The picture is of my son pulling out shrubs that have been across the front of my house for many years. I am “doing something new!” It is spring here, a time of year when I get an urge to “do something new” with my house and yard. God, through the prophet Isaiah, says he is doing something new in today’s first reading.
As we enter the last week before Holy Week, the mass readings this week lead us to examine, “What has Lent done in us?” and ask our souls the question, “What is the new in me that Lent is creating?”
In light of those thoughts, let’s look at the Cycle C readings—the ones used in churches where there are no scrutinies for RCIA candidates.
Isaiah 43:16-21
The first reading comes from what scholars call “Second Isaiah,” the part of Isaiah that was written during the Babylonian exile. The “something new” is not a different flower bed. It is the Holy Spirit, described more accurately in the next chapter. “I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring.” (Isaiah 44:3) A part of this reading which fits well with today’s Gospel is “Remember not the events of the past” and “in the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” The Gospel demonstrates this, as Jesus creates something new for a woman in serious trouble.
John 8:1-11
Looking at the context for the Gospel deepens its meaning. The setting is Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. It is roughly six months before the Passover Festival when Jesus will give his life. The Feast of Tabernacles comes at the end of a series of Jewish holidays each fall. They begin with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This beginning of the “High Holy Days” culminates 10 days later in Yom Kipper. Yom Kipper marks the final opportunity to repent before God closes the book of life on the year before. It is supposed to be a day of fasting and earnest prayer for forgiveness. Today’s Gospel is a few days later, during the Festival of Tabernacles. This is a joyous harvest festival, a celebration of God’s goodness and bounty. People relax and party after the somberness of Yom Kipper.
As an adult male, Jesus is supposed to be in Jerusalem for these High Holidays. It is dangerous for him to be there. He is trying to keep a low profile, as we heard in the Gospel readings from Friday and Saturday. Yet he goes, because, by the rules of Jewish culture, he is required to go. That makes it his Father’s will. The Transfiguration happened a month or so earlier, and Jesus knows he is to go to Jerusalem to die. Will it be now? John says, “his hour had not yet come,” but that was written some 60 years later.
In the context of these circumstances, Jesus stays in his safe place, the Mount of Olives, where he often prays. But he is not in hiding. “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.”
Jesus starts out this day doing what he loves to do—teach in the temple. That, too, is his Father’s will.
Then, the plot thickens.
What Jesus Does
Some scribes and Pharisees bring a woman “caught in the act” of adultery to Jesus “to test him.” They know Jesus tends to be merciful. But the law says to stone such women. What will Jesus do? If he says, “Obey the law,” which he often does, they have him pinned for lack of mercy. If he says, “don’t stone her,” they have him pinned for speaking against the law. Anybody but Jesus would be in a “double bind,” a situation where there is no way to win.
Now is where the information about Yom Kipper adds depth to the story. These scribes and Pharisees would be careful observers of Yom Kipper. They would have spent the day naming their sins to God and begging forgiveness.
Jesus responds to them by bending down and writing on the ground. What does he write? We don’t know. But perhaps he writes the sins they had confessed to God on Yom Kipper. Perhaps, he hopes by writing them, he might move them to compassion. It doesn’t work. “They continued asking him.” Jesus responds, “Let the one of you without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He bends down and writes again.
This time did Jesus write the sins they had not confessed to God on Yom Kipper? By the precepts of their faith, they had missed their window of opportunity to be forgiven. Again, we don’t know, but it is a reasonable conjecture, for “they went away one by one, beginning with the elders.”
The story ends when Jesus straightens up and asks the woman, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replies, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus does something new and very important. He combines Mercy and Expectation of Repentance: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
Something New
The something new is the mixing of law and forgiveness, mercy and requirement. Jesus protects the woman from death. In an act of Holy Spirit Truth and Mercy, he saves her physical life. Then, in his final comment, he gives her an opportunity for a NEW spiritual life. “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
While Jesus has taught this pattern from the beginning of his ministry, especially in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain. We will see it acutely during Holy Week. Again and again, Jesus does not run from naming clear standards that fit with Jewish laws of Love God; Love Neighbor. Again and again, Jesus lives Mercy and proclaims Truth.
As he approaches death, Jesus consistently lives the standard: “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and, like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.”
Today he says to me, “Loving others includes helping them in crisis AND leading them to match God’s standards in their lives.
Philippians 3:8-14
Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of upbeat Christian bond. The community at Philippi was a primarily Gentile community established during Paul’s second missionary journey. A primary theme in the letter is living a life of belonging to Christ. Paul names it clearly: “I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus” and “I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.” Everything that is not of that goal Paul counts as loss.
That thought compliments the Gospel and Old Testament readings well. It fits as Lent moves toward Holy Week.
Applications
These readings are rich for me as I move into something new: a different color for my living room and kitchen, a new look to my front yard—yes. But more important, these readings help me see what God has been working in me through Lent. It includes confronting anger and a sense of helplessness deep within me that I have not wanted to let go of. It is a wise monk gently saying to me, “Mary, it is not your job to….” It is the deepening realization that for me, the path God chooses for me walks the line between Truth and Mercy without neglecting either one. In that sense, today’s readings were especially helpful.
What are your applications? Where is God taking possession of you and creating something new in you?
Prayer:
Lord, take possession of me. What you ask is more than I can do, so lead me, guide me, Lord.
