5th Sunday of Lent (C)
Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 125 (126); Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11
Picture: Picture by Julius Mburu on Unsplash
My dear friends, how does one catch a monkey? In a scene from the old movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, a man drills a hole in a large abandoned ant-hill, into which he drops some melon seeds. Then he hides and waits. Soon a curious baboon comes along, puts its hand into the hole to grab the seeds, and quickly finds itself trapped. Its closed fist is too large to pull out of the tiny hole. To free itself, all the baboon has to do is release the things it’s holding onto. But it can’t bring itself to do it. So, for the sake of a few measly seeds, the baboon ends up sacrificing its own precious freedom.
What will it take for the one who is trapped to be willing to let go? Isn’t this also the question our scriptures pose to us today? In each of our readings, we find people trapped in some way. The first reading is addressed to a people trapped in exile in Babylon. And just as, in the past, God had helped their ancestors escape the trap of slavery in Egypt, by making a miraculous path for them through the great waters of the Red Sea, so too is God now providing them a road through the wilderness of exile, on which they can be led to safety. But in order for them to see and walk along this God-given freedom trail, the people must be willing to forsake their former wayward ways, their worship of false gods. What will it take for them to be willing to let go?
It’s also abundantly clear to us that the poor woman in the gospel is actually doubly trapped. First in her own sinful situation, about which the reading doesn’t really say very much. We aren’t given any juicy particulars of why and how she comes to be stuck in an adulterous relationship. What the reading does describe, and in greater and more painful detail, is how she is caught in the devious plot of the religious authorities. How she’s in danger of being stoned to death, because wicked men want to get rid of someone of whose success they are envious, and by whose words and actions they feel threatened. So it’s not just the woman who is trapped. Her captors are trapped too. Trapped in their own insecurity and hypocrisy, jealousy and fear.
To both the pitiful woman and her cruel captors, Jesus offers a way out. Being reminded by the Lord of their own sinfulness, the scribes and Pharisees finally decide to leave the woman alone. So she is set free from imminent danger of execution. But although the immediate crisis is defused, aren’t there also things that the reading leaves unresolved? Jesus tells the woman to go away, and do not sin any more. Will she? We’re not told. And though the authorities do release their captive, at this point in the story, it remains unclear if they will forgo their wicked desire to do away with Jesus. Again, what will it take for them to be willing to let go?
Still, it seems reasonable for us to believe that the woman is in a far better position than the men. For she has had the benefit of experiencing first-hand, what it’s like to be protected and defended by Jesus. She knows what it feels like to receive his loving and merciful gaze, and to hear those liberating words, Has no one condemned you?… Neither do I condemn you… And perhaps we might go even further. Perhaps we might consider that, later on, she will hear about, or even witness for herself, the Lord’s own execution, and be deeply moved by the thought that he suffers all that for me… (What marvels the Lord worked for us, indeed we were glad!) Moved not just to turn away from sin, but also to turn toward the path pioneered by the Lord himself. Following him on the Way of the Cross, the Road that leads to fullness of life.
And isn’t this also the experience that St Paul writes about in the second reading? Like the woman in the gospel, Paul too has experienced and been deeply moved by the Lord’s mercy, shown to him especially on the road to Damascus. Moving him to let go of all the things he previously considered valuable. Accepting the loss of everything for the sake of the Lord. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. It’s as though that poor baboon in the movie were to suddenly find itself offered a juicy ripe mango, in exchange for letting them go…
Isn’t this the kind of exchange we are trying to facilitate in Lent? By helping one another recall, and gaze unflinchingly upon, all that the Lord has done for us, we hope to receive the grace to let go of the things that keep us trapped. Not just for our own sakes, but also for the sake of this tariff-threatened world of ours. For the sake of all who remain trapped by our common tendency to cling to passing things.
Sisters and brothers, of what melon seeds might the Lord be helping us to let go, so that we may cling instead to the delicious mango of his merciful love for us this Lent?
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