The Law & the Woman & the Capitol protest: some thoughts on John 8: 3-5

 “The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along
who had been caught committing adultery; and making
her stand there in the middle they said to Jesus: Master,
this woman was caught in the very act of committing
adultery, and in the Law, Moses has ordered us
to stone women of this kind.
What have you got to say?”

--John 8:3-5

What a fearful statement.  The scribes and Pharisees make such a fearful claim when they say, Moses ordered us to stone women “of this kind.”  The implication is that the Law, from God, commands us to kill her. What other choice do we have? It’s God’s law! 

But then, as if to trick Jesus, they ask: What do you think?

There are a few things here I would like to think about.  First, that word “ordered.”  Did God actually “order” His people to kill anyone guilty of adultery? In Leviticus (20:10) and Deuteronomy (22: 23-34) the punishment for adultery is prescribed as death (for both man and woman). And the idea behind it is that it is a grave sin and must be driven out of the community.  So, in a sense the scribes and Pharisees are right.  And yet, how does Jesus respond?

His answer isn’t: No. You’re wrong. You misinterpreted the Law. Or even to blame them for spying on the woman. What were they doing, that they were able to catch her “in the very act?”

No. He responds with silence.  He kneels down and begins “writing on the ground with His finger.” (8:6) Why?  Why doesn’t He correct them? Why doesn’t He chastise them?  In Matthew’s Gospel, when the same guys come with another question about God commanding a writ of divorce, Jesus seems almost to shake His head and sigh, “It was because of the hardness of your hearts that Moses allowed you to divorce…” (cf. Mt 19:7-9).  Why doesn’t He say something like that here, too?  I wonder. 

They are saying something provocative and dangerous. And it is very clear that they have come to Him not seeking answers but an excuse for something they already have in their hearts. They are truly hungry for blood. This crowd has been riled up and is ready to erupt.

On some level, they remind me of those people in Washington DC who stormed the capitol. People who were clearly riled up and ready to explode.  They were not in Washington to seek answers or debate issues. From all appearances, they were there to cast stones.

I have been wondering about that event for a few days now. The horror of it, the anger that overwhelmed many of the protesters --turning them into a violent mob. Five people died. But I have also been thinking about some of the faces I keep seeing on the news. On many of them I see anger and rage and frustration, but on others I see smiles and something like glee. In some of these pictures and videos, I see what looks more like a bunch of middle-aged high-schoolers out for a last fling—a lark! A kind of Spring Break from Covid and isolation and the exhausting lives they find themselves trapped in. 

I do not mean to denigrate their anger, or deny that they may sincerely feel aggrieved; may even sincerely feel like their election was stolen. But… how do we stop this craziness? How do we stop this divisiveness? How do we stop our country, our society, our culture from self-destruction, from becoming nothing but a raging series of reactionary riots?

One way might be to look to Jesus for an example.  The crowd comes to Him, ready for a fight, hungering for justification and confrontation.  And instead of correcting them, or engaging in their anger, He listens and even takes notes.  And by doing so—what happens? The tension is released. The crowd is dispersed—in fact, it disperses itself. The frenzy that caught up the crowd has been calmed, because someone helped them slow down and think—slow down and remember who they were. Not riotous murderers, but people, families, fathers and brothers and sons, mothers and daughters and… people. Just ordinary people who have struggled with their own sins and failings, their own weaknesses and longings.

Jesus doesn’t argue with them or their understanding of the Law.  He simply listens to them, to their concerns, and then asks them to remember who they are.

What a beautiful lesson we get every time we open the scripture. If only we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

 

Lord, open my eyes that I may read Your word more clearly

Lord, open my ears that I may hear Your word more fully

and open my heart, that I may be filled

with the Love that is always found there.

 

 

    

Sin begets sin: A meditation on 2 Samuel 11

“Do not take the matter to heart;

the sword devours now one and now

another. Attack the town in greater

force and destroy it.” –2 Samuel 11:25

It is interesting to me, how David’s sin hardens his heart.  The town he speaks of destroying in the verse above is to be destroyed after it has done exactly what David wanted done. The archers of the town have killed Uriah, who David wanted killed; he has even ordered his general to arrange it. And of course, that leads us to ask: why does David want Uriah dead? Because Uriah might discover and reveal David’s sin; that David has slept with and impregnated Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.

