3rd Passiontide
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| 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
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,
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