The prophets in the Bible used the image of adultery to speak of Israel’s sin against God. The story in today’s Gospel is about “a woman caught in the very act of adultery.” She is made to stand before Jesus who has been writing something on the ground, most likely he has been teaching a crowd outside the Temple area. The men with stones encircle Jesus and the woman, ready to “carry out the law” prescribed by Moses and the prophets. The woman’s male partner is absent. They were both caught in the act and the woman is being used for the purpose of entrapment, to catch Jesus in an error of the law.
In biblical language, adultery symbolizes all sin. Sin is a wall around our minds and hearts that prevents us from being open to the Love of God and to our deeper selves; because it keeps us closed up in ourselves and our own group. This sin leads to the abuse of power, personal, sexual, political and religious. Quite simply, sin leads to death, the death of relationship to God and to each other, a marriage which God has brought together and cannot be put asunder. Jesus, understanding all of this says simply: “Let the one among you without sin cast the first stone.” One by one the accusers drop their death-dealing stones and walk away.
We are all this woman and we are all those carrying death-dealing stones. What can save us from this separation and death? For God so loved the world that He sent to us his only begotten Son; so that, the world might not be judged but saved. Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus today and be carriers, not of stones that destroy and kill relationships, but of God’s love and saving grace that can be shared with others.