Responsoral
17 March 2007 - 28 אדר 5767 by Huw
Todays Lessons:
Daniel 13: 1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62
John 8: 1-11
(NB: because the passage from Daniel is from the Apocryphal books - do you have a 13th chapter? - it is not available from my usual preferred translation. No link there. But the full text is available in today’s liturgical post)
The Gospel passage is the one of the Woman Caught in Adultery: let the one among you without sin cast the first stone. The OT passage is a story of a woman wrongfully accused of adultery and God grants the Prophet Daniel the insight needed to clear the woman and accuse her accusers.
It’s a curious set of readings: in the one a woman is rightly accused and set free. In the other a woman is wrongfully accused and, after proving her innocence, her accusers are cursed to death. But if we pair them up as parallels…
The women mostly match, accused of sin… Jesus and Daniel mostly match, as God’s voice of Advocacy… and the Accusers mostly match…
Odd how, despite our constant acknowledgement of our status as sinners, most of us prefer to be the accusers. I note that neither Jesus nor Daniel ever get around to saying to the woman in question “Did you do this?” The ultimate purpose of both Jesus and Daniel is to pin the real crime on those who level the accusations. But here the stories’ parallels stop.
On the Gospel reading, St Augustine says:
Thus if [Jesus] did accept as truth what is written in the Law, to wit, that the woman taken in adultery be stoned, he would have failed in meekness ; but if he consented to let her go, he would not have kept righteousness.
But, contra Augustine, Jesus wins by a quality entirely unexpected - Love. He needn’t balance his Justice with his Mercy, Truth with Righteousness. Justice was served: everyone was reminded of their guilt. Rather it is his over-riding Divine Love for the woman caught AND for those who caught her that directs his actions (the parallel with Daniel ends, of course): Jesus doesn’t condemn the accusers either. The major difference between Daniel’s story and Jesus’ is that the accusers repent. They answer God’s invitation to walk away. The learn from Jesus not embarrassment but rather the way of Love.
