This homily was given by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the 5th Sunday of Lent 2013, at the Cenacle Retreat House.
Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126:1-6; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11
A very close cousin is a lawyer in a very prestigious firm. I received a text from him last month. He was desperate for prayers. He said in the text: “Please pray for me, Arnel. I’m being put under audit by my firm for what they discovered were inappropriate use of funds. I could lose my job. I’ve made serious mistakes, please pray for me.” My cousin is already a partner in that law firm, so he probably gets to share a bunch from the earnings. And the benefits! They travel abroad every year, for instance. They get cars and live well. But now, not only is his partnership on the line, or his job. He can very well be disbarred—and lose everything: his car, his house, his property. And along with that, his self-respect as a lawyer, pinaghirapan pa naman niya. At worst, he could despair and lose his dignity as a husband and as a father and implode out of self-hate.
My cousin is still waiting for the conclusion of the audit. So for almost two months now, he’s been living under a swinging blade. He’s never seen so much uncertainty as he does now. It must feel terrible especially at night when he looks at his two children, fast asleep without a care in the world, and his wife, who’s helpless as he. Imagine the regret, the embarrassment, the self-directed anger. I wondered what else he was doing other than worry, or if he still had some morsel of hope on the smudged plate that his life had become.
Then the other day, he emailed. He said: “Throughout all this time when my future in the firm was uncertain, all I could really do while my fate was being determined by management, was turn to God. It is amazing how God reaches out to us in the most unlikely times and places. When my wife and I were at mass the other day, it was when the congregation sang “Here I am, Lord” that I lost it, and I found myself weeping uncontrollably. Trying to regain my composure, I looked at my wife, and she, too, was in tears. So we both cried together. The Mass, the homily, and the song hit me dead-on. Despite all my shameful and wicked ways, Arnel, God was there beckoning, telling me that I have worth to Him….God loves us not because we are good, but because he is good, and his love is unconditional.”
My cousin gets to keep his job. But he will have to pay every single peso he misspent. But at least, he’s not being fired. In fact, he’s actually getting off with fewer lashes than he thought he’d actually get…than he thought he actually deserved. Oh, there’s no doubt in his mind that he deserves to be fired, disbarred, even sued. He knows that if he ever lost everything because of this, he’d only have himself to blame. But because of God’s goodness, a second chance!
You know, my sisters and brothers, I look at my cousin’s experience, and I was thinking, maybe it’s just what he needed from God. I look at my own close calls as a Jesuit and I realize, too, that they’re just what I needed. Maybe we all need something like this to happen to us, at least once in our lives. I don’t know how to put this without sounding ridiculous, so I’ll just lay it on the line. Maybe we all need this experience of sinning greatly and terribly, and getting caught, and finally being placed under the mercy and full disposal of other people. And these “other people” we’re placed under the mercy of, they may be sinners like ourselves—but they have power over us, and for now, they happen to have the rules on their side. In other words, maybe we need something like this if this is about the only way God can impress upon us once again two very crucial lessons: one—that for every great sin, we pay a great price; and two, and much more importantly—that of all people, God himself will help us pay the price. For do we not realize that we never really get to serve the full sentence? For the sins we’ve committed, we deserve every bit of whip and thorn, every insult and embarrassment. But, look, we’re still here. We have our wits about us, our dignity. We’re fine. We’re always taken down from the cross, and placed back into God’s arms, not because we’re good—in fact, we’ve been bad. But because God is good.
So I was thinking, unless we’ve sinned greatly and darkly, and gotten caught, and been forgiven, unless that, maybe we’ll instead turn out to be like the men in today’s gospel: murderously self-righteous. And you and I know what annoys the Lord more than anything else, right? Self-righteousness, and self-righteousness happens to sit cozily beside its first cousin: hypocrisy.
Going back to the story of the woman caught in adultery, nothing in the gospel proves Jesus condoning the woman’s sin. She was caught in the act of adultery—although it does make you wonder where the guy was who was caught with her. But still, she was guilty as charged. Most likely, the religious authorities goaded the menfolk to bring the woman to Jesus, to have him adjudicate this delicious capital offense, to trap him. If Jesus said, “No, let her go,” he would be charged with blasphemy and be stoned along with the woman. If he said, “Yes, go ahead,” then he would be caught contradicting himself, and the woman’s blood would be on his hands. It was by far, one of the toughest riddles the Lord had had to crack in record time, with a human life on the line. And why on earth was he drawing on the sand at such a crucial moment? I don’t think he was drawing idly on the sand. I bet he was thinking desperately about what to say. And he came up with something genius: “Okay, anyone who thinks he has never sinned, go ahead and kill her.” Then he went back drawing on the sand and would not look up. I bet the Lord was fearing the worst for the woman and he couldn’t bear to see it happen. That’s why I think Jesus really didn’t know what happened when he finally had to ask the her: “O, nasan na sila? Has no one condemned you?” Because I bet, he never looked up after what he said to the men. I bet he was fearfully praying for the best, because he knew that the self-righteous and the hypocrites were in it for the worst.
The woman answered, “Wala po, ser.” And you could hear Jesus say, “You know you’re guilty, right? You know that you deserve every bit of what could’ve happened to you, right? But, thankfully, you get off with fewer stripes today. So, you can go home. Please sin no more.”
And the whole thing that happened that day was just what she needed.