It is the story of the Pharisees and scribes bringing a woman caught in adultery in front of Jesus for judgement. Their goal was to try to catch Jesus by either him saying stone her, showing a lack of mercy or saying let her go in violation of the law of Moses. Neither is good for Jesus.
He responds by ignoring them and writing the dirt. When pressed he says:
"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
Everyone eventually leaves and Jesus forgives the woman's sin telling her to sin no more.
In my life I have heard many homilies about different parts of this Gospel. Things like:
- Adultery is a sin committed by two people, so where is the man? The answer-don't know!
- What was Jesus writing in the dirt? The answer-don't know! But I have heard maybe he was writing the sins of the Pharisees and scribes to remind them of their sins. I prefer to think he was just doodling like any other man.
As I was listening to the homily today another thing came to mind. Jesus could have just been influenced by the crowd and gone with the majority opinion. But he didn't, he made a judgement based on what was right rather than what the crowd wanted.
How does this relate to us today? In my opinion sometimes the Catholic Church today finds itself interjecting itself into the world's social and political issues. Maybe it is LGBT issues, women priests, abortion, immigration or environmental issues. And in those cases The Church make judgements based on what society wants for fear of repercussions from media or world view. The Church makes statements as to not hurt people's feelings. And in doing so they come out wishy-washy and unclear.
I can never tell the Church was to do but I miss the times when the Church was more focused on the spiritual. They made declarations based on what was in the teachings in the scripture, tradition and the magisterium rather than what might be politically correct.
The Church should try to not be in the world, but of the world.
.jfif)
.jfif)
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