With all due respect, Jesus was a glutton for punishment. Jesus Christ exposed himself to the contempt of the Jewish leaders day after day, locale after locale. The Scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians and the Romans had nothing but scorn for the preacher from Galilee.
These leaders were envious of his popularity. They were jealous of their own prerogatives. They were threatened by his popularity. They were consternated by his cleverness.
The ridicule which the Jewish leaders directed toward Jesus on so many occasions is best recognized in the street corner exchanges during which the Pharisees some times and the Sadducees other times would attempt to embarrass the teacher in public. “If a woman has seven husbands, whose wife will she be at the Resurrection?” asked those who did not believe in an afterlife in an attempt to make Jesus take sides in the perennial debate. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” asked those who wanted to get Jesus into trouble with the Roman authorities. “Why don’t your disciples wash before they eat?” a legalistic clique demanded. “Which is the greatest commandment of the law?” some asked, prodding Jesus to decide an argument that was centuries old. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever?” asked another lawyer hoping to involve Jesus in an ongoing controversy. Individuals asked with varying sincerity, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” and “Who is my neighbor?” And, of course, Jesus was always being asked in public for “a sign.”
The woman caught in adultery, which is this coming Sunday’s Gospel passage, is a figure from St. John’s Gospel but several commentators argue that the paragraph would be better suited to St. Luke’s Gospel for several reasons. First of all, the tale involves a woman, and St. Luke’s is the Gospel of women. Secondly, the story is one of great compassion (“Neither do I condemn you”), and St. Luke’s is the Gospel of mercy. But the most compelling reason for assigning the adulterous woman to the third rather than the fourth Gospel is that it poses another one of those trick questions enumerated above. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” The sacred author insightfully notes, “They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.”
The Old Testament does indeed say that a woman caught in the act of adultery should be stoned. The Old Testament had an extensive list of capital offenses which was probably more of a literary device to drive home the seriousness of the sin rather than an actual command to execute these luckless individuals. Furthermore, by the time of Jesus Christ the Jews had long given up any thought of executing wayward sinners no matter how serious their crime. Recall especially that the religious leaders had to twist Pontius Pilate’s arm to eliminate Jesus. This was not a practice they could execute themselves under Roman law. Thirty-nine lashes was the severest penalty any Jewish authority could execute. So again, dragging this violated woman before Jesus in public and demanding his opinion on her fate was all pretense and trickery. They did not care about Moses or about the woman or about justice – nor about Jesus for that matter. They cared about their own position as the masters of religious and community life. Their authority was endangered; their power was threatened by Jesus.
The saddest aspect of this trickery among the religious leaders was that they were basically good people. They went to synagogue regularly; they prayed at appointed times; they knew the Scriptures well; they observed the solemn feasts; they conscientiously observed the Mosaic law. They were all the phrase “pillar of the church” connotes. Their message for later believers is clear. Religious correctness is no guarantee of spiritual authenticity. St. Paul would later warn those who thought they were standing upright to be watchful lest they fall. Even believers who are leading fundamentally good lives can experience the tug of pride, arrogance, conceit and smugness. The Pharisees and the Sadducees certainly enjoyed their religion. Unfortunately, they enjoyed their own self-importance a lot more.
