Our own ensnarement

Bishop Scott Bullock
The Fifth Sunday of Lent
April 5, 2025

A little boy Johnny and his sister Sally visited their grandparents in the country, and, for his birthday, they gave him a slingshot. The next morning, he practiced using it in the surrounding woods, but still he was quite unskilled. As he came back into his grandparents’ backyard, he spied his grandmother’s pet duck. On an impulse he took aim and let a rock fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead. The boy panicked!  

Desperately, he tried to hide the duck in a wood pile, only to look up and see his sister watching the whole thing. Sally had seen it all but said nothing. After lunch that day, the grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” 

Sally replied, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you, Johnny?” 

And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!” 

So, Johnny did the dishes.

Later, their grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. The Grandma added, “I really need Sally to stay and help make supper.” Sally smiled and said again, “That’s all taken care of.  Johnny wants to do it.” 

Again, she whispered, “Remember the duck.” 

So, Johnny stayed while Sally had fun fishing. After several days of Johnny’s doing both his chores and Sally’s, he finally couldn’t stand it. He confessed to his grandmother that he’d killed the pet. 

“I know, Johnny,” she said, giving him a hug. “I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you.  You are more important to me than any mistake you can ever make. But I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave out of you.”

There is perhaps no passage in the Gospels, the entirety of the Gospels, that speaks more to the nature of sin and, even more, the truth of God’s relentless, otherworldly mercy, than the one we just heard from the Gospel of John, chapter 8 — the recount of the woman caught in adultery.  

At first glimpse, the word “caught” suggests that the woman was discovered in what the lawyers say, in flagrante delicto, in the very act of committing a crime. That is, a crime against divine law.  And, while this seems to be certainly the case, doesn’t that word “caught” have a myriad of meanings that could be applicable here? The Biblical word that we translate “caught” is katalambano, a word that has as many nuances like in our own language. One resource says that word means: “to seize tight hold of, to arrest, to catch or to capture, or even to appropriate.” 

In addition to being arrested by the religious figures in the Gospel, could that word not also have the sense of being caught in the thrall and attraction of the sin itself?  The woman is caught in that habit. She’s caught by the religious figures to be sure, but also, if her sin is like any that I know in my own life, it’s also a matter, too often, of seeming to be imprisoned by the sin itself. The allure of the sin and a habit of engaging in it, that could also apply to the woman. In either case, Jesus has come to deliver her from both imprisonments.

So, what is Jesus teaching us by this scene?  First, regarding that first type of imprisonment, that of the religious leaders who have caught her in the crime, Jesus is teaching us of our obligation to treat others with mercy. When others have fallen and failed — especially when they have offended us along the way, we are obliged to recall that we too have fallen and failed along the way. And, so, we may not be the judge, jury and executioner of our sister or brother.

Regarding that second imprisonment — our own ensnarement in patterns of sinfulness that have caught us — let’s listen to Jesus’ words of mercy right at the end of the Gospel. He says to the woman, “Go, and from now on sin no more.” 

It’s a double reaction of Jesus. First, go. That is, God’s mercy has released you from your punishment. And then second, he says, “from now on do not sin any more.” 

But we might object. “It’s not so easy as that, is it Jesus. I’m caught. I can’t find my way out of this sin.”

Jesus’ command not to sin any more is a reminder that it’s accompanied by his grace, his power, and his peace. So when we feel caught and feel powerless, Jesus asks us to bring it to him and ask him for his help, to empower us, so that, with his help we can choose to sin no more.

Like the child in the illustration, the woman could have let herself remain caught in the effects of a sin and permitted it to enslave her. Jesus wants more for her. He wants more for us. For, after all, he is a Savior.  So, we come today as the woman caught in sin. First, Lord, give us the love we need to treat each other with your mercy. A mercy that sets us free and that sets others free when we bestow it. Secondly, give us the power to do what you have commanded — “to go and sin no more.” 

With your mercy working through us and your power given to each of us, we can do it together. So, we pray come, Jesus, save us who are caught and set us free by your strength and mercy, the very reason we come to you each week in this sacrament of power and mercy.