A sower went out to sow....

The Gospel episode today, Monday 5th week of Lent (John 8:1-11), always intrigues me. The accusers of the adulterous woman claim that they caught the woman “in the very act of adultery.” I wonder: Were they spying on her with the intention of imposing on her the death penalty or were they peeping at the keyhole of the room she was in with her client because they desired for her, too? If the scribes and the Pharisees really caught the woman in the very act of adultery, either they must have really intended to stone her to death or it was actually the woman who caught them in their own lust for her. Who caught who?

If they exerted extra effort to catch the woman in the very act of adultery so that she might be stoned to death, the scribes and the Pharisees were not really after her conversion to God and the salvation of her soul. Like mad dogs thirsting for blood, they wanted her dead plain and simple. Such can be man’s inhumanity to man.

If it was actually the woman who caught her accusers in their lust for her; they were guilty of adultery, too. For Jesus said, “…. everyone who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Adultery is not only in the act; adultery begins in the heart.

When we are rather quick to point an accusing finger at anyone, let us pause for a really long while and see what Jesus writes on the ground with His finger. He may be writing down a litany of our sins instead. Then the fingers we point at others are actually accusing fingers pointed at us.

Who caught who? The scribes, the Pharisees and the woman caught one another. But what intrigues me further though is where was the woman’s client?