Reflection for the Fifth Sunday of Lent C
Readings: Isaiah 43: 16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3: 8-14 (RM) or 4b-14 (RCL); John 8: 1-11 (RM) or John 12: 1-8 (RCL).
We’re approaching Holy Week. Next Sunday is Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday. And for some reason the Roman Missal gives us as today’s Gospel reading John 8:1-11, the story of the woman caught in adultery, while the Revised Common Lectionary’s Gospel reading is John 12: 1-8, Mary of Bethany washing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume and drying them with her hair.
Let’s go with the first story. I’ve always wanted to get to know this woman better. Except – there’s not much to know, unless we ask a few questions and use our imaginations.
So we do have a name for Mary of Bethany, but what was this woman’s name? We don’t know. Just to give her the dignity of a name and protect her personhood, let’s call her Susanna. (More on that later.)
Where does Susanna come from? How old was she? We know she was married, but did she have children? What social class did she come from? Did she have a special skill? Did she have relatives and friends nearby?
Now the scary part: what was her marriage like? Was she happy? Intimidated? Did she feel safe? Was she abused in any way? Was her husband faithful? The story in the Gospel tells us briefly what she was accused of doing, but we have no idea of the circumstances. Why was she in a compromising situation? To what degree was she free to choose? Could she have said No? What really happened?
It’s not hard to guess what she might have felt at that moment before she was hauled before Jesus. Safe to guess she was absolutely terrified. She was close to dying a painful, humiliating death by stoning, denounced by a furious, bellowing crowd, maybe consisting of her neighbours and relatives. An “honour killing,” it would be called today. (And it still happens now, even in North America.)
Jewish readers of John’s story would immediately see the parallel with the Hebrew Bible story of Susanna who was threatened with rape by several of the elders who entrapped her naked while she was bathing. Only Daniel’s sly trick in the courtroom saved her from being condemned on the basis of the elders’ conflicting testimony.
Here, Jesus pulls one of his own – a sly but effective trick. We can only speculate what happened. He refused to answer on their terms, just as he would do when interrogated by Pilate. What did he write? Scholars have debated that forever and can only guess. In a certain way, it doesn’t matter. The accusers dispersed, shamed publically in a shame- and honour-based society.
Jesus thus escapes the trap the authorities set for him, then turns around and treats Susanna with respect and dignity, as a person of equal value. She had been set up, and so was Jesus. She had been used to entrap him, and he lets her go. He releases her from the past and opens up her future. In doing so, Jesus takes one step further toward his own condemnation and execution as a dangerous public threat.
Many readers will think,
“Adultery takes two. Where was the man?”
In fact Deuteronomy 22:22 specifies that both parties were subject to the death penalty. The evangelist’s focus was on Jesus, not the details of the set-up.
Let’s use our imagination and hope that Susanna was able to get away from that vindictive town. Perhaps she moved in with a relative who lived in the hills. She could help out in the house, or with the children, and maybe learn a trade – spinning and weaving cloth perhaps, or agricultural work.
Let’s say, she was raised from certain death to new life.
© Susan K. Roll
Lightly redacted from the Reflection of April 3, 2022
Susan Roll retired from the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, in 2018, where she served as Director of the Sophia Research Centre. Her research and publications are centred in the fields of liturgy, sacraments, and feminist theology. She holds a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, and has been involved with international academic societies in liturgy and theology, as well as university chaplaincy, Indigenous ministry and church reform projects.
