Broken yet Shared

Fifth Sunday of Lent

March 17, 2013

John 8:1-11

“Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more (John 8:11).”

Broken yet Shared

People are broken and wounded. Some are unwanted. Some are unloved. Some are betrayed by persons they trusted most. Boyfriend cheats his girlfriend. A man puts a hypocritical mask and is dishonest to his own best friend. Some suffer psychological and physical abuses even coming from the closest persons in their lives. A husband runs with another woman and leaves behind his wife with three little kids. A single mother sees her only daughter is pregnant outside of marriage. A boy kills his own brother over a trivial quarrel. Our world is so broken and so much flooded with lies and violence.

Some of us burned by anger and hatred, expect nothing but a harsh revenge. We are looking for the best payback time, to see those who caused our pain suffer even more. Yet, when we could not exact our bitterness, we unconsciously want others, even those innocent ones, to feel our agony. Some of us explode and do nothing but inflict pain to more people. It simply deepens and worsens the vicious cycle of hate. More and more people are hurt and broken.

Now let’s us focus on today’s Gospel. Some Jewish people brought to Jesus an adulterer and expected Jesus to approve their action to kill her. Yet, if Jesus did not grant his approval, they would find a reason to kill Jesus as a lawbreaker (Lev 20:10). Jesus was forced to perpetuate the culture of revenge. But, Jesus knew well that violence was never the solution. Thus, in His divine wisdom, Jesus said, “let those without sin throw the first stone.” Jesus knew that everybody there deserved to be stoned. Those self-righteous law-enforcers were no better than the adulterer. Everybody is practically broken.

Jesus confronted the Jews with a subtler yet malicious motivation way down in their mind. It was a psychological disease that justified a person’s sin by condemning other with similar sin. In a novel “Kite Runner”, Assef, a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, led stoning to death an adulterous couple in public, yet secretly inside his base, he raped minors, sometime girls but oftentimes boys. Violence comes up as the one-fits-all solution, which actually only deepens and worsens the vicious cycle of this hatred.

Jesus interrupted this atrocity. He revealed to these accusers who they were, that they did not have any right to touch the woman. Finally they went away. Yet, what more startling was the way Jesus dealt with the woman. Jesus ‘forgave’ the woman and asked her to ‘go’ and ‘sin no longer’. Jesus teaches us that only by being honest with ourselves, our brokenness and our vulnerability, we may break the culture of vengeance. Jesus embraced the adulterous woman’s and even her accusers’ brokenness. Jesus asked them to go and share their broken selves to others so that even the worst of this world may become blessings. Jesus knows that people are broken, but our brokenness is not a curse, but may become a wonderful blessing to others when embraced and shared.

A brokenhearted girl wishes her former boyfriend a happy life. A mother embraces her pregnant daughter despite heaviness of heart. I am broken and wounded, but I refuse to be a channel of violence, but choose to rather promote forgiveness and peace through my reflections. People are broken, but it is not the end.

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP