None of us runs alone

Homily for March 13, 2016
Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

In what was widely seen as an upset, the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture this year went to Spotlight, a film that chronicles the work of reporters from the Boston Globe in revealing the crimes and cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston.  The newspaper’s work focused attention on a problem that extends well beyond the borders of the USA and involves many more religious organizations and institutions beyond the Roman Catholic Church, including public schools, athletic programs, correctional facilities and even refugee camps that were supposed to be protected by troops under the authority of the United Nations. It even extends to families, which statistically are where sexual abuse of children most often occurs.

In one scene in the film, Mitchell Garabedian (played by Stanley Tucci), a lawyer for many of the victims/survivors, tells a reporter:  “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”  It’s a reference to the tendency that we can sometimes have to “look the other way” and avoid dealing with behavior we find suspicious or wrong because it’s at odds with what we expect from people and institutions that we respect or even love.  Sometimes we can become conscious or unwitting collaborators in behaviors that we would otherwise condemn and want to stop.  The “thin blue line” of the law enforcement fraternity, for example, can prevent some officers from reporting the abusive or even criminal behavior of their fellows.

Such a dysfunctional village is on display in our gospel reading.  The scribes and Pharisees parade before Jesus and the crowd an unnamed woman caught in the act of adultery; and they demand that her public shaming be merely a preparation for a communal and summary execution.  The fact that there is no mention much less an appearance by the man with whom she consorted underscores the sexism and patriarchy of the society in which they live, injustices which no one seems to question…no one, that is, except Jesus.

Side-stepping the religious leaders’ demands and appeal to the Law of Moses, Jesus teaches them and us that making a path for a person caught in sin is more important than throwing stones at them. It doesn’t matter whether those stones are literal or metaphorical.  Through divine grace and mercy, Jesus reminds us, God has protected each and all of us from the stones of condemnation and has instead has opened a way for us to be the people God created us to be.

The Lord also distinguishes between condemnation and accountability.  In refusing to allow the stoning of the woman, he doesn’t condone her behavior.  Instead, he admonishes her to avoid sin.   He understands in a way that his opponents don’t that condemnation is static, like the water at the bottom of a cistern:  it ends where it ends.  Accountability, by contrast, recognizes that sin can be deadly but it is also an opportunity to change.  Consequently, our Sacrament of Penance is less about judging and imposing a sentence and more about helping to identify the symptoms of a disease and giving us something to treat it.  It is living water welling up from a spring.

The prophet Isaiah describes a God who has a short memory and a desire to make a new way for us.  St. Paul, having experienced that new way of righteousness through faith in Christ, wants to experience it more and more and so drives himself like a runner hitting the final straightaway toward the finish line.  But none of us runs alone; it takes a village for any of us to get there. +