The story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah is an astonishingly complex story. And the whole thing is related in one short yet very profound chapter (2 Samuel 11).  It begins by telling us that it was the time of year when kings should be off leading their armies in battle, but David stayed home resting and strolling around the palace. One day while strolling on the roof he spies a beautiful young woman bathing, and instead of averting his gaze, he sends for her and soon she is pregnant.  To cover up what he has done, David sends for her husband who is off fighting the king’s battle (which is where King David should be).  And to cover up his own sin, he tries to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba, but his loyal subject won’t do that. While his fellow soldiers are sleeping on the ground, he refuses to accept the comforts of home and wife until the battle is over.   He is behaving as David should, with purity of action and intent. Commitment. Whereas David is strolling and relaxing and seducing other men’s wives while his army and the Ark of God are out in the open, risking themselves, revealing themselves. Of course, on some level, that is exactly what David does here (though unintentionally).  The more he tries to hide his sin, the more he reveals his sinfulness.

It starts with sloth, David unwilling to do his kingly duty, but grows into lust, then adultery, then the attempted cover-up (false-witness), and finally murder; all because David stayed home when he should have gone to work and grew restless with too much time on his hands and… well, in the end, because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he did wrong.

In the end, he wants Uriah killed because Uriah can reveal his sin; but the desire is only intensified when Uriah acts righteously.  For David this is a kind of prophetic witness against him.   He sees in Uriah an example of the man he should be: selfless and humble, and he cannot bear it. It only hardens his heart.  How many times have I felt the sting of my own hypocrisy intensified by witnessing the simple kindness or selflessness of another?  When we are in sin, we don’t want to see good in the world. It sickens us, in a sense, because it challenges us to rise up and be better. It bears witness against our excuses and justifications. When I am fallen into sin and I see someone else do good, not only does it bother me, but it makes me a little jealous.  And what do we often do when we are jealous of another? We try to tear them down.  And so, David tears down Uriah. He plots his murder, and plots it in such a way that it will seem that he was merely a casualty of war.

And it is in this context that this familiar story suddenly caught my attention anew. When the messenger comes bearing news of Uriah’s death, David at first “flies into a rage” over what sounds to him like a terrible military blunder: “Why did you go near the ramparts?” (11:22)  He is ready to go all Harry Truman on Joab (his personal MacArthur) when the messenger adds that there were some casualties, including “your servant, Uriah the Hittite.” (11:24)

And suddenly David is all soothing words and encouragement. He tells the messenger:

“Say this to Joab: Do not take the matter to heart…

Attack the town in greater force and destroy it.”

David’s words to the messenger sound, on the surface as encouragement to Joab to proceed with the original plan of attack.  But taken in the context of this chapter (this story) we may hear in them a kind of bitterness. Just as David has destroyed Uriah, he now will destroy the inhabitants of this town –who, quite literally, have served him quite well. One might imagine that they deserve at least a little mercy, for having rid David of his guilty conscience. Yet, no. Now he wants them eradicated, too. Sin begets sin, as the old saying goes (cf James 1:12-16), and David’s lust has lead to adultery to false-witness (trying to trick Uriah), to plotting a murder and now to wishing the destruction of a whole town.  Sin begets sin. And it grows and grows.

Often we hear in the news, that --with politicians-- it isn’t usually the crime that gets them, it’s the cover-up.  Well, that seems to be exactly what we are seeing here with David. The original sin is bad, but the cover-up is horrifying.  But why is that?

And that is how I feel about my own sins.  What I do (gossip, lust, selfishness, gluttony, cruelty)  may be terrible, but what I do to keep others from knowing about it is always worse. Because covering up our sin, trying to hide it, requires us to harden our hearts to the truth of it.  Often, it’s in the cover-up that we begin the process of justification and rationalization.  I had to do this, because…  and people won’t understand, so I should hide the truth from them…

In this one brief chapter we get this wonderful fearful story; this powerful and horrifying vision of the power of sin. We read of a good man making bad choices and how private sin that begins in human desire, and personal choice comes to completion in public horrors (murder and destruction). 

