To Sin No More...

The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Is 43:16-21: See, I am doing something new!
Phil 3:18-24: I continue my pursuit towards the goal.
John 8:1-11: The Woman caught in Adultery.



I have said it all my life--at least all my life as I remember it:

O, my God,
I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishment,
but most of all because I have offended Thee, my God
who art all good and deserving of all my love.
And I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to sin no more,
and to avoid the near occasion of sin.
Amen.

I don't remember when I learned it but I remember when I knew enough about the world to say it tearfully as my brother and sisters and I knelt down to pray with my mother in the evening, hoping beyond hope that no one would notice my tears, and hoping beyond hope that maybe some day...just maybe...I would not get in trouble!

And later there were those confessions when, as I slipped from behind the maroon curtain, I promised myself that I would never have to confess that again!

And even now, at the end of the day, I really mean it all--to sin no more, and to avoid the near occasion of sin.  Amen!  Isn't that the point, after all?

Indeed, in the Gospel today, Jesus says to the poor woman, happily rescued by his clever response to the mob, "Go, and from now on do not sin any more."  Or as it has fallen into the popular parlance, through many translations: Go and sin no more.


What an easy, happy solution.  And as I have heard and read and contemplated and prayed over this story over the many years, how I have longed to hear those words--really hear Jesus say them to me in exactly the way that Jesus said them to that woman, standing in that awful silence before him.  For if I heard them in precisely that way, I know--I know!--that it would be over, that that prayer of my heart, which has been the prayer of my heart ever since I was a little boy, would be answered; I would indeed go and sin no more.

Well, as you may guess, it hasn't exactly happened yet.  And I wonder if that is what Jesus wants to happen.  Don't get me wrong: I am quite sure that the Lord does not want me to go back and wallow in my usuals--you know--the usual companions--pride, avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, anger--and their consequences--those sinful expressions of the deep sins.  But it is not as though I have not prayed that prayer enough.  And it is not as though I have not prayed it correctly.  And it is not that I have never prayed it--and here I hope I am not being arrogant--with at least an occasional honest note of contrition.  For I have often thought that if I had really prayed that prayer...if I had really meant my confession...if I had really been contrite...well, I wouldn't be praying it all over again, I wouldn't be slouching off to my confessor again, I wouldn't feel so bad all over again, and usually about the same things.  I suspect many of us feel that way.

Perhaps there is a deeper sin--one that I am only beginning to understand, but one which has leapt out at me a lot over the past month of Lent--the sin of believing that I could actually do this...that it would even be good for me to be able to do this.  Because, as I say to myself, if I could only get past this sin, I would never have to confess it again.  And if I never had to confess it again--and this is where the Lord seems to intervene with the truth--I would not have to keep turning back to you, my God, in such need.  As though I could then go and stop in at God's when it seemed convenient (instead of out of my usual desperation) as one might stop and see a friend, but only socially.

Isn't that the great heresy of Lent--Lent as we sometimes pursue it, not as it is meant to be celebrated!  That we will get our acts in order, our ducks in a row, the old leaven out, our souls nice and pure and our metaphors unmixed!  And then we will be fit before God, before God himself!

To what end?  So that God has to love us?  As though we could stand in front of him and say, "Here I am!  I made it!  Now love me!"

The fact is we can't, not even the best of us, as the best of us are perhaps most aware.  Wasn't it Saint Francis of Assisi who became infinitely aware of how unworthy he was of God's love even as God drew him closer and closer and closer to the mystery of His Son?  In fact, isn't that the truth of sanctity?  Not so much that that  saints make themselves lovable in God's eyes, but that they learn to accept God's love as the real gift that it is?  Isn't that what Jesus did in his life, even accepting the end of his life with gratitude and thanksgiving to the Father who had loved him so marvelously through it all.  Isn't that the story of Mary, who accepted a mystery into her life that was far beyond her ken, that indeed would pierce her heart, but which was the very expression of God's love for her.  And good St. Joseph, too, who took the child in with his mother, and gave him a place in his home, and a name, and a birthright, and even a place in his heart?

No, we cannot make God love us, no matter how much we perfect ourselves.  We can only grow in our acceptance of the fact that He already does love us, far beyond our wildest imaginings.  And we can try to live out of that, trusting that He will be faithful to His love for us, far more faithful that we will ever be to our best intentions.

That is hard to admit, especially for a perfectionist like myself.  It would be so much better, I think to myself, to have it all in order.  And yet it wouldn't be; I can trust that because God, in His mysterious, infinite, yet always loving wisdom, simply has not given me the power to be perfect...not in that way, at least.

St Paul reminds us that it is not our righteousness that will save us, for in truth we have none.  Rather, it is the righteousness of God, and having faith in that righteousness, even when we know that what we have done is perhaps impardonable; that is what is necessary for our salvation.  If it were not, then God would have left us to save ourselves; it would have been possible.

And so for now, I have to stand before my God and admit the hard too-true truth that I don't have it all together, that I am still a sinner, and that many of my sins are the same ones that I have struggled with all my life.  And I have to trust once again that God knows that about me, and that his love is still much larger than any and all of my sins, larger even than my sinfulness.  It is not a pleasant place to stand, sort of like that awful moment of silence when the poor woman stands before the silent Jesus.

It may be that he is still writing in the sand.  It may be that he wants me to read what he is writing.  It may be that he is waiting for me to drop my stone too, the one that I so often grab to throw at others, and frequently that I grab to use on myself.  But if I can but stand there in the truth--the truth that he actually already knows and that he has already forgiven in the giving of his life for us--if I can but stand there yet a while again and let him judge in his good time, then I shall hear those words: I do not condemn you.  Go and sin no more.

There is a wonderful poem by John Donne that I recall every once in a while, and that it is always good to read; it is as good a way as any to end this entry.

Holy Sonnet VII

At the round earth's imagined corners blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.

AMDG