Thursday, April 10, 2014

3rd Passiontide 2009, It is Still There


3rd Passiontide
Rembrandt
John 8: 1-12

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives; but as soon as day dawned he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle, 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 said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down, and started to write something in the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her.” And again, he bent down and wrote in the earth.

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, beginning with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up, and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I judge you,” Jesus declared. “Go now, and leave your life of sin.”

3rd Passiontide

March 29, 2009
John 8: 1 -12

In order to be healthy, water needs to flow. It can flow into a quiet lake. But if there is no outflow, it stagnates. Eventually it turns salty, like the Salton Sea or the Dead Sea.

Our very useful faculties of discernment and judgment are like water; to be healthy, they need to flow both in and out. The lawyers who caught the woman in adultery were quite correct in their discernment—the woman had indeed committed adultery. But until the lawyers were willing to let discernment flow into themselves, their relationship to the law and the social order was not healthy. Their judgment was instead literally death-dealing. Self-awareness, in-flowing self-discernment, allowed them to crack their stony hard-heartedness. They begin to flow away from the deadly place of judgment.

Christ discerns that the woman is indeed a sinner, as indeed we all are. He neither condemns, nor does He say that her sin doesn’t matter. Instead he shows the way forward and out, toward health and re-integration: “Go now and leave your life of sin.” Keep moving, keep flowing away from the place of your stagnation. John 8: 11

And then He says to all of us: “I am the shining river of the light of the world. Whoever flows with me will never be in darkness, but the Light of the direction of Life will shine for him.” John 8: 12

Leaving our stagnation, and joining with Him, we can once again take our place in the great flowing channel of being. We can become those through whom the water of life flows, rather than stops; those through whom love flows; those through whom flows the world’s evolving.

The poet says:

Don't say, don't say there is no water.
That fountain is there among its scalloped
green and gray stones,

it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,

up and out through the rock.[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org





[1] Denise Levertov, “The Fountain, “

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