A Daily Lent

The Fifth Sunday of Lent Daily Reading : John 8:1 – 11 Focus Passage : Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. (Jn. 8:1 – 6) We each have our ways of making people pay for their sins. We may give them the cold shoulder. We may deal with them out of our learned passive-aggressive tendencies. We may broadcast their failings not-too-subtly to others. We may withhold the gift of our friendship. We may find ways to exclude them from our lives. We may humiliate them at a public function. The teacher...

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent John 8:7 – 11 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” When Jesus wrote on the ground, the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees “heard it.” I wonder what they heard? The text doesn’t report what Jesus wrote on the ground – purposely ambiguous, I believe – so I have no idea what they heard. These men have a reputation, especially in John’s Gospel, for being singularly stubborn and unwilling to consider any position but their own. Something, though, t...

The Fifth Sunday of Lent John 8:2 – 7 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Forgive the thought . . . but talk of stoning immediately sends my mind to Monty Python and the stoning of the man who spoke the name “Jehovah.” I laugh just thinking of it . . . even as I weep, because so much of my own religious experience is wound up in tha...

John 8:2 - 11 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one...