Me Too

Today’s first reading is very long.  I wager no one has ever read it from beginning to end.   It’s fascinating.  I will not include it here, but suggest the reader go to the USCCB website with its reference to the Bible and The Book of Daniel to find it (sandwiched between Ezekiel and Hosea).

Poor Susanna, Joakim’s wife.  Two men, old and dishonorable elders and judges, were voyeurs and watched her bathe.  They then pressured and threatened her for sexual favors – to lay with them.  They were prepared to lie.  They told her, “If you refuse, we will testify against you that you dismissed your maids because a young man was here with you.”  According to the reading, “The assembly believed them, since they were elders and judges of the people, and they condemned her to death.” 

Fortunately, Daniel was suspicious, and he separated and questioned them. “After they were separated one from the other, he called one of them and said: “How you have grown evil with age! Now have your past sins come to term: passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty, although the Lord says, ‘The innocent and the just you shall not put to death.’

All of this back-and-forth sounds like something we’d hear during today’s Me-Too movement.  According to one source, “The Me Too (or #MeToo) movement, with a large variety of related local or international names, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke.”  The two men were powerful elders and judges of the people.   Seems familiar?

Their lies were exposed when separately each was asked by Daniel under what tree did they see Susanna with the young man.  One man replied, “a mastic tree” while the other said “an oak tree.”  Oops, dual accounts.   They didn’t get their stories straight.  Their punishment was inflicted by an angel of God with a sword cutting them in two making an end of both.

This reading is followed by the Gospel according to John (8:1-11). “Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. 

Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again, he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So, he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”

One wonders about the selection and placement of this reading with the Gospel.   The woman affected by Daniel’s decision was innocent of adultery.   The woman brought before Jesus was accused of adultery, but was she really guilty?  The scribes and Pharisees wanting the woman stoned sound like the two elders/judges condemning Susanna to death.

Jesus wrote on the ground with his finger.  No one knows what he wrote.  I suggest “sinners” or perhaps “liars” as a reference to the accusing scribes and Pharisees.  Check out Matthew 23:1-36 for Jesus’ “denunciation [you hypocrites] of the scribes and Pharisees.”

Jesus message to us written in the sands of Cape Cod is: “Go and from now on do not sin anymore.  Do not be hypocrites.  Make no false accusations.  Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her, or him.  The innocent and the just you shall not put to death."

Deacon David Pierce