IN THE TEMPLE AREA
The title of my homily for this 5th Sunday in Lent [c] is, “In the Temple Area.”
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s Gospel - the story of the Woman Caught in Adultery -
is one of the best known stories in the Gospels. We all know - we’ve all
thought - we’ve all said Jesus’ famous words: “Let the one among you who is
without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
It triggers for some the old joke that someone throws a
stone and Jesus says, “Mother!” That’s an important joke because it means that
we know the Catholic teaching that Mary is without sin. It also fits the
principle that a joke should have surprise - and it does - because we know Mary
wouldn’t do such a thing - but we do.
It’s also good that it has been embedded in our heads not to
throw stones - not to judge - because we are with sin. We’ve all made mistakes
- and the older we are - the more we’ve made - and the more mistakes and sins
we’ve done, the more we should
understand the little nuance in today’s gospel story. The text says, “… they
went away one by one, beginning with the elders.”
The older we get, the more we look backwards. The more we
look backwards, the more we see the sins and stupidities of our lives. The more
we see the sins and stupidities of our past - especially the sins of omission -
the broken promises and unfinished love - the more we should understand others
- and stop throwing stones at them.
It’s interesting that today’s gospel from John 8:1-11 is not
in most of the oldest Gospel manuscripts. This gives scholars a chance to come
up with theories why not - and why it made its way into the Gospel of John. Some
think it’s such a radical thought - that we dare not tell me not to throw
stones at women - and we know it’s still done today - with words and rocks.
Lucky for us this story about Jesus has been preserved for
us - to challenge us - to get us to read in the scriptures one of Jesus’ major
insights: the reality of the inner life and inner thoughts inside our skull -
and how they are behind our actions.
We don’t know what Jesus wrote on the ground that day, but
we do know what John - Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote - to preserve in writing
for us the sayings and stories of and
about Jesus.
THE TEMPLE
To understand today’s gospel as well as the Four Gospels -
as well as the whole Bible - the Jewish and Christian Scriptures - we have to
know the centrality of the temple in the life of Israel.
If you go to Israel, if you
go to Jerusalem,
you have to go to the Western Wall - the Wailing Wall - and you stand there and
pray - and think and watch - and experience something powerful. You stand there
and put notes in the cracks - a few prayers - some hopes and messages to God. It’s
not part of the old Temple.
It’s part of the platform on which the temple was built.
If you go to the Bible you know how important it was to have
a temple - a central gathering place - to experience each other - to experience
God - to experience each other as a people of God.
If we go into our own minds - into our own way of seeing and
understanding life - those of us in church here today - we know how important
and central it is to have a church - our local church. We live around here, in
some house - in some neighborhood - and we need a Sunday place to gather and
worship and be with each other and be with our Father.
I see this significantly many Friday evenings at wedding
rehearsals when people stand in the back of this church for the first time. I
see folks with amazed faces. I see them surprised at the beauty of this old 1858 Gothic Church
called “St. Mary’s”. It hits them down deep somewhere in their being. I sense
them getting the importance of sacred places called churches - temples -
synagogues - mosques - cathedrals - basilicas.
I remember driving out to St. John Neumann
Church for a 12:10 weekday
Mass - a few years back. It was an ordinary day. As I was getting out of my car
I saw two families getting out of two different cars and heading for the church
as well. I was a bit early - which is rare for me - and I said to myself, “I’ve
never seen these people before. I wonder what’s up.”
So I caught up with them and said sort of carefully, “Is
everything okay?” And probably an older
brother said, “Our dad is dying and we need to say a prayer.”
So there is something needy and something sacred and
something central about sacred places like churches.
And when we drop away - or drop out - when we’re worried - then when we experience these sacred landmarks
- they trigger serious and sacred and
challenging thoughts.
I like to walk in the afternoon - especially through the Naval Academy
- along the water. It’s good to see teams practicing and to see young people
running and exercising. It makes me walk faster - to fight aging. While walking
there and walking back, it has hit me a thousand times the reason for church steeples.
St. Mary’s tall useless steeple - probably
costing millions in the long run for upkeep and maintenance - since 1858 - with
the golden colored cross on top - glittering from the sun from different angles
- depending on the time of day and the place of the sun - it sends off deep
unconscious thoughts and feelings of the sacred. It’s lit at night - as well -
and folks have told us that the lights were out for a while - especially folks
coming over the bridge down below over Spa Creek.
I’ve done a lot of preaching in a lot of places - as well as
a lot of traveling - and everywhere one goes - one sees sacred places. I’ve
seen beautiful churches and ugly ones - but like family members they are ours.
And from time to time people gather together for the big and small moments - of
life in places called “churches” and “temples”.
And when we are alone and when we are together there are a
lot of things going on inside our minds. And a lot of things outside our minds
trigger a lot of things going on inside our heads. And that’s one of the things
we do when we see churches and holy places - and when we are in holy places.
The title of my homily is, “In the Temple Area.”
IN THE TEMPLE AREA
Today’s gospel begins, “Jesus went to the Mount
of Olives. But early in the
morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming
to him, and he sat down and taught them.”
It’s at that moment that the scribes and the Pharisees bring
the woman caught in adultery and they want to nail him and stone her.
This morning I’d like to jump to another temple - our own.
When the priest or deacon begins the gospel, when he says,
“A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John", he as
well as everyone in church is making a small sign of the cross with their thumb - on their forehead, their lips and their hearts. I add a fourth cross with my thumb to my
hands. The idea is to have the gospel in our minds, on our lips and in our
heart - and I add in our actions.
Could you make the sign of the cross with your thumb again,
but just on your forehead. +
This is our temple - this is our command center - this is
our sacred space. When the brain goes,
uh oh!
Today think - this is where Jesus comes - into our temple.
When we are baptized we’re anointed on our forehead - and
our parents and godparents and often those around us - bless us with a tiny
cross with their thumb or finger. A college student told me recently that his
mom did that to him most every night -
till he went off to college - and it finally hit him what she was doing - and
he was grateful.
Jesus wants to come into this temple - into this temple
area. [Gesture tapping forehead.]
And if I finally get Jesus and what he was about, I finally
get the inside us Jesus reality. Read today’s second reading from St. Paul to the
Philippians and hear this message loud and clear. [Cf. Philippians 3: 8-14]
It’s in this temple - in this skull - in this sacred space -
called our brain - this place called “me” - in our thoughts - that Jesus likes
to visit.
Jesus says murder - adultery - stealing - starts in here -
in our thoughts. It begins with envy and jealousy and lust and fairness stuff.
This where we first start throwing stones at others. People cheat on their
neighbor, family, spouse, in here way before they act it out - out there.
Grouches, gripers, complainers and cynics, are not just spitting out those
words and throwing those sharp edged stony words for the first time - when we
hear them. They have been doing that inwardly for the longest time.
CONCLUSION
By now, I assume you’re saying, “Enough already." I’d
be saying that. By now I hope you have this Jesus within message in your temple area. Let
Jesus move from the Mount of Olives or
wherever he is - in tabernacles or Bibles - and let him come into your temple area
today.
* Painting on top: Christ Writes in the Dust by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Commissioned for the Methodist Collection of Modern Art
