Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C

In Him Misery And Mercy Meet

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Prophet Ezekiel spoke about the corruption of the temple which prompted the glory of Yahweh (Shekhinah) to rise and leave the temple and move East, up over the Mount of Olives. The departure of God’s glory from the temple was devastating to ancient Israel. The very reason the temple is holy is the glory of divine presence (Shekhinah). But what we now see in today’s Gospel (John 8:1-11) is Jesus’ itinerary, which takes him to the Mount of Olives and then back to the temple, an indication that the glory of the Lord has returned to the temple and has made it holy again. So, in Jesus of Nazareth, Yahweh has returned to the temple just the same way he had left. With this mind, we can now understand today’s story much better. 

What John is presenting in today’s Gospel is what happens when the temple is corrupt, what happens when Yahweh departs the temple and what happens when the glory of God returns. What are the scribes and the Pharisees doing in a corrupt temple? They are doing the same thing that troubled Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and the rest of the prophets. They are using their knowledge of the law and religious rituals to precisely exercise power and to persecute the poor. The proper purpose of the law, rituals, sacrifice is always to bring people closer to God. To correct what needs correcting, to facilitate friendship between the Creator and creatures and to bring divinity and humanity together. Are some of the laws in the Old Testament harsh. Yes! But it is in the manner of a sports coach who demands much more from the players. World class Soccer coaches for instance demand a lot from their players. They tell them what to eat and when to eat them. They tell their players what they should never eat or drink. They demand that the players not attend or host parties or any social events during a soccer season. They expect their players to resume training on time— no late coming is ever tolerated without permission from the coach. Soccer coaches basically run the lives of the players. Like a top-notch world class soccer coach, God does not want us to settle for second-best. So, God is sometimes a very tough and demanding soccer coach through the law. Sad enough, the law can be used in an aggressive or domineering way. Think of a school teacher who is plainly cruel, who is using his or her authority and knowledge of a subject to hurt and humiliate their students. I can remember some of my teachers and professors who did this to the struggling students in their classes. They abused their power and authority. Think of a police officer or a Judge who uses knowledge of the law in similarly corrupt way. This gives us a clear idea of what made the temple and its occupants deeply corrupt in the eyes of great prophets. 

So, the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman “who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.” Turning to Jesus, they said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.” Allow those words to sink in! By the way, where were they when they caught the woman and what were they looking for as they caught her in the very act of adultery? It is obvious they are carefully looking for someone they could blame and scapegoat. Are they doing this as an act of love, to help her grow in spiritual life? Please! Give me a break! They are doing it to humiliate her. We know this because after arresting her, they dragged her out and put her in the middle where everyone will notice her. Nothing could be more humiliating than that! Being caught in the act of adultery is humiliating itself. Then being dragged out and made to stand where everyone can see her is utter humiliation. What a cruel and insensitive thing to do. What did they say to Jesus? “Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.” They are using their knowledge of the law to hurt this woman. But not just her alone, but to hurt Jesus himself. They are backing the Lord into a difficult corner. They want him to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. If he says, ‘Oh no, let the woman go,’ they will accuse him of being soft on crime. They will charge him of being an outsider who does not love the law. They will shout from the roof-top that Jesus is undermining the law of Israel’s greatest figure, Moses. But if he says, ‘Yeah, stone her to death,’ they will berate and attack him of preaching one thing and doing another. They will most certainly accuse him of being cruel, of talking about peace and mercy, yet promoting violence and unforgiveness.  

Handed a dilemma, what does Jesus do? He is the glory of the Lord that has returned to the temple. In him now, we see what the temple, law, ritual are meant to do. Jesus bends down and writes on the ground. John did not tell us what he wrote. St. Augustine speculated he wrote the sins of all those who were blaming the woman. Then he stands up and utters one of the most famous axioms in the whole New Testament tradition, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” In that utterance, we learn that one of the prime purposes of the law is to make us humble. The scribes and the Pharisees did not allow the law to make them humble; they were using it to humiliate people. It is also something we do often through gossip or blaming or scapegoating someone else. We use the law not to humble ourselves, not to acknowledge that we have fallen short of what God wants, but to humiliate others. The law of God should humble us. Why? Because we still break it. If your weakness is not adultery, it may be lying. If it is not lying, it may be anger. If it is not anger, it may be unforgiveness. 

Now, in contradistinction to the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus reaches out to the woman in a non-condemnatory way, offers her mercy upon mercy and challenges her “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” Jesus is not undermining the law. He is not denigrating the law. He is not promoting lawlessness. Rather, he is using the law to bring the sinner back to life. The temple was always meant to be a place of mercy; a place where sins are forgiven; a place where friendship with God is reestablished. As the New Temple, Jesus is now demonstrating that he is the place where misery and mercy meet. He is the return of Yahweh’s glory to the temple. This same Jesus is uniquely present in every Catholic chapels and churches. Don’t wait for the naysayers, or the cynics or haters to drag you to him. Visit him yourself and hear those most soothing words, “Neither do I condemn you.”