February 23 – The First Tuesday of Lent

Opening Prayer:

Deal bountifully with your servant, so that I may live and observe your word.  Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.  My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word.  My soul melts away from sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.  Put false ways far from me; and graciously teach me your law. – Psalm 119:17-18, 25, 28-29

John 8:1-11 NRSV

Early in the morning [Jesus] came again to the temple.  All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.  The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women.  Now what do you say?”  They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him.  Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.  When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.  Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, sir.”  And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

I love this story.  Not only does Jesus outsmart the crowd trying to test him, but he shows grace and love in abundance to this woman.  Even though she deserves condemnation Jesus shows grace and mercy.  Sometimes though, I overlook one thing in this story.  Sometimes, I focus so much on the grace and mercy of Jesus that I forget his final statement to the women.  “Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

I think this scripture passage is very appropriate for Lent.  Sometimes during Lent we can lose our focus and worry about what we’re “giving up” so much that we forget that not only are we called to fast from certain things during Lent (food, drink, etc) but we’re also called in all of our life (and especially in Lent) to fast from the sin that is in our lives.  Jesus’ call to us at all times is “from now on do not sin again.”

One of the most famous preachers in all of Church history once put it this way:

I speak not, indeed of such a fast as most persons keep, but of real fasting; not merely an abstinence from meats; but from sins too… the honor of fasting consists not in abstinence from food, but in withdrawing from sinful practices…Do you fast?  Give me proof of it by your works!…If you see a poor man, take pity on him!  If you see an enemy, be reconciled to him!  If you see a friend getting honored, do not envy him!…For let not the mouth only fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies.  Let the hands fast, by being pure from stealing and greed.  Let the feet fast, by not running to sinful places.  Let the eyes fast, being taught never to look lustfully at another person.  For looking is the food of the eyes,…Let the ear fast also.  The fasting of the ear consists in refusing to listen to gossip and lies…Let the mouth too fast from foul words and unjust criticism…

– St. John Chrysostom, Homily III on the Statues, 11-12 *

May God help us all hear the words of Jesus: “from now on do not sin again” and may we have strength to continue this fast from both what we have “given up” and from the sins that so easily grab us.  Amen.

* St. John Chrysostom (347 – 407) is one of the most famous preachers in Christian history.  As Bishop of Constantinople (in modern-day Turkey) he constantly held up the needs of the poor even though he preached to the emperor.  Chrysostom’s preaching is blunt and honest and as such it made him many enemies.  He spent the last years of his life in exile, but is still regarded as one of the most eloquent preachers in the history of the Church – so much so that history remembers him as “golden mouth.”  I have modernized the quoted part of this sermon to make it a little easier to understand.