From Now On

Tags

adultery, condemned, encounter, forgiven, forgiving, humiliation, judge, sinfulness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The gospel for today is the story of the woman caught in adultery. Leaving aside the justice question about the man involved in the incident – while not unaware of the impact it has even today – I am given to comment on the way Jesus puts his attention on the woman. After having said the famous line: Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” and doing that mysterious writing in the sand, Jesus turns to the woman. He engages her in the most compassionate way by asking, “Woman, where are they?” My guess is that he said that so she would raise her head in order to see that they had all skulked away. She had certainly been bowed to the ground in fear and humiliation. I can see her looking around in amazement as he asks the second question: “Has no one condemned you?” and then – best of all – says, “Neither will I.”

The important thing to note here is that even though Jesus is totally forgiving her, he also requires something because he ends with the charge to “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” What a wonderful moment though! She can be confident that he knows her deeply in ways that before this encounter she would have hidden from everyone she valued in her life. Her job now is to forgive herself as she goes forward because she is just like all others who know that they are not perfect but are trying to be better. And the men that were going to stone her? With luck, they learned not to judge but to take a look at their own sinfulness – in whatever form – and were converted as well. Perhaps we might do the same today, remembering that we too are forgiven.

 

Forgiveness of Sin

Tags

cries of freedom, distress, forgive, forgiveness, Jesus, King David, Nathan, Pharisee, Pope Francis, psalm 32, Samuel, shelter, sinfulness, sinner, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, your sins are forgiven

When we think of King David, it is natural to focus on his greatness, his love of God and his importance in the history of the Hebrew people, even though we know his failings. Today, however, we hear the prophet Nathan speaking for God, recounting all the favors God has done for David and then listing all of David’s egregious transgressions (2 SM 12: 7-13). Most stunning is the question: “Why have you rejected the Lord and done evil in his sight?” If David had been ignoring the seriousness of his sins or trying to rationalize his actions, that question must have shocked him into recognition of the depth of his sinfulness, because immediately he responded to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” His deep remorse is difficult to grasp from that simple sentence, but God knew his heart. Nathan answered for God saying, “The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin; you shall not die.”

In the gospel, it is Jesus who points out the sinful behavior of Simon the Pharisee who has invited him to dinner (LK 7:36 – 8:3). When a woman known to be a sinner approached Jesus, weeping and anointing his feet with ointment, Simon judged not only her but also the legitimacy of Jesus as prophet because he should not be allowing the touch of such a woman. When Jesus points out Simon’s lack of hospitality to him and compares it to how generous the woman has been with her love, everyone at the table is surprised when he then says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Again we have a simple sentence that holds so much meaning! Her life was undoubtedly changed forever.

Pope Francis surprised the world some time ago by declaring that he is a sinner; he knows and admits that this is a fact of his life. In a way, it seems, the Pope’s declaration has opened a way for all of us to admit the same. God’s forgiveness of David was immediate because, in spite of his sin, David loved God intensely. Jesus saw that same love in the woman who bathed his feet with her tears and welcomed her because of that love. We suffer in our sins because we cannot accept the possibility of God’s forgiveness and the reality that God is just waiting to hear us say, “Please forgive me.”

Psalm 32 proclaims that if we acknowledge our sin it will be taken away. As a result, the psalmist sings to God: You are my shelter; from distress you will preserve me; with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round. And what could be better than that! So let us run to God’s heart and feel the words we long to hear: “My Beloved, your sins are forgiven!”

Have Mercy On Me, O God!

Tags

acceptance, acknowledgment, contrition, David and Bathsheba, evil, forgiveness, grace, guilt, just, personal sin, Pope Francis, psalm 51, recognition, relationship with God, repentance, Samuel, sinfulness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Year of Mercy

Yesterday I was having a conversation about sin – not sins but sin, as in “the sin of the world” or “social sin.” It’s much easier to look at it that way, not so difficult then to exclude myself from the topic rather than talking about my personal sin and guilt. Today, however, I could not avoid such a “close encounter” in the face of the story about David and Bathsheba. (2 SM 11:1-17) David’s actions of adultery and the subsequent plotting the death of Uriah when his attempts to hide Bathsheba’s pregnancy from her husband had failed sound like a modern movie plot! This from God’s chosen one, the king of Israel, the one whose reign was to last forever through his descendants!

Most of us know our own sinfulness and try to hide our shadow side from others for fear that we would be abandoned if anyone “really knew me.” David’s story gives us opportunity for a different way to proceed. It comes in a series of steps: recognition, acknowledgment, contrition, repentance, forgiveness and finally acceptance – all of which come in his relationship with God. His waking up to the seriousness of his sin came at the death of the child born of his liaison with Bathsheba but that recognition was so deeply felt not only by the loss but also because of his great love for God and the knowledge that he had severely damaged that covenant. Thus, his sorrow matched his guilt as he sang, “I have done such evil in your sight that you are just in your sentence…Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness; the bones you have crushed shall rejoice. Turn away your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt!” (PS 51) It is because of the depth of relationship that David could come to trust God’s forgiveness. Still cognizant of the enormity of what he had done, David was then able to accept himself and let go of his guilt to live into God’s welcoming embrace. I am confident that we are called to the same willingness in the face of our sin.

Serendipitously as I was pondering all this, my eye fell on a quote that seems apt for both this reflection and this “Year of Mercy.” Pope Francis writes that the Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. Having received the grace and ability to acknowledge our own sins, may we be moved to extend such mercy to our companions and, yes, to our broken world.