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There is so much we don’t know about this woman in the gospel.
We do not know her name.
We do not know her situation: who she was married to or who she committed adultery with or where either partner was as she was dragged into the Temple.
We do not know her demeanor. As she was standing there in the middle of her accusers, was she ashamed? Terrified? Angry? Stoic?
We do not know if this encounter with Jesus changed her. The story ends with Jesus’ admonition to go and sin no more – but what she did is unwritten.
What we do know amounts to two things.
We know her sin: adultery. A sin of infidelity. A social sin: committed with another person, against another person.
We know that in answer to Jesus’ question, “Has no one condemned you?” she replies, “No one, sir.” So we know she is pretty laconic, but not much else.
Scholars say very little about her because they’re not even sure she belongs in the gospel of John. In some manuscripts she appears in Luke – and some people think that hers was a Jesus story floating around in oral tradition which finally landed in this gospel sometime in the third century.
She is a big mystery. As are we. All her accusers see is her sin. Often – especially at this point in Lent – all we see are our own – or perhaps others’ – sins. Ash Wednesday promises not quite kept. Infidelities. Personal hurts and communal failures. And they’re real. Benedict tells us that our lives should be a continuous Lent because if we are nothing else as monastics, we should be humble enough to know how sinful we are on a daily basis.
But as I was sitting with this gospel, the person I kept thinking about was Sr. Helen Prejean. Years ago, when she spoke in school about the experiences she had with people on Death Row that led her to write Dead Man Walking, she said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Each one of us is more than the worst thing we ever did.” That’s one of those moments I think I will remember forever because I understood an essential truth in a more profound way than I ever had before.
In addition to saving her physical life, Jesus must have communicated that same message to our question mark of a woman. As he sent her home, into a future just as murky as our own, she at least knew that there was this one remarkable person who saw her as more than the worst thing she ever did. It’s not that he didn’t see her sin – he did. But he wouldn’t reduce her to only that – nor would he let anyone else.
The woman and Jesus. These are good people to walk with as we stumble or stride or slide into this last full week of Lent. They powerfully remind us that Lent is about more than keeping score. They show us that Lent is about conversion and conversation, about relationship and honesty, about the freedom that flows out of forgiveness and humility. They guide us in our self examination and our treatment of each other.
We know so little about her. What do we know about ourselves this Lent?