What's new? We love new! We love to show off our "new"! Maybe it's a new car or a new home; a new look; whatever it may be, we love new. Back in the seventies, a music group known as the Stylistics talked about feeling brand new.
Truth is everyday is brand new; every breath, every moment, every experience; all brand new!
As people of faith, it is Jesus that makes all things new!
We heard those very words today in our 1st reading from the prophet Isaiah: " remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not, see I am doing something new"! What God is telling His people, and all of us today, through these words in Isaiah, is that no matter what God has done in the past, it is right here, right now that He will do more wonderful and glorious things! And if right here and right now, what about the future? In Revelation we hear these words again when we hear that the One sitting on the throne will make all things new! Even more wonderful and glorious things await!
Today's Gospel from St. John tells us of something new; a new teaching, a new way of being thanks to the example of Jesus. For this Gospel tells us of a plan, a trap, a way for the Pharisee's to play "gotcha" with Jesus. What about this no good woman caught in adultery? The law says to stone her. Jesus could either say let her go and disobey the law of Moses or stone her and lose the popular support of his followers and deny this new teaching. But no, Jesus says nothing and begins to write in the dirt of the earth with his finger. What did He write? Was it the sins of all those present, ready to stone the woman? Was Jesus simply delaying, trying to buy more time? Honestly, we do not know why He wrote in the dirt. We do know what He said: "let the one without sin cast the first stone." One by one, and from the eldest to the youngest, they dropped their stones and walk away. Forced to confront one's own sinfulness, it is much more difficult to focus on the sins of another.
Now left alone with the woman Jesus tells her that He does not condemn her. Yet Jesus had another message for the woman, one that often is forgotten or left out. Jesus tells her to go and sin no more. You see Jesus never denied the sin, but He would not deny her opportunity to repent, her opportunity for mercy, her opportunity to grow in relationship with God. He never denied her dignity as a child of God.
This new teaching some two-thousand years ago is a lesson for us today:
Condemn less, forgive more!
Sin less, confess more!
Despair less, hope more!
Hate less, love more!
Be silent no more, ask God for His mercy!
Don't pick up our stones, drop them instead!
Unclench our fists, hold out a hand!
Love, forgive, pray, embrace all things new!
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