Judea.\u00a0 He becomes the leader of a lynch mob and can be handed over to the Roman authorities as a rebel.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if he does not affirm the law of Moses, then he is no Messiah since he rebels against the word of God.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a pretty puzzle, and it looks like they have him dead to rights either way.<\/p>\n
So what does Jesus do?\u00a0 He kneels and writes in the dirt with his finger<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a curious detail and it\u2019s worth noting.<\/p>\nThe evangelists are not like modern novelists.\u00a0 They are not interested in verisimilitude.\u00a0 So they do not, for instance, ever give us description of Jesus\u2019 appearance.\u00a0 When they do include details, it is usually because something about the scene has a theological<\/em> meaning.\u00a0 So, for instance, Luke carefully mentions Jesus being placed in a manger because he wants us to see the Eucharistic significance of Jesus\u2019 birth.\u00a0 A manger is a feed box and the Bread of Life has just been born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread.<\/p>\nWhy then does the sacred author mention Jesus writing on the ground with his finger?\u00a0 Because God has done that before: he \u201cgave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the covenant, tables of stone, written with the finger of God\u201d (Exodus 31:18).\u00a0 The finger of God wrote \u201cYou shall not commit adultery\u201d.\u00a0 Now God is writing with his finger again as he is asked to render judgment against an adulteress condemned by that very law.<\/p>\n
Now, when we think of God judging we typically imagine him looking down<\/em> on us and pronouncing our doom as we look up<\/em> at him in supplication, pleading for mercy and dreading damnation.<\/p>\nBut this passage, in fact, shows us what the judgment of God looks like.\u00a0 God incarnate kneels<\/em> before the woman taken in adultery.\u00a0 He places himself in a position where he must look up into her face<\/em>.\u00a0 Then, he stands up, having written with the finger of God, and pronounces his first verdict, directed not to the woman, but to those eager to kill her, the image of God: \u201cLet him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her\u201d (John 8:7).\u00a0 They back away and drop their stones, the eldest first, and finally the youngest.<\/p>\nSo much for the clever trap.\u00a0 But judgment of the woman still awaits.<\/p>\n
Jesus, for his part, kneels again, forcing himself to again look up<\/em> into the woman\u2019s face.\u00a0 If you are looking for a foreshadow of what Judgment Day will be like: this is virtually the only one we have in the New Testament where Jesus actually gives us, not a parable or an image, but himself actually rendering judgment against a sinner.<\/p>\nHe addresses her as \u201cWoman\u201d (gynai<\/em> in Greek).\u00a0 This sounds cold to the English-speaking ear but we have to hear it in the context of both the Old Testament and in the context of Jesus own habits of speech which are so formed by the Old Testament.\u00a0 It is, in fact, an allusion to the<\/em> Woman, Eve.\u00a0 It is also an allusion to Jesus\u2019 habitual term of address to the<\/em> Woman of the New Testament: Mary the New Eve.\u00a0 In short, it not brusque, reductive, or dismissive but is something freighted with connotation that will, in later languages, amount to \u201cMy Lady\u201d.\u00a0 He is, in fact, exalting her.\u00a0 That is what the gesture of kneeling means.<\/p>\nAnd so he asks her, \u201cWoman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?\u201d (John 8:10) and she replies, \u201cNo one, Lord.\u201d\u00a0 So he sends her away, free, with the words, \u201cNeither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again\u201d (John 8:11).<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 accusers have their minds filled with webs and stratagems.\u00a0 They see diagram, not human beings. They do not see the woman except as a tool.\u00a0 They do not see the law except as a puzzle piece.\u00a0 They most especially do not see Jesus, except as a thing they seek to destroy.<\/p>\n
And Jesus?\u00a0 He appears to see nothing but the human being in front of him: the Imago Dei.\u00a0 His answer to the mob is prelude to the main goal: the liberation and healing of the woman.\u00a0 He sees her as he sees us: as beloved people, not as tools in a power struggle. The law he wrote with his finger was made for her, not she for the law. He is nothing but for<\/em> her, as he is for you.\u00a0 His judgment is<\/em> his mercy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a little piece I wrote a while back for Saint Anthony Messenger. Given that this was the Sunday reading, I thought it appropriate to reprint it here. The story of the woman taken in adultery stands out in Scripture for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it stands out because it is reckoned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[936],"class_list":["post-108034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-st-anthony-messenger-stuff"],"yoast_head":"\n
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