On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, a local seamstress, refused to obey the segregation laws and give up her seat on the bus to a white man. For this act of civil disobedience she was arrested. That arrest was the small pebble which started an avalanche ultimately leading to the end of segregation laws in Montgomery, in Alabama, and throughout the United States. For years before that moment the NAACP and other civil rights organizations had been lobbying, petitioning, filing law suits, agitating, educating – doing everything it could to make a case for ending segregation. Nothing they tried had made the necessary changes happen. Things were stuck until Rosa Parks. She became the face which showed to the world the inherent evil and injustice. Having a face more than making a case made change possible. Oh, and Rosa Parks, the face of the civil rights movement, upon her death in 2005 was the first woman to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.
The scribes and the Pharisees were trying to make a case against Jesus according to the story told in John, chapter 8. A woman who had violated the law was brought into the presence of Jesus. The scribes and Pharisees argued their case citing the law and the practice. “She deserved to be punished, even with death.” How do you judge this case, they challenged Jesus. A curious thing occurred. Jesus did not deal with the case at all. Instead he saw faces. He saw the faces of the accusers from the elders on down who were in no position to judge someone else as unworthy. And he saw the face of the accused woman not as deserving punishment but as needing mercy. The case against her collapsed when Jesus looked into her face. “I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more,” he said.
That is our own story as well. God does not see us as cases but as individual faces. The old cartoon image of St. Peter holding a scroll with the list of sins that we have committed is contrary to the way God operates. God’s judgment is not against some kind of objective criteria that we fit into cookie-cutter style. No, God calls us by name, knows us as persons, and understands our particular situation. We are not a case number in the docket for God but a face that he looks upon with love. Think about it this way – if Jimmy, aged 11, comes to confession and says, “I fought with my brothers and sisters three times” it means one thing. If Jimmy, aged 39 says “I fought with my brothers and sisters three times” it means a very different thing. Even though the two Jimmys are naming the same sin, how it looks and feels, the weight that it has, its significance in the spiritual life are very different for an 11 year old than it would be for a 39 year old. When we present ourselves before God we come as a person, not as a case. Our path to perfection, to conversion, to renewal is unique for each one of us.
How blessed we are that for Jesus we are a face and not a case. However, we need to pay attention to how Jesus addressed the woman in the gospel today. “I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more,” he said. First there is the statement of unconditional love: I do not condemn you. You are precious. You are beloved. But then comes the challenge: Go and sin no more. I think every parent can relate to the dilemma captured in those two statements. On the one hand you want to convey to your child in all things and in all ways that they are loved. They don’t have to do anything in order to obtain your love. On the other hand, parents want their children to be happy, to live a good life, to be fulfilled as a person. So they dispense advice. Do your homework, don’t hang around with that crowd, stop playing video games, clean up your room, eat your vegetables. This advice is offered because parents know stuff and try to convey to their children some of the wisdom they have acquired for what makes life worth living. They try to preserve their children from making the mistakes which they made. However, what can happen is that children can hear an undertone behind that advice: you’re not good enough, you don’t measure up, I will love you once you shape up. So parental advice which is intended as a positive thing, an encouraging thing, can be interpreted by the child as a put down, as belittling. Hence, the dilemma: how do you convey unconditional love just the way you are while at the same time urging those changes helping those you love on the way to happiness.
The same dilemma can occur in the spiritual life. Right today, we are children of God, we are blessed beyond belief, we are the beloved of a loving Father. We don’t need to do anything to get God’s love. It comes as a free gift. And yet we hear Jesus say to us as he said to the woman in the gospel, “Go and sin no more.” The challenge for us is hear that as it is intended – not as an indictment of our inadequacy but an invitation to happiness, to a full and rich life. I like the way St. Paul in the epistle to the Philippians puts it: “I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ.” So that’s a done deal. Jesus has named us and claimed us. That is our blessed assurance. But the Apostle also says: “It is not that I have already taken hold of it but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it” St. Paul knows that he is still on the way to enjoying fully the love God showers upon us. That is our story as well. You see, Church, there is an “already” and a “not yet” in the Christian life. Already we have all that we could ever want or need – we are already beloved children of God destined for a life in glory. But we do not yet experience that fullness of joy which God wishes us to have. We, like the Apostle, must “strain forward to what lies ahead in pursuit toward the goal.” It is in that straining forward that we attain our supreme good.
How can we do that in these last two weeks of Lent? How can we let the love of God take possession of us? The problem, it seems to me, is that there is so much other stuff going around in our lives that we lose touch with the unconditional love God wishes us to enjoy. We need to cut through all that stuff and get back to basics. One suggestion comes from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says “Stop worrying. Your heavenly Father knows what you need.” To let God love us we need to stop worrying. Practice this for the rest of Lent – whenever you catch yourself worrying hand that worry over to Jesus. Health concerns? Jesus, I give it to you because I know you love me. Money worries? Jesus, I give it you because I know you love me. Family issues? Jesus, I give it to you because I know you love me. Since Jesus is for us the Face of God, the Face of Mercy we can be sure that in the providence of God all will be well, all manner of things will be well. AMEN!
