"Judge Actions Not People" (Homily #154 Distinguishing Act v. Person in Woman Caught in Adultery, Year C Readings)

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“Judge Actions Not People” (Homily #154 Distinguishing Act v. Person in Woman Caught in Adultery, Year C Readings)

by Deacon Dennis Purificacion

April 7, 2019, 5pm Mass

I.

There is a joke related to today’s Gospel.  And it goes something like this:  One day, a crowd brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus.  Jesus stood up and said, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.”  Then all of a sudden, this big rock flies through the air.  The rock hits the woman on the head and the woman caught in adultery falls down dead.  Jesus looks around at the crowd, and he says, “Oh, Mom…how could you?!”

And that’s the punch line.  “Oh, Mom, how could you throw the first stone?”  The joke is that only Jesus’ mother could throw the first stone because she was conceived without sin and never sinned her whole life.  Of course, the Mother of God would not really throw the first stone since she is the mother of mercy and the refuge of sinners.

But behind this joke, there is a truth that emerges from today’s Gospel from John Chapter 8.  Why does the Church give us the story of Christ with the woman caught in adultery today?  As we end our discipline of Lent, we look back these 40 days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and we once again take a moment to repent of any failings and sins we have committed.  In fact, as a parish, we will have 9 priests this Tuesday evening, April 9, to hear Confessions before Holy Week to help us.

II.

Given this call to conversion, therefore, the two main parts of this homily are taken from the 2 sentences of Christ at the end of today’s Gospel.  Jesus said 2 sentences to the woman caught in adultery: First, Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.”  In other words, Jesus said that I do not condemn you – you – the person.  But, at the same time, in the second sentence, Jesus said, “Go and sin no more.”   Jesus makes a judgement, not on the person, but on the action.  Judge actions not people.

Thus, there are 2 separate but related points: There is a difference between the person and an action.  The classical way of saying this, “Love the person, hate the sin.”  We should never judge a person, but we can still judge right and wrong actions.  Christ shows us that we should never hate the person and love the sin, but rather to love the person and hate the sin.  Or as the great Protestant minister Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Judge not the color of the skin but judge the content of character.”  Today, the Church proclaims Christ who loves all persons but also calls them to repent of any sinful acts.

III.

So let’s unpack the first of those two main points.  First, in Catholic teaching, every human person, regardless of their past, has human dignity.  The human person is made in the image and likeness of God.  This is called Imago Dei in Latin which means “Image of God.”  In the First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, it is written, “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see I am doing something new” (Is. 43)!  Our human dignity is not defined by what we do or our titles or past mistakes, but our dignity and worth and value are based on who we are as persons – as human beings – created in the image and likeness of God.  As the witty Mother Angelica once said, she is not concerned with the letters that appear after our name, but the letters that should appear before our name.  S and T.  S and T for saint!  Be a saint!  This is what we are all called to be, what will make us happy.  We are human beings; we are not human doings.  The gift of being human does not depend on actions, or how we self-identify, or how we perceive ourselves, or what other people say about us; rather, our gift of being human persons depends on God’s eternal love for us.  That is our worth.  That is what Christ restores to this woman caught in adultery that amazingly, beginning with the elders, caused people to drop their stones.  Christ got the scribes and Pharisees to see the worth in sinful human beings.  Christ the merciful Savior says to us, “Neither do I condemn you.”  That’s the first of two main points: love the person.

IV.

The second of these two main points is that while we do not judge and condemn the person, we do judge human acts.  Christ loves you and wants you to come as you are, BUT Christ does not want you to stay as you are.  He calls us to repent whenever we fall through human weakness.  Christ doesn’t just say, “Neither do I condemn you,” but rather adds, “Go and sin no more.”  Once we are redeemed by Christ, he calls us to turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel.  In the Second Reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians, Paul wrote, “Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”  The devil and the world are like slick lawyers that like to pull up dirt from the past, to drag us down, to make us feel unworthy of God’s mercy, but according to St. Theresa of Avila, “When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.”  St. Padre Pio said that any mental picture of past sins is from the devil, and any mental image of what you can be in the future is from God.

V.

So, in summary, judge actions not people, just as Christ did with the adulterous woman.  That is the correct understanding of “Do not judge,” according to the mind and heart of Christ, as we heard in today’s Gospel.  Like the woman in today’s Gospel, may we too experience God’s mercy and love.  With this important distinction, God will work wonders in our lives to mold to be more and more like Jesus.  As we sang in the Responsorial Psalm, “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”  Amen.