Sunday Homily, 6 April 2025 - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

The situation of those scribes and pharisees serves as a warning to us, that we can be guilty of another’s sin.

These leaders in the Law are trying to see just how far Jesus will go. They’ve heard him say you can work on the Sabbath and don’t have to wash before meals. They regard him with deep suspicion because it appears he’s tolerating sin. Just how much sin can one teacher tolerate? Where does it end?

So, this woman to them is an indisputable case. If Jesus skirts around her sin, he’s condemned out of his own mouth. They flatter themselves that they have set the perfect trap. Will he weasel out of this one? How can he, since she is undoubtedly guilty.

But in setting all this up, they’ve become complicit in her sin, and so are guilty of her sin too. Well might we wonder how much they knew about the struggles in the marriage, or how well they knew her movements. How long had they waited on this occasion for things to get started? How easily did they then burst into the bedroom? From beginning to end, this whole episode for them is so grimy.

They want Jesus to become complicit and so expose his fraudulence as a teacher, but they are exposed as the ones who are complicit. And so they signal to us how it is possible to share in the guilt of another’s bad act. We don’t even have to be there when it happens.

There are nine ways we can collude in another’s sin:

We can counsel someone to sin.
We can command it.
We can consent to it.
We can provoke someone to do it.
We can praise it.
We can conceal it.
We can partake of it.
We can be silent about it.
We can defend it.

If we have allowed or urged someone to sin when it’s in our power to oppose and prevent it, we’re guilty too.

In the case of this woman, did they advise her or coerce her into it? Did they approve, provoke, or praise what she was doing? They probably didn’t partake of it themselves and certainly didn’t defend it. But maybe they concealed it or were silent about it, until they were ready to spring the trap. They too were guilty of her sin. We can be guilty of another’s sin.

How appropriate then that the eldest of the group of accusers are the first to depart. The older we are the more insight we can have into the moral life. Those can be hard-won insights, achieved through mistake and regret. And we ask the Lord to shine his healing light into us so that there’s no more darkness from our past after forgiveness.

It’s important, therefore, that we know how to avoid sin ourselves and help others to do the same. We don’t want to be busy-bodies, but neither do we want to become like Cain, who said to God: “Am I my brother’s gaoler?”

This sorry episode shows us that we have a responsibility towards one another. Out of nought but love for our neighbour, we have to help them when they sin. But how to do that well?

First, show them the witness of a holy life. This is important to avoid hypocrisy. Then, befriend them. This will not only build up rapport between you but also the reserve of compassion you’ll need. Then also, praise their good actions: not everything someone who is sinning does is sinful. And maybe then you’ll be able to counsel them about their grave sins.

The Lord, who alone has the right and power to condemn the guilty, commanded this guilty woman simply to go on her way and sin no more. He loved her. He forgave her. He counselled her. And he calls us to the same destiny: out of love for us, he forgives our sins; out of love for us; he counsels us to sin no more, whether or not the final act was indeed ours.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP Parish Priest