5^th Sunday of Lent, C, 2007.

In the first reading God recalls the Exodus from Egypt;

the time when the Israelites walked across the sea-bed

and their pursuers were drowned.

Then he opened a road in the sea for them,

now he promises rivers in desert wastelands,

water to give life where there is none.   

In the second reading St. Paul says that for him

nothing can outweigh the advantage of knowing Jesus Christ.

St. Paul  was an intelligent, learned and down-to-earth man.

He did not live in a dream world he was not unhappy

or depressed yet he said that he would happily die

in order to be with Christ. After Jesus appeared to him

in a very dramatic way on the road to Damascus

he probably had many more encounters with him

and on one occasion he was spirited up to heaven for a preview. St. Paul had a great faith in Jesus

and a strong personal attachment to him.

The group of Pharisees who brought a woman to Jesus

for judgement had no faith in him at all;

they just wanted to mock him and to set a trap for him.

In his turn Jesus regarded the Pharisees

as a hypocritical group of men who did not practice

what they preached. He called them fit only for hell.

But the group who came to him in this story

were not beyond redemption.

When told to start stoning only if they themselves were

without sin or blame they accepted the point and one by one

let the accused go.

I am sure Jesus is not asking any more of us. He would say to us let go of accusations if you could be accused your selves.

Let other people off the hook and God will let you off the hook.

We tend to be very strict when measuring

other people’s perfection and very lenient

when measuring our own.

Jesus suggests it should be the other way around.

We must be strict with ourselves and lenient with others.

That was the example he gave as in this story.

So let us take up the challenge.

Let us examine where we stand on this issue and if necessary change our standard to the one suggested by Jesus.