Homily   Fifth Sunday in Lent  - March 28, 2004

 

A little seed lay on the ground,

And soon began to sprout.

Seeing all the flowers around

It wondered:  “How shall I come out?

 

The lily’s face is fair and proud

But just a trifle cold.

The rose, I think is rather loud,

And its fashion’s getting old.

 

Of the violet some may think well,

But it’s not a flower I’d choose;

Nor even the Canterbury bell,

I’ve never cared for blues.”

 

And so it criticized each flower,

This haughty little seed,

Until it woke one summer noon,

And found itself a weed!

 

 

Dr. Gerald Jampolsky wrote a book a few years ago entitled Love Is Letting Go of Fear.  In that book he asks this question:  “Have you ever given yourself the opportunity of going through just one day concentrating on totally accepting everyone and making no judgments?”  He goes on to say, “Everything we think or say reacts on us like a boomerang.  When we send out judgments in the form of criticism, fury, or other attack-thoughts, they come back to us.  When we send out only love, it comes back to us.”

 

So I suggest that you try this once a month (I don’t think we can really handle more than that.)  For one day – say, the third Tuesday of each month, or whatever – suspend all judgments.  Spend on day of acceptance.  Pull back from judging and just look and accept.  See the difference it makes in your life.

 

Once again, as we gather for this Fifth Sunday of Lent we are reminded of God’s amazing mercy, love, God works continually and feverishly to save us – to heal us – to bring us home.   We spend this Lent – and indeed we celebrate the Eucharist together today to try to understand what our God is like for us – We need more and more to understand God’s mercy toward us – understanding this will transform us.

 

And so in the first reading the Prophet Isaiah give us a very poetic rendering of what happened in the Exodus story. God not only freed the people and brought them to a new home – God exceeded anything that anyone could imagine.

 

And so we are called upon to believe that our God is continually loving us and saving us and bringing us home. We are to believe that we are treasured by our God – not because we’ve done anything special –but that is simply the kind of God we have.

And isn’t this what Jesus works to show us – to teach us?

 

Our gospel story is a challenging one.  As a matter of fact we are told that the early Church didn’t include this story in some of the earlier renditions of the Gospels.  Did it sound like Jesus was sanctioning sin? Did it sound like loose morals? Did it seem to fly in the face of family life? The moral majority were probably having a bad time with it!

 

But of course they, like us so often, missed the point. Jesus treated this woman caught in adultery like Jesus treated everyone else – there was no distinction. The tax collector, the child, the fisherman, the sick person, the men, the women, the rich, the poor were all on the receiving end of Jesus’ love and compassion and understanding. There was no one who fell outside his circle. His table was very crowded.

 

But perhaps some in the early church were not as willing to be so inclusive. Sure there was room at the table for most – those tax collectors may have been a bad lot but, well, we all can understand a desire for money. The sick – the leper – might be pretty disgusting and I don’t want to catch it – but the poor soul –I guess I’ll include him. And the poor – and maybe women – but adulterers! We have to draw the line somewhere. But Jesus didn’t.

 

Jesus illustrates that God’s love – as illustrated the continuing work of salvation – bringing the people to safety and salvation – doesn’t have limits. And this woman standing in front of him is as deserving of love and compassion and the chance for growth and healing as anyone else who might come along.

 

We probably wouldn’t be as hard on her as those first century Christians – would we?  We understand human sexuality better, don’t we?  And we know about temptation.  Perhaps those people who dragged her before Jesus were a bit prudish and narrow and ignorant. We’d never do that!

 

But we have to ask ourselves who we would drag before Jesus. Are there people in our experience – in the experience of our contemporary society that we don’t quite think belong around the table – people that stretch it a bit for us?

 

Would it be the drug addict – continually relapsing and using all around them to get the next high?

Would it be the homeless- the chronic homeless – the one who doesn’t seem to cooperate with social services to find the shelter not be in our face in the street on the way to work in the morning?

Would it be the mentally ill whose behavior scares us – and who we’d rather not see – especially next door to us.

Would it be the person living with AIDS – they got this by their behavior after all?

Would it be the transgendered, the transsexual – We can’t quite figure that out!

Or maybe those who challenge us greatly these days because they feel that their love and relationship should not be penalized because they happen to be of the same sex.

Would we drag some or all of these people in the circle before Jesus and say/suggest that this is going too far – a loving God is one thing but isn’t there a limit!

 

Paul gives us a great line in the second reading today.  Paul tells us that he “has not taken possession.” Paul the great apostle who has experience the Lord’s calling and conversion and healing power knows that he hasn’t gotten it all yet and so he’d better not act like he did. Paul says he just wants to move forward and move up and get closer to the ideal that God has set in Jesus. Paul wants desperately to love as much and as well and as inclusively as Jesus did.

 

And so should we.

 

Those people who dragged that woman in front of Jesus probably thought they were doing the good thing. They figured that this woman had gone too far. But Jesus moved them and challenged their judgment.

Our goal this lent, like Paul’s, should be to allow Jesus’ love and mercy move us so that we don’t go dragging anyone away from our table. 

 

Freed from that narrowness and trying to love more like Jesus does we’ll be in a better place for Easter and will experience more than ever the newness of Easter life.