Daily Archives: March 21, 2010

Reflecting on John 8: 1-11

Death by stoning must have been a terrible thing to endure, to participate in, and to watch.  Even though the Bible speaks of it, there are very, very few instances of it actually being carried out.  By the time the religious leaders in today’s Gospel pushed that poor woman towards Jesus they had already lost the right to put anyone to death.  They knew she wouldn’t be killed because they didn’t have the legal right to kill her.  However, hoping to indict Jesus by trapping him into a wrong answer, they reminded him that, according to Mosaic Law, she should be stoned.  What did he have to say about that?

With the emergence of the Taliban and radical Islamist fundamentalism, execution by stoning has occurred in recent times. Although blessedly rare, there are records of it in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Iran.  In 2008 a 13-year old Somalian girl was stoned to death for “adultery”.  After her death it was revealed that she had actually been assaulted by a gang of men.

But here’s something fascinating: some Islamic scholars point out that stonings are supposed to be used only as a last resort, and only within those Islamic societies that have eliminated poverty and corruption. Since neither requirement has ever been fulfilled, no society may carry out that torture.

Has any society in history ever met that requirement? No wonder the elders led the way in walking away.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Do you think this same requirement should be met before anyone is ever executed?

Cycle A for the Rites of Christian Initiation (see Sunday Reflections for Cycle C)

Reflecting on John 11: 1-45

Through the years I have had the great privilege of visiting the Holy Land many times, but the only souvenir I have ever kept from my pilgrimages hangs on my wall, directly over my parent’s wedding picture of October 31, 1938.  They smile out at me, these two young, beautiful, hopeful newlyweds, in the everyday clothes common to Depression-era weddings of the day.

Could they have imagined what the future would hold?  The war in Europe was just getting going.  They and everyone they knew would be changed by it.  In ten years their children would finally arrive, and eventually their robust youth would give way to middle age.  They would lose their parents and their siblings.  They would raise their children in the faith, and that faith would sustain them when their own son went off to war.

Lazarus raised

The beautiful bride and groom are gone now.  But their children live on, remembering them, loving them, knowing that at our own deaths we will see them again.  When Lazarus of Bethany heard the voice of Jesus call him out of the cave he climbed, climbed up from his dark tomb.  I’ve seen that tomb.  I have taken a torch and climbed down into its belly, and imagined the sound of Jesus, calling into its depths Lazarus!  Come out! And the dead man came out.

So it was from here that I carried home my sole souvenir, a small mosaic that says “Bethany”.  It keeps watch over the young newlyweds on the wall, and all their children and grandchildren, whose pictures surround them now.  When our earthly bodies lie in death we’ll find an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What do you think it must have been like for Lazarus to come out of that tomb?

illustration by Alexandre Bida c. 1874