Gospel: The adulterous woman
Jesus meets an adulterous woman
Jesus meets an adulterous woman, who is not only a symbol of sin, but a person with a history, with feelings of shame, fear and the desire to be accepted. His experience reflects the inner struggles that many face in their search for their identity and dignity.
Jesus does not condemn her; instead he offers her a second chance saying: "I do not condemn you either; go and don’t sin anymore from now on". This message of mercy is central to Christianity and represents the essence of its teaching: we are not defined by our sins, but by our capacity to receive and offer forgiveness.
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Gospel - John [8,1-11]
"At that time, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But in the morning he went again to the temple, and all the people came to him. And he sat down and began to teach them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought him a woman caught in adultery, placed her in the middle and said to him, "Master, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now Moses, in the Law, commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say?". They said this to test him and to have reason to accuse him. But Jesus bent down and began to write with his finger on the ground. However, when they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said to them: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And, bending down again, he wrote on the ground. When they heard this, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. They left him alone, and the woman was there in the middle. Then Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where am I? Has no one condemned you?". And she answered, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."
(Jn 8:1-11).
Meditation - Adulterous Woman
The question posed to Jesus aims to catch him in contradiction, putting him in front of a dilemma that is difficult to resolve. He must choose whether to abide by the law and pronounce a death sentence, or opt for a different solution thus violating the law. The life of that woman therefore depends on the decision of Jesus, whose moral authority these characters pretend to recognize, in order to deceive him and have the pretext of condemning him.
For this reason, caught in the act of adultery, they brought the woman to Jesus and asked him: "What do you say?" A reflection arises: why was it that only the woman was brought to trial and not also her accomplice who, according to the Law of Moses, should also have been condemned to death? She alone was exposed, in infamy and shame, to public opinion; and around her there were only judges, enemies, accusers.
When asked by them, Jesus, unexpectedly, said nothing: he bent down and began to write in the earth without uttering a word. He writes on earth with his finger: an enigmatic gesture, which some have interpreted as Jesus in the act of writing the sins of the accusers, others biblical phrases. However, John's account draws attention to the fact that, in the face of such "distraction" of Jesus, the accusers did not desist in questioning him.
Jesus' response is silence, the refusal to play the game of those who were setting a trap for him, the refusal to succumb to the request of the "flock"; it is the courage to be different, not to react in an obvious way in the face of accusations and criticism. It is a powerful silence, which screams, which speaks, which says more than many words; and the gesture of bending down, to start writing again, is even more so. Jesus does not break the law, he does not say that the law is not good, unjust, or that it is no longer valid. He raises his head and "answers", but he does not do so with a direct statement, but with an expression that contains another question: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her". Jesus thus confirms the validity of the law, according to which the witness of adultery must be the first to stone the guilty but, in citing the exact prescription, he also recalls that the witness, in order to perform this act, must be the first to be without sin (cf. Deut 13:9-10; 17,7).
At this point, Jesus does not even wait for the accusers to respond: he bends down again and begins to write again; The observation-question, posed to them, shakes and makes them read deeply within themselves: it has planted a seed in the consciousness of each of them and, now, we must let the seed work. With those words he makes them think: the difference between intelligence and ignorance lies precisely in this, in thought. Jesus' words are full of the disarming power of truth, which breaks down the wall of hypocrisy and opens consciences to a greater justice, that of love.
The older one gets, the more numerous the sins committed in the course of life: who can claim not to have fallen into some sin? Yet we often and quickly forget how many times we have appealed to Mercy to receive God's forgiveness. Of course, it is easy to run with the flock, but we must be careful that the flock does not lead us to destruction.
Faced with Jesus' statement, the accusers of the adulteress were convinced by their own conscience that they had made a mistake in something, that they had made mistakes; and then, stoning that woman would have meant immediately deserving the same sentence. Being able to think for yourself, reflect and become aware of your mistakes, is the beginning of awakening, because if there is no conscious belief, there can be no awakening in one's life that leads to transformation. When will we get tired of accepting our weaknesses and strive to be better?
Jesus bent down to the ground and one after the other they dropped their stones of hatred: we too certainly have some stones to drop, despite the times when they betrayed us, deceived us, broke our hearts. When we are about to say something about someone, we must be aware of our weaknesses: awareness will make us shut our mouths, force us to apologize, to give the person who has fallen foul another chance.
"Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw down the stone." This "sentence" is addressed to me, to you, to each one of us for every time we allow ourselves to judge the brother, the sister, the man, the woman who has a manifest and public sin. It is on the basis of these assumptions that St. Augustine wisely comments on the Gospel passage. Afterwards "the text does not tell us if the woman had repented, and only the two of them remained, the wretched and the merciful; Jesus does not condemn and offers that woman the possibility of change. We are not told if she changed her life, if she converted, or if she did penance. We only know that, in order for her to change her life, Jesus sent her towards freedom: 'Go, go towards yourself and sin no more'".