So, the next time someone tells you something is only a small sin (a white lie, so to speak), remember this story of David and his seemingly small sin: sloth… he just didn’t want to do his job. It all began with a king feeling a little restless, lazy… slothful.  Even the smallest of sins, can open a door that leads to destruction.  And as this chapter ends we get that final frightful line that tells us the real import of all David’s actions; not that he has done evil or destroyed lives, but that he had damaged his relationship with God:

“What David had done displeased the Lord…”  (11:27b)

David, Israel’s hope, God’s beloved, has turned away from the Lord.  And though that may seem just another matter of personal choice, a matter of personal beliefs, a matter that may have some personal repercussions, but what this little chapter teaches us is that no matter how personal or private our sin seems, it always ends up with very public repercussions, not because people might find out or might hold us accountable, but, because:

Sin begets sin and the fruit of sin is destruction. --James 1:15

Christmas, day 3: "...a just man..."

“…and her husband Joseph being a just man…”
–Matthew 1:19-21

I'm still thinking about Joseph. He was a just man, an upright man, an honorable man and a carpenter.  And, like his patriarch namesake, Joseph is a dreamer; someone God speaks to through dreams.  And, again like that other Joseph, he pays attention to his dreams.  He takes Mary into his house and becomes "her husband," and then, like the Joseph of old who was sold into Egypt by his brothers (cf. Gn. 37), this Joseph uproots his life and flees to Egypt to protect his new wife and keep her baby safe.  

            When I went to confession and was given the penance of reading Matthew's nativity and contemplating Joseph, the first thing I noticed was this: he brings Mary into his home and does whatever it takes to keep her and the baby safe. And then I asked myself: what does that mean? By doing this Joseph is bringing Jesus into his home. Yes. I can see that. And then, after he has received Jesus into his life, he does whatever it takes, makes whatever sacrifice he must to keep Jesus with him.  So, there is that lesson: we should do whatever it takes to receive and keep Christ with us. No sacrifice is too great. Okay. I like that, but...

 On a human level I have always been a little troubled by Joseph’s role in the nativity narrative. I imagine how he must have felt when he learned that Mary was expecting a baby. The sense of betrayal; the sting of his own foolishness for trusting her. How that must have hurt his ego; he was an upright man, a just man, an honorable man. Why would this happen to him? Why would God let this happen to him?  Based on the law, based on justice, he could have demanded she be lead out of the city gates and stoned for such a breach of morality --not to mention marital etiquette (cf. Lv. 20:10; Dt. 22:22; Jn 8:5). And yet, being an honorable man, he wanted to spare this young girl disgrace and planned to divorce her quietly and informally.

            What does this tell us about Joseph? That he was not only an upright man, a just man, an honorable man, but that he was also a compassionate man. And yet, even that isn’t enough for God and God’s plans. No, God wants something more than justice and honor and even more than goodness and compassion.  God wants something extraordinary; He wants a saint. And in a dream, God’s messenger comes to Joseph and tells him –Don’t be afraid. Take Mary into your home and make her your wife.  I know this isn’t what you had planned, but do it anyway.

            And Joseph does it.  He doesn’t wrestle with the angel or argue about how unfair the situation is.  He doesn’t mention that he already has reservations and plans for a glorious romantic honeymoon at the Key West Motor Lodge in Galveston. He gives up his dreams and listens to God’s.  For me, that might be the key lesson. Joseph seems to realize that the story isn’t about him. His life isn’t even about him.  It’s about Jesus. The key question in every life is this: how will you react when God offers to come and dwell with you?

Joseph was an honorable, a just, an upright man.  In other words: he paid his taxes, he went to church, he followed the rules, obeyed the laws.  But that wasn’t enough. God wanted more.  God wanted all. And I think what I learn from the example of Joseph is stated more directly in the words of John the Baptist: “He must increase, and I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).

That’s really what I meant to say in that other reflection.  But, it got away from me. Sometimes I get confused and head in the wrong direction. But, I’m trying. And I hope I am still listening.