10 March 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” John 8:11