5th Sunday of Lent
Cycle C
Saint Margaret Parish
March 13, 2016 8:00am and 5:00pm
Put It Back Together
There
is a story about a surgeon and his wife who were having dinner at the home of some
friends.
The
surgeon was enjoying a drink in the kitchen while his host was getting ready to
carve the roast beef. The friend asked, “Would you like to do the honors, Doc?”
The
surgeon politely declined. The friend
began carving the roast, and then teased, “So
how’s my technique, Doc?
“I think I’d make a pretty good
surgeon. See, it’s all in the wrist.
“You know, I might take your job.” The doctor was
used to this kind of humor and just laughed.
Soon
the host finished his work and held up a tray of beautifully carved roast
beef. “So, what d’ya think, Doc?”
The
surgeon replied, “Not bad. But now – let’s see you put it all back
together.”
Jesus Puts It Back Together
Jesus
does not put a roast beef back together, but he does teach the way to put us
back together.
In
today’s gospel, some men bring a woman to Jesus. They accuse her of a great sin and ask Jesus
if it’s okay to stone her to death.
I
find Jesus’ response very instructive in two ways.
1. Jesus Sees Sin
First,
Jesus says to the men who want to stone the woman, “Let the one without sin throw the first stone.”
The
effect of his simple, calm, one-sentence response is to get these men to look
within themselves. Jesus moves them –
and us – to look at our own humanity and sinfulness.
In
doing this, he recognizes the reality of sin.
The truth is that we all sin in some way.
We
can sin against ourselves by abusing alcohol or by not using well our God-given
abilities. We can sin against our
relationship with God by not coming to Mass or by not making space for personal
prayer.
We
can sin by being unfaithful to basic responsibilities of our vocation – as a
woman and a man are accused of in this gospel story. Or we can also sin by being self-righteous,
hateful and unforgiving, as the group of men are in this story.
Jesus,
in his response here, sees the reality of sin and wants us to see that we all
sin in some way.
2. Jesus is Respectful
The
other lesson I see here is equally important, especially at this time.
Jesus
is respectful and not violent. He does
not resort to any kind of violence with these persons – verbal, emotional,
spiritual, or physical.
Jesus
recognizes that this woman has sinned, but he doesn’t call her a sinner. He doesn’t label her or sum up her entire
personhood with the one word – sinner.
Instead,
he respects her as a person and allows her to keep her self-respect. And he does the same thing with the group of
men.
In
doing this, Jesus shows how growth can best happen. We are more inclined to grow personally and
spiritually when our self-respect is left intact.
So
here Jesus shows us how we are to treat one another. And this is an important lesson for us today.
For
the past twenty years or so, we here in America have been in the midst of
cultural warfare. And in our Church,
some promote what they call spiritual warfare.
In
these cultural and spiritual wars, people demonize and name-call and label
others. They see certain others as all
bad and all darkness.
There
is little respect in these approaches and they leave others with little
self-respect. Jesus today shows a vastly
different approach.
His
approach gives the opportunity for us to grow personally and for us to live and
grow and sort things out together as a community.
Jesus Puts Them Back Together
So to go back to where I began, Jesus in effect does what that
surgeon teases his friend to do.
He is not putting a roast beef back together, but he teaches the way
for us to be put back together with and in him.
