I grew up with voices in my head. Voices that spoke pretty loudly at times. Voices that tried to convince me of two very different things. On the one side, there were the voices that said: “You are a good kid, Bill Kempf. You are a good listener, obedient, respectful, and genuinely caring for people.” Voices that very seductively tried to have me buy into the one end of the confession and repentance spectrum: “Everything is fine between me and God’ – there is nothing to be repented of. You’ve got this ‘God and You’ thing down.”
On the other end were the voices that said this: “You are just Fred’s brother, or Joe’s brother, or Dennis or Walt’s or Mary’s brother. There is nothing special about you.” In fact, you are so unworthy of being your own self, of being loved, that when you fail, not even God could forgive what you have done. God could never want a person like you.” Both ends of that spectrum are deadly for the spiritual life. In today’s gospel we see those played out. And we see the desire of Jesus to embrace people hearing those voices on both ends of the forgiveness spectrum.
The ‘Scribes and the Pharisees’ fall perhaps into that first category – those who figure that they have it all together. And because they do, they can judge those who do not have it together. Because they believe that they have it together, then how easy is it for them to take to task those whom, like the woman, obviously don’t. And because they resent this Jesus who called rich and poor alike to repentance, they set their trap.
You can hear the tension after they present their case. “What do you say?” Their righteous challenge echoes through the air, and it hangs there, in the middle, as surely as the woman stands there in the middle.
So, what does Jesus do? He bends down and begins to write upon the ground. Maybe with a stick. Maybe with his finger. But he writes on the ground. We don’t know what he writes. But I can surmise why. He writes to buy some time, doesn’t he, for a reasoned response. He lets that mob mentality energy kind of die down in the sudden silence. People shuffle a bit, straining to hear what Jesus will say. And in that silence, suddenly, they can hear their own heart beat, can hear their own breath. They can see the flushed face of the women they make stand there, no longer a nameless woman caught in the act, but a scared human being, worthy less of judgment and more of mercy. He writes to give them time to return to themselves. And then we hear that most famous of all lines. “Let the one without sin, be the first to cast the stone.”
This time, he bends down and writes again – but no longer to buy time. Rather, to give them time to look into their own heart – to see their own need for mercy. In that space, in that non-judgmental moment, THEY are offered salvation. They are offered mercy – not the judgment of Jesus, calling them out, one by one in a Texas stare down; not Jesus holding them in their sin as they held the woman – but rather, that gentle doodling on the ground which allows them the time to see their need for the very mercy they were refusing to give.
Do you hear the voices in your life that call out your need for mercy?
Then, to the woman, after they had all gone away, you hear that same compassionate voice asking: “Where are they?” “Where are all those voices that wanted to hold you in your shame? Where are the voices, external and INTERNAL that wanted you to believe that what you had done was deserving of death – both spiritual and physical. That you had no hope of being loved and forgiven and accepted ever again. “Has no one condemned you?” If they, in their human smallness of heart can let this sin go, then, can you trust that I can as well? In my imagination, the woman’s feet don’t touch the ground the whole way back to her home.
Do you only hear the voices of the Scribes and Pharisees saying ‘you have no need to repent? Do you find yourself, perhaps like the woman, only able to hear the voices which say there is no possibility of forgiveness for you?
Hear today the only voice you need hear –that of the divine physician Jesus, who desires THAT ALL should come to know God’s mercy and forgiveness. Hear him say to the self righteous side within – “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” Hear him say to the seemingly unlovable part within you: “Has no one condemned you? Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more…”