According to one tradition, the Divine Glory once resided in the Temple in Jerusalem. But the sins of the people were so awful that God departed, leaping from the Temple to the Garden of Olives and then up to heaven. Now God is back. Jesus, the bearer of Divine Glory is returning to the Temple by the same path. It is early – a new day – so we can expect something new. What will happen when divine glory encounters sin once more?
St. John sets the scene, “All the people came to Him…” This teaching is for all people and for all time because they need it. Jesus is seated and is about to teach but there is an interruption. This teaching will be a masterclass in relationships, taught relationally. The lost tribe of the scribes and Pharisees are at it again. Clearly the Parable of the Prodigal didn’t have the desired effect. A woman (who was clearly committing adultery all by herself) is ‘caught’, ‘brought’ and ‘made to stand there’. This is what the Pharisees do really well – holding people in their sin. Notice too how they make full use of a favourite tool of the self-righteous – the stare. It is used to demote a person to an object, to hold them in the sin and to close off the flow of time and the newness it might bring. Their real agenda is to trap Jesus, to hold Him. But in their haste they have
unwittingly given Him the raw material of His response.
‘Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground’. (v.9). It doesn’t matter what He wrote, but that He wrote twice with his finger, on the earth, and that twice He bent down and straightened up. The One who writes with His finger is close to God (Ex:31:18) like Moses, who having witnessed the sins of his community goes back up the mountain to plead for them. When Moses asks if he can see the divine glory, God accepts but hides him in the cleft of a rock. Then God tells him to cut two more tablets with these words. “I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablet which you broke”. As the Glory of God passes by, Moses is treated to the beautiful words of Exodus 34, 6-8. You can read it for yourself! So God writes a second time, God frees what people can only hold.
For Jesus, the Pharisees and Scribes have not truly understood the law of Moses. The true interpretation is that God always writes twice. What happens between the first and second writing? An understanding that there are no people who are without sin and that they live only because of God’s infinite mercy. If all live by Grace, who can throw the first stone? The need to ask for forgiveness for myself takes precedence over the need to condemn another? Jesus alternative to the holding stare of the Pharisees and their followers is to hold up a mirror and then bend down again. He will not use their staring strategy. He gives them the self-knowledge they need to change. The divine glory does not have to return to heaven as it has found another way to heal the sins of the earth.
Jesus writes with his finger as a sign that God is speaking. He writes twice as a sign that God is forgiving. He writes on the earth as a sign that this teaching is for all peoples of all times. He refuses to stare as a sign that sins are not held. And when they got what He was trying to say what did they do? Did they let go of vengeance in favour of forgiveness? Did they give up judgement in favour of friendship? No! They walked away, preferring to live in isolation – one by one – than in the joy of the community. They remained alone and unconnected. A tragedy which proves that the longer we choose to live as judge, jury and executioner of the weak, the harder it is to see the truth and power of the alternative.
But Jesus keeps faith with her. He stands and looks without staring. And just as those who walked away needed to see their distorted self in order to repent and have life, she needs to see her true self reflected in His gaze so that she can ‘see and believe’. He calls her ‘Woman’ – a title of honour – and points her to her true self. He asks her, ‘Has no-one condemned you?’ This is the first and only time she speaks and her answer is powerful. “No-one, Lord”. The suffocating neck brace of condemnation has evaporated. When she calls Jesus ‘Lord’ she knows He speaks from the heart of God. She knows she must now Go! But she also knows that as she goes she must walk without sin.
The Divine Glory has returned. Sin will not drive it away. He has written the truth twice upon the earth and built a new Temple of forgiveness in the precincts of the old. The woman is free to take her first steps into the future that is coming. The question is, are we?
