Go and sin no more

Fr Richard Healey reflects on the Gospel story of Jesus and the woman accused of adultery. He vividly describes the scene, highlighting the hypocrisy of the accusers and Jesus’ profound response. Jesus’ challenge, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” shifts the focus from judgment to self-reflection. Fr Richard draws parallels to the sacrament of confession, emphasizing the transformative power of grace and mercy. He references Saint Augustine and the Apostle Paul, encouraging us to embrace God’s mercy and extend it to others, fostering a community of compassion and hope.

00:00:00 When we come to imagine that gospel scene. It’s an extraordinary encounter between Jesus, this woman, and the crowd of these old men, judging, condemning, filled with hatred, malice, violence. I always imagine the stones are kind of just there in the background, ready to be collected, ready to be hurled. This poor woman has been dragged there, probably half naked, slumped on the ground in the dirt and the dust caught. We’re told, in the very act of committing adultery. And yet where’s the dude? Where’s the bloke that she was accused of committing adultery with? We see the hypocrisy of this group of learned men, this group of people who only set about condemning and judging. They’ve already determined both the guilt of the woman and of Jesus. That’s all this is about. They want to condemn. They want to accuse Jesus in order to get rid of him, in order to be free from the encumbrance that Jesus has become for them. And this woman is there. And Jesus begins this conversation not in words, but in action, as he bends down to the ground and begins to scribble in the sand.

00:01:33 We don’t know what he wrote, whether he quoted the scripture, whether he mentioned particular sins. All of that is lost, and it’s not that significant. Not that important for us and for our pondering of this story. What is significant is that Jesus uses this as a teaching moment, that Jesus offers this opportunity for these old, bitter men to learn from this, that the one who is without sin Be the first to cast one of these stones. Beginning, we’re told, with the most sinful, which are clearly the old people in the community. One by one, the men begin to disappear from the edge of the crowd, and one by one, as the young ones also realize that they alone are left to accuse her, they begin to disappear as well and to melt into the background. Only then we’re told, are we left with the miserable and mercy itself. It’s a beautiful line that we find in the writings of Saint Augustine. One of his sermons about this encounter, this moment when it’s just the woman and Jesus, she’s still there, huddled.

00:02:49 She’s still not able to understand exactly what is happening, what this moment is all about. She’s left with this experience of will he now condemn me? Will he be the one that will begin to unleash his vindictive words against me. So many others have done that same. They’ve treated me in the same way. And yet, what does he say? Woman. Where are they? Has no one condemned you? Neither do I. Go and sin no more. He doesn’t completely remove the guilt. He, of course, will do that for us in. When we celebrate the sacrament of confession of reconciliation, we encounter the God of mercy. We encounter the God who’s always are there. They’re available to free us from whatever our sin. But there is no judgement on this woman. There is only this encounter, this mercy that reaches out to embrace her in that moment of deepest need, to allow her to experience the tenderness of God’s embrace of God’s touch. And so for us, let’s allow the streams that flow in the desert that we hear about in the prophet Isaiah, or the gift of Paul, realizing that even he is not yet perfect, that all of the things that he counted are so powerful in his life.

00:04:13 All of the things he was able to tick off when he was a young man, just as a young man. I want to do to be able to say, yes, you know, I was born a son of a Pharisee. I was circumcised on the eighth day. I completed and fulfilled all of the requirements of the law. Everything that was necessary, I did so that I reached this perfection. And yet, he says, I realized that all of that was mere — ‘skubala‘ is the Greek — mere garbage, rubbish, dung crap in comparison to the supreme advantage of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord. He realizes that Paul needs to continue to run the race, continues to strive for the gift of what the Lord is inviting him into, this gift of this moment of grace and love and mercy. That we can experience that same grace and that same mercy by encountering his love and by receiving his life and his goodness. So let’s continue to be people that realize that no matter how much we are enmeshed in guilt and especially in shame, that all we need to do is to come before the Lord.

00:05:27 And Paul tells us in Romans 8 that there is therefore now no condemnation for anyone who is in Christ Jesus. Let’s allow the law of grace to overwhelm our clinging to the law of justice and condemnation. Let’s allow the God of grace to meet us as we are there on the ground. As he scribbles in the sand, as he tells us that we are free to go and to sin no more. Let’s allow that mercy to meet us, as we share that grace and that goodness with those around us, as we continue to release the guilt from our own lives, but release the guilt from those around us as well.