Jesus Calls Us To An Examination Of Conscience – 5th Sunday of Lent – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; April 6, 2025

It is easy for us to grasp the humiliation of the woman in today’s Gospel. It was bad enough for her to be caught in the act of such a sin, but to be dragged into public and accused, accused in the presence of a man who was, at least, esteemed as a holy prophet…

When Jesus responds by saying, Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her, he reminds us that as humiliating as the position of the woman, we will all have to appear before the judgment seat of God, before whose eyes all our sins are evident, to be accused of all our unrepented sins before the court of the holy angels and the saints in heaven; the humiliation of the woman in the Gospel will not be comparable to the humiliation of the soul that must appear before God’s tribunal with even the least unrepented mortal sin; then there will be no more opportunity for repentance and forgiveness.

Let the one among you who is without sin: Jesus, the truly sinless one, the Lamb of God, invites us to an examination of conscience.

Let us approach this examination by altering just slightly the accusation against the woman: Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing idolatry? If that charge were leveled against us would we feel so humiliated as the woman accused of adultery?

Yet, the charge of idolatry might seem a bit quaint these days. I mean who is there that goes to a temple of Baal with a young bull and offers it as a sacrifice to the idol? Yet, even so, we are surrounded by false and defective religions, not to mention ideologies, which pretend not to be religions, but fill the same function.

Even more, we can compare idolatry and adultery, because the word of God does the same. Consider what God asked the prophet Hoshea to act out in his life as a symbol of God’s love for Israel: Go, love a woman who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress; even as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods. (Hos 3:1) As the adulteress, giving herself to another man, is unfaithful to her husband, to whom she is bound in the covenant of marriage, so the idolater – at least among the people of God – is unfaithful to God, unfaithful to Christ, to whom we are bound in the covenant of his Blood, shed on the Cross for our salvation, by worshipping another “god”.

But what does it mean to worship, expressed in the outward act of sacrifice? It means to give ourselves to God without reserve and condition, as our supreme Lord, the ruler of the whole universe and our life, our highest priority.

Consider these words of Jesus: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Mt 10: 37-38) He makes an absolute demand upon us such as only God is entitled to make; to recognize, accept, and submit to that demand, to give ourselves to him in such a total, unconditional fashion, is the heart of true worship.  

When we take anything from that totality that belongs to God and bestow it elsewhere, even if only in our heart, that is a form of idolatry. In the parable of the wedding banquet those who put their farm or their business ahead of the invitation to the banquet, effectively committed idolatry. (Mt 22:1-14)

So the first and most common sign of idolatry appears when someone does not have time for God. What is being put ahead of God? When someone can’t be bothered to attend Mass on Sunday and Holy Days, what are they doing instead? When someone sets aside God’s law and commits mortal sin, what are they putting in place of God?

And who is our God? He is our supreme good; he is Jesus Christ, one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We heard St. Paul, I count all things as loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And who is Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary? He is the same one who gives himself to us in the Holy Eucharist to be worshipped and to be offered in worship and to be received in Holy Communion. The Mass is the wedding banquet of the King’s Son.

There is, though, something similar to idolatry but not quite so severe. Imagine a woman who every year at Christmas gives her husband a new Christmas sweater, knowing perfectly well that he hates Christmas sweaters. Is she loving her husband by giving him the sweaters?

Something similar can happen in our relation to God. We must approach God and worship him not in the manner of our choosing, but in the manner of his choosing. That means we must draw near to God through the man, his Son, Jesus Christ, whom he has established as our mediator and high priest. (cf. 1 Tim 1:5) That also means that we must worship him through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, established by Christ and given to his Church. That means we must belong to his Church. That means that we must honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. That also means we must not think we can love God and disobey his commandments. That means we must never separate the two commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. We must not separate some small commandment from the whole fabric, saying, “I will do the rest, but not this”; nor can we separate one article of the faith from the whole fabric, saying, “I will believe everything else, but I can’t accept this.”

Jesus said, Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 7:21) The interior heart of worship and the exterior expression of worship go hand in hand.

The Catholic faith is a “package deal”: it is, according to the meaning of the word, used as far back as St. Ignatius of Antioch in the early 2^nd century, a whole, a “seamless garment” that belongs to Christ. (cf. Jn 19:23) Faith accepts the whole as it is given to us by Christ through his Church. If we seek only a part, no matter how big or small, we are seeking our own will, not God’s. We are putting something else ahead of God; we are falling into a sort of idolatry.

If we do not want to find ourselves “caught in the act”, if we do not want to experience the supreme humiliation of being dragged before the public tribunal of God’s judgment seat, we must here in this world, during the time of mercy, go willingly before the tribunal of God’s mercy, the priest in the confessional, accuse ourselves, receive God’s forgiveness, and do our best to heed the words of Jesus, from now on do not sin any more.

Someone might feel that entering the confessional door is about as humiliating as the experience of the woman in the Gospel; he should consider that the result is more powerful; Jesus does not just say, Neither do I condemn you, but, through his priest, he says, I absolve you from your sins. The entryway of the confessional is like the entrance of a tomb, but the exit is like the resurrection.

A coin has two inseparable sides, we call them “heads” and “tails”. Forgiveness of sins is “tails”. And “heads”? An ancient coin, such as the “denarius” mentioned in the Gospels, given as a reward to the workers in the vineyard, had the image of the king. (cf. Mt 20:9-10; 22:20-21) The true king is Jesus Christ. The life of grace, which shares in the life of Christ himself; the life of grace, which is the spring bursting forth in the desert of this life, is the other side of the coin.

In today’s 1^st reading we heard something remarkable. The Lord, through his prophet, after calling to mind how he once delivered the people of Israel leading them dry shod through the Red Sea, destroying the pursuing Egyptians when the divided waters returned to their place, declares, Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not.

Throughout the time of the Old Testament, the people of Israel were constantly called to remember, to remember the mighty works that God had wrought on their behalf; they continually forgot and forgetting proved unfaithful to the covenant, fell into the adultery of idolatry.

Yet, here God tells them not to remember the things past.

Why? Because he is about to do something new. Remember, this is a prophecy spoken before the coming of Christ. Through the prophet God is announcing a mightier work than ever before, a new salvation. Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, our Savior and Redeemer, is that new thing, that mightier work. He leads us through the waters of baptism, forgiving our sins and giving to us the life of grace, the life of the children of God, forming us to be a people given to his praise.

St. Peter writes: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful works of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy. (1 Pe 2:9-10)

Through the prophet God declared that we are no longer to remember the mighty deeds of the Old Testament – except insofar as they point to Christ – because he works a new thing. Jesus Christ, forever new, the same, yesterday and today and forever, says, Do this in memory of me. (cf. He 13:8)

So, we continually celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass until his return in glory, when he will destroy death, wipe the tears from every eye, and make all things new, with an unfading and incorruptible newness. (cf. Rev 21:4-5; 1 Pe 1:4)