March 12, 2013 Cycle C
Romans 12:9-21 John 8:1-11
If I put a pile of stones here it would be fitting for us as we reflect on our Gospel tonight. For the Gospel speaks of the story of Jesus convincing the crowd to drop their stones and walk away from the woman caught in adultery. But if you read ahead in that same Gospel of St. John, you read about a different crowd picking up stones again. This time to throw at Christ Himself; for Chapter 8 of John might well be called the “Chapter of Stones.”
All these stone throwers in the Gospel of John are anonymous. But if you read the Acts of the Apostles, you’ll recall that a few years after the Resurrection a crowd gathers around the Deacon Stephen, and as we hear the crowd is successful. They stone Stephen to death. St. Luke, the writer of Acts, tells us that the stone throwers lay their cloaks at the feet of the future St. Paul. So, how quickly a crowd can become a judge, jury, and executioner. How easy it is to become swept up in righteous anger. How terrible the consequences when people take stones --- and the law into their own hands.
We have gathered tonight to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And we are here because Lent is a time of radical change of heart and mind, of learning to see the world as God sees it, of becoming noble, of learning the withdraw from the relentless narcotics of consumption and greed, of me first, and simply becoming a good human being again. To use perhaps an old word: to become a “saint.” Lent is about transformation when someday kindness and charity become second nature to us.
For as much as we might want to keep our sins all locked up, all sealed up in the tomb of our hearts, the Resurrection demands that the stone we use to seal up our own sins must be rolled away. And that is all so that salvation, forgiveness and new life, can burst forth. Think tonight about the stones at the entrance of our hearts. St. Paul tells us in that first reading, “Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.” That is why we have come tonight to recognize the good within ourselves that need to be let free and to “truly have the same regard for one another.” For we should be “concerned for what is noble in the sight of all.”
We might be thinking that we’re somehow responsible for rolling those stones away from our lives. But let’s remember that’s just plain impossible. Only God can roll the stone at the entrance of our hearts away.
So we come tonight to go to confession to allow the power of the Resurrected Lord to roll away the heavy stone. We mustn’t try to take the law, or that stone, into our own hands. We have before us a merciful Savior. No jury, no executioner. Let’s give Jesus a chance to be a merciful judge. Let’s let Him ask the question as we saw in the Gospel: “Is there no one left to condemn you? Then, neither do I condemn you.”
It is good for us to be here tonight to celebrate truly the Sacrament of Forgiveness, of healing, of reconciliation. There’s no better way to welcome the Resurrection at Easter then to write a happy ending to the chapter of stones in our own lives. Let’s give the Lord a chance to roll away that stone tonight at the entrance of our hearts.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor Christ the King