Daniel 13:1-62; John 8:1-11
Fifth Monday of Lent
“I am completely trapped,” Susanna says,
and we are, too.
By these patterns of sin we can’t seem to break.
By all the people and forces
who are looking at us and trying to coerce us
into being untrue to who we really are.
Or we are the elders
peering through the branches at Susanna,
unable to control our urge to gaze,
to see the bodies of others as mere objects,
as things to possess and consume.
Then we lie. We lie to ourselves.
We lie to God.
What is it that Jesus writes in the dust?
This is the only time we see him writing
in all the gospels, and we long
to see the words he forms on the ground
as God formed Adam
from the ground and forms us.
I think they say something different
to each of us,
and something different each day.
I think they say, to the woman: believe.
To those who would stone her: forgive.