Vol.5 No.27

Vol.5 No.27

Vol.5 No.27 DoM Gospel Reflection

5th Sunday of Lent—March 13, 2016

John 8:1-11

By Jean Dempsey
There’s a lot in this Sunday’s Gospel that captures the imagination and is fertile ground for prayer. Often, I think we tend to focus on the woman caught in adultery…what she might have been feeling, anticipating, as the scene played out. Surely she expected to die that day!  But lately, I’ve been thinking about the Pharisees, and I guess it’s both bad news and good news to say that I’ve begun to see some of myself in them. Bad, because who wants to be like the Pharisees, right? And good, because seeing ourselves more clearly is a step toward allowing the Lord to change us.
So picture this Gospel scene in your mind: It’s a fall morning.  John tells us that Jesus arrived early in the Temple area, ‘and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them.’ Suddenly a disturbance … a group of scribes and Pharisees who push their way through the crowd, pulling a woman along with them until she is made to stand right in the middle of them all, and her sin announced for ALL to hear: caught in the act! And right on the heels of that humiliating news, the Pharisees lay the trap for Jesus, with this question: “Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. What do you say?”
In my mind, I picture everybody in the crowd immediately beginning to talk under their breath to the person on their right or left…that buzz of noise, everyone reacting: ‘oh my!…I know that woman, that’s so-and-so’s daughter/sister/neighbor …LOOK at her!…and how in the world is Jesus going to get out of this?…he’s caught between our law and Roman law – oh my gosh!’ etc etc etc.   Total chaos.
If this was a Western, I think Clint Eastwood would’ve stood up, walked slowly over to the bad guys, looked ‘em in the eyeball and said, “You’ve got 30 seconds to get outta my sight before I start shootin’! ” But what did Jesus do? He didn’t confront them, did he?  He did the exact opposite. He didn’t say a word, but instead bent down to the ground and started writing in the dirt!
As I meditated on this Scripture passage, THAT’s the part I kept being drawn to, more than anything else: Jesus bending down and writing on the ground in the middle of this charged atmosphere. Why did he do that?
There’s a wonderful little children’s book, written for adults too, that you may know called The Little Prince, by a French guy named Antoine whose last name I won’t pronounce right (de Saint Extupéry). In the story, this little boy who is visiting Earth from another planet often finds grown-ups and their ways to be puzzling. He eventually befriends a fox, and the fox says something to the little prince that is one of my all-time favorite quotes. He says:

‘Here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart

that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’
That quote reminds me of a verse from the first book of Samuel, when Samuel had gone to Bethlehem under the Lord’s direction, to choose the future king from among Jesse’s eight sons. The first son he met made a good impression on Samuel, so he thinks – this is the guy.  But the Lord said,

“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” [1 Sam 16:7]
Those two ideas, which go together: seeing with our hearts, and looking past what’s on the surface…that’s the focus of my commentary today.
Years ago, there was a gentle priest in Mobile – he’s no longer here – who I loved to go to for Confession. I didn’t even mind going to him face to face, because he was so kind. Besides, he would close his eyes almost the whole time he listened to my sins, which was helpful!!  But he usually kept his eyes closed even after I was finished, and might be quiet for a moment before he responded to me. He had to have been praying. And when he did respond, it was love that always came out of his mouth. During those sessions, I always felt he was seeing me with the eyes of his heart; really, with Jesus’ heart. Had I sinned? You bet. But he cared more about what was behind all the ugly crud I that I would confess – he cared more about my fears and insecurities, my internal wounds (that I try to keep hidden from people), my deepest desires. And in his gentle way, he would help me examine those things.
I’m reminded of that when I read this Gospel story. When Jesus bent down to draw on the ground that day, I think He had withdrawn into prayer, to get away from all that external buzz. To take a moment to see, with that Heart of his so open to the suffering of others, not just the adultery of the woman, not just the blindness and pride of the Pharisees, but beyond what was on the surface:  What were they afraid of? Where did they hurt? What was it that they really desired?
And so when Jesus finally stood and spoke to the Pharisees, He didn’t bludgeon them with the ‘club of judgment,’ to borrow a phrase from Pope Francis. (Feb. 9, 2016 address to Missionaries of Mercy).  Instead, he gently invited them to examine their own hearts. And to make it easier for them to do so, down he went to the ground a second time.  God the Son, the Just Judge (Jn 5:30), broke eye contact, humbly and quietly bent down again, and made himself small a second time. By doing that, he gave them space. That’s mercy! And mercy softens hearts.  So the Pharisees did examine themselves, and gradually, one by one, they quietly slipped away.  Only then did Jesus straighten up, and, addressing the woman, also invite her to conversion, saying: “Go, and sin no more.”
I think about how easily I, like the Pharisees, can overlook my failings and yet see with such clarity the faults of others. But what if I could see them as Jesus does? What hurts or fears might I perceive hidden below the surface of their behavior? Can I ask the Lord for the grace to treat them as He would, with patience and love? Can you?  Although it may seem that nothing is changing and that God ‘NEEDS us’ to help Him move those people along, we can trust God with the timing for all of us. Peter tells us in his second letter (3:9) that

The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward [us], not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
We don’t know what changes may have been set in motion in the hearts of any of the scribes and Pharisees who were present that fall morning. We do know from Scripture, though, that many authorities did come to believe in Jesus (Jn 12:42).
So let’s ask the Lord to give us His eyesight. Let’s ask him dilate our hearts, and ground us in humility.  Fr. Joseph Langford, a friend of Mother Teresa’s, wrote that humility “is essential to the act of loving. It is the ‘humus’ (soil, earth) inseparable from love, both a condition for and a component of all true loving. Humility is the hidden ground of love…. There can be no love without [it].” (Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire, by Fr. Joseph Langford, MC, p. 112.)
Dear Lord, you see us exactly as we are. Yet you are patient and gentle with us, abounding in mercy, and for that we are so grateful. With the eyes of your incredible Heart, You see past our frail humanity to what is essential, to the essence of who we are: your beloved, for whom you thirst with a love beyond all telling. Help us see others that way, too. Grant us each a heart like yours, Jesus – a heart open in humility, so that true love can grow and flourish within us. By the gift of your grace, help us overcome our tendency to sit in judgment of those around us. Where our hearts have grown hard and stony toward others, we pray that you will replace them with hearts of flesh, soft and pliant in Your loving hands. This Lent, put a new Spirit within us, so that just as we drink from the fountain of Your mercy, we may in turn be a fountain of Your mercy to others. We ask this in Your holy name, and through the intercession of the Most Pure Heart of your Mother, Mary, as we pray, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee….”

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