The Perp Walk

This homily originally appeared in Connect! magazine

It is called the "perp walk". With cameras rolling, law enforcement marches off into custody alleged criminals, usually prominent politicians or business people, in order to humiliate them or to serve as a warning to anyone who might otherwise be tempted to imitate their behavior. While such footage feeds our unblinking media's 24 hour news cycle, making a public spectacle of a lawbreaker is as old as civilization itself. The early colonialists kept stockades in the public square for just such a purpose. The Romans combined torture and deterrence by hanging criminals on crosses outside the city. We do it, if not by imprisonment, then by making a household name and late-night TV joke out of anyone whose bad behavior is sufficiently entertaining.

In light of this human tendency to humiliate transgressors, the gospel reading of the woman caught in adultery is all the more poignant. John recounts for us that the scribes and Pharisees pushed her into the middle of the crowd which had gathered to listen to Jesus in the temple area. With everyone looking at her, they pronounced sentence upon her with witnesses to back up the story. There was nowhere for her to run and hide. And the saddest part of it all was that she was being made sport of not out of zeal for the law and its prescriptions, but in order to trap Jesus and eventually move him into the circle of judgment. Their indignation would not be quenched by spilling this woman's blood. Jesus was their real target.

Jesus reacts to the scene by stooping down and tracing in the dirt with his finger. His action and what exactly it was he was writing have been points of speculation over the centuries. While there is no way of knowing, one thing is certain. By bending to the ground he was setting himself apart from those who would stand in judgment over her. Such a gesture is consistent with his ministry for he stooped down from his throne in heaven to take on our human nature not to condemn us but to share his divine life with us through the forgiveness of our sins.

What is also telling is that the gospel reading begins by stating that Jesus had spent the night at the Mount of Olives presumably in prayer. We remember that the Mount of Olives serves as the backdrop for Jesus' agony in the garden and betrayal by Judas. It is painfully evident to him that the same crowd which is willing to humiliate and condemn the woman caught in adultery will be eager to drag him off to his own death outside the city gates.

So by stooping to the ground he makes it clear that he has come to take her place - and our place - at the gallows, to take upon himself the stones hurled in judgment and indignation.

At the same time, he stoops to the ground to pronounce a sentence on those who dragged the woman before the crowd. He takes the shame from her shoulders and casts it back upon those who were so quick to condemn her. They are the ones who will withdraw from that place disgraced and humiliated leaving Jesus and the woman alone. A judgment is made and a sentence brought down, but it does not go in the direction we would have guessed. The disgrace instead boomerangs back on to those who were gathered around pointing the finger.

As believers, we can find ourselves from time to time on either side of the equation. We may be judged harshly for our way of life, told that our religion poisons everything and that our beliefs are backwards. On the other hand, we find ourselves not infrequently pointing the finger at others, speculating on their motives and projecting onto them our own weaknesses and sinful inclinations. We may often find ourselves not as far removed from the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus' day as we might hope.

Two recent examples come to mind - President Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame last May and Senator Kennedy's funeral in Boston. In both cases, the prelates and priests involved had
stones thrown at them. Their intentions were impugned and their orthodoxy questioned. At the same time, those who raised legitimate and thoughtful concerns about honors being bestowed on these men were often characterized as being divisive and extreme. Perhaps because we are so influenced by the charged rhetoric of the current political climate, we find ourselves often unable to discuss pressing issues civilly. Or it could be that we are more interested in justifying ourselves and our opinions than in discerning the truth.

Wherever we may find ourselves on the ideological spectrum and however we may choose to articulate and celebrate our beliefs, one insidious temptation dogs us - that of seeing one part of the truth as the whole truth. It happened to the Pharisees and scribes who deemed judgment and condemnation to be the whole of the Law to the exclusion of mercy and forgiveness. It happens to us when we make an idol of morality, social justice, liturgical correctness or doctrinal orthodoxy. When that happens, a rigidity sets in that fractures unity and harms solidarity. We come to see one another as rivals rather than as brothers and sisters.

It was a temptation which Saint Paul knew well because he had succumbed to it himself when he persecuted the Church. As he tells the Christians at Philippi, he considers it all garbage compared to the knowledge of Christ. For in Jesus we are not given more rules to keep and enforce but a person to follow. In Jesus, we do not have more truths revealed but the Truth itself made flesh. And so, if we are to follow the example he set, we will not point fingers but instead we will stand with those who are condemned. Our quest for justice will not begin by lamenting the wrongdoing of faceless institutions but rather with the examination of our own heart and conduct. We will then recognize that each of us is a sinner in need of mercy not condemnation for we will have embraced the love of a Savior who has stooped down to take away our shame.