“Learning Lessons from the Story of the Woman Caught in Adultery”
Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent, Year “C”
April 5, 2025; St. Mary’s Cathedral
Northern California Regional Choir Festival of American Federation Pueri Cantores
Introduction
We are now entering into the final stages of Lent, with the most sacred days of the Church year soon upon us. It will come to its culmination next week, Holy Week, concluding with the Easter Triduum, the three most sacred days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. Today we enter into the final two weeks of Lent, traditionally known as Passiontide, and we see how the tension between the scribes and Pharisees and Jesus is mounting.
Lessons
For the Gospel reading this year on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, the Church gives us the story of the woman caught in adultery. As the days are fast approaching when we will most solemnly commemorate all that our Lord suffered for us for the sake of our forgiveness and to open for us the possibility of living with him forever, the Church holds out to us a lesson about the abundance of God’s mercy and His call to us of ever more perfect conversion to Him. And in fact, there are many lessons we can learn from this story if we really delve into the details. So let us do that.
How Jesus Converses with Us
The first thing to note is the context in which this event occurs. St. John tells us: “Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area”. Before going to the temple to teach the people, Jesus had spent all night in prayer. He engages the people in conversation, but only after he had been in conversation with his Father. So this is the first lesson for us in this story: Jesus’ conversation with us always comes from his conversation with his Father.
God’s Mercy and Our Conversion
Next, John tells us, “… he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.” He sat down: the chair is the symbol of teaching authority. Jesus never leaves his chair, because he teaches with the authority of God. What the Pharisees want to do, though, is to turn his seat of teaching into a seat of judgment. So they present to him this woman caught, as the accusers put it, “in the very act of committing adultery.” And to shame her all the more, they “made her stand in the middle” – before the eyes of everyone in the crowd.
The Jewish law required that two witnesses see the whole crime before bringing the accusation. What does this mean? The woman involved here was likely someone who had a certain reputation in the town; the townspeople knew her habits, that she was a “woman of ill repute.” So it must be that her accusers planned this as a setup, knowing her habits, and placing two witnesses at the scene, in order to trap Jesus in what they saw as an inescapable dilemma, given that Roman law forbad Jews to execute according to their own law, which demanded it in this case – so, whose side would he take: keep the integrity of the Jewish law in defiance of state, or respect the authority of the state and deny the law of his own people and their religious tradition? Jesus’ reaction instead is to bend over and write in the sand. What was he writing?
The Jewish law required that, when making a judgment in a capital case, the text of the pertinent Scripture be present. That could be done either by someone reciting it, or having a scroll of it present, or, as here, writing it out. In this part of the story, Jesus is having a conversation with the Pharisees. “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” What he teaches them is that none of us is better than the others, because we are all sinners before God. So this is the second lesson that we can glean from this story: we rely on God’s mercy, but we must attend to our own ongoing conversion and turning away from sin if we wish to be a vessel capable of receiving that mercy.
The Mollifying Effect of Realizing One’s Sinfulness
Next, Jesus “again … bent down and wrote on the ground” while the crowd “went away one by one.” Or rather, the mob. We see how the revelation of their own faults mollified them; it turned that mob into a group of individuals. That, then, is yet another lesson: the effect that the realization of one’s sinfulness has on quieting one’s anger and condemnatory attitude toward others.
Jesus Enters Our Shadow Side to Help Us Understand Why We Sin
So what was Jesus writing this second time? Perhaps the first time it was the passages of Scripture that enumerate the sins of the accusers in the mob, for in his conversation with them Jesus was also looking to bring about their conversion. The second time, then, it would be the text of the law that pertains to the sin of the woman.
Notice the first words he speaks to her: “Woman, where are they?” This word “where” – “ma’am” in Hebrew – has an accusatory connotation in the Old Testament, that is, it is the question asked when accusing someone, as, for example, in God’s response to Adam after they had eaten the forbidden fruit: “The Lord God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you?” Here, Jesus asks “where” in reference to the accusers – that is, he begins his conversation with the woman by accusing her accusers. Only after that does he ask her, “Has no one condemned you?”
It is not enough for Jesus, though, to simply set her free from condemnation from without, without setting her free on the inside. This is why he commanded her, “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” Jesus lowers himself to be equal to her on her level, entering into a conversation with her to help her understand why it is that she sins, why she is stuck in this pattern of self-destructive behavior. He enters into her shadow side with her to set her free from this kind of addictive behavior that enslaves the spirit. He is leading her to the true freedom of the children of God. That is how Jesus deals with us, and this, then, is the next lesson: if we allow him to, Jesus will enter into our shadow side to help us understand why it is that we slip into patterns of sinful behavior, so he can set us free on the inside and make us capable of life with him.
Jesus Takes the Violence for Us
And then comes the greatest lesson of all: the accusers of the woman caught in adultery wanted to do violence to her, but instead, Jesus suffered the violence for her – and for all of us, because, again, in this sense we are all equal because we are all wounded by sin. That is the irony of God’s way of doing things: she is guilty, Jesus is innocent – and yet, he is the one put to a violent death, for her, and for all of us.
Right Relationship with God
Why did he do this for us? St. Paul answers that question for us in his Letter to the Philippians: “I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God …”.
“Righteousness,” that is, a right relationship with God: Jesus took the violence for us in order to put us in a right relationship with God because we cannot do that ourselves, and without that, we suffer the violence of eternal death. It is faith in Christ that opens that door for us, the “righteousness … which comes through faith in Christ”.
Yes, it is sadly true there is still much violence in the world. Indeed, it seems to be increasing all over the face of the globe, and even in many of our own neighborhoods. This, though, shows all the more that the way to peace and a rightly, godly ordered society is through faith in Jesus Christ. The more we distance ourselves from God, the more disorder, violence and mayhem will spread in society, and in our own lives.
Conclusion
Let us, then, take to heart and learn well the lessons today’s story have to teach us: everything Jesus teaches us flows from his conversation with his Father; God is abundant in mercy and at the same time calls us to ever more perfect conversion to Him, that His mercy may become a reality in our lives; when we truly become aware of, acknowledge and admit our sins, it has a calming effect on our relationships with others; Jesus enters into our shadow side to reveal to us the reason why we sin, so that he can set us free from those shackles and live in the true freedom of the children of God; and most significant of all, he suffers the violence for us.
Now, before concluding, I would like to say a word about the special feature that graces our Mass tonight, the Northern California Regional Choir Festival of the American Federation Pueri Cantores. Everything I’ve said here in my homily is a matter of teaching, elucidating spiritual principles. But that cannot remain in the abstract if it is going to make a difference in our lives. It must be lived out in the specific circumstances of our day-to-day lives, which means we must build up the spiritual stamina to persevere when it becomes difficult. That cannot happen without the right worship of God. It all begins here, in our greatest act of worship of God, which must be dignified, reverent, worthy and holy if it is to glorify God and lead us down the path of holiness – that is, spiritual excellence, making us spiritually strong.
I want, then, to thank the organizers and sponsors of Pueri Cantores, for it is their mission “to evangelize and catechize choristers through the medium of sacred music, aiding them in growing in their faith and rooting them ever deeper to the Church.”* Sacred music is indeed a most powerful and effective way to evangelize and catechize, especially children and young people, so that they may be sensitized to the beauty of God and yearn for the fullness of His truth. As we benefit at our Mass tonight with the beauty in our worship they provide us through their talent and hard work, let it be for all of us a means to turn our hearts ever more perfectly over to God, that we might learn the lessons of the Gospel and know, and live in, the true freedom of the children of God.
* From the website of the American Federation Pueri Cantores (https://www.pcchoirs.org/).