Sunday Homily, March 15, 2015, 4th Lent, B
Readings:
2 Chronicles 36, 14-16, 19-23 , He has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem.
Psalm 137, Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you.
Ephesians 2, 4-10, God brought us to life with Christ.
John 3, 14-21, Jesus & Nicodemus.
INTRODUCTION to Gospel:
When our gospel begins, Jesus is in dialog with Nicodemus, who is present three times in the John gospel. He is a Pharisee and teacher who wants to know what Jesus is teaching and doing. Today’s reading occurs at night for he is afraid that other Pharisees might think that he had become a disciple of Jesus.
Later Nicodemus will remind the Pharisees who want to rid themselves of Jesus that the Law does not allow them to arrest Jesus without first knowing what he is saying and doing.
After the crucifixion, Nicodemus, while it is still day, brings to Jesus’ disciples an unheard of amount of expensive spices so that Jesus’ body can be given a kingly burial. Initial fear had turned into great love.
INTRODUCTION to 1st and 2nd Readings:
Salvation comes to us through Christ. Our witness of good works, our love, is how they will know we are Christians.
GOSPEL and HOMILY:
A year or two ago I also gave a homily on this fourth Sunday of Lent; but then I chose the other gospel reading about the man who had been blind from birth. I took you in that homily to the Feast of Tabernacles where Jesus had called out in the temple inviting anyone who was thirsty to come to him and drink from the fountain of living waters.
It was in these waters that the man born blind had been baptized. I also made you aware of the verse from the prophet Jeremiah, ‘Those who reject the Lord, the fountain of living waters, will in shame have their names written in the earth.’
The Pharisees sought to circumvent Nicodemus’ words to them about the Law, by trying to trap Jesus using the Law, by bringing to him a woman caught in the act of adultery. ‘Moses said that this woman should be stoned. What do you say?’
They knew that Jesus would not allow them to stone her; he would seek to bring forgiveness to the woman. They had him trapped; but Jesus bent down and began writing the names of these Pharisees and scribes on the ground to inform them that they were the ones in need of forgiveness.
When they kept after him to take a position he said, ‘The one of you, who is without sin, cast the first stone at her.’ One by one they left until there was no one left in front of him but the woman who recognizes his great love.
She made no excuse; she does not try to run away from what she has done, she submits herself to his words. He says to her, ‘woman, where are they, is there no one left to condemn you?’
He has addressed and treated her with goodness and justice, tenderness and compassion. She replies, ‘No one.’ Since Jesus has already said in today’s gospel that he came not to condemn but to bring forgiveness to the world, he truly has forgiven her. He says, ‘neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.’
The Greek word, translated as ‘go,’ means in Greek, ‘to journey along the way she has been invited to pursue.’ She has been invited by Jesus to follow him. Jesus’ command to the woman, ‘do not sin again,’ recognizes, again, that she is forgiven, and is an ongoing request to remain contrite.
At the end of our Eucharistic Prayer we will join together in the Our Father before celebrating our Lenten Penitential service where we ask for forgiveness and grant forgiveness. It is appropriate for us at this time to take a moment to reflect on some habit we might have that is not life-giving or love-giving, and in a contrite way think about how we will replace it with something that is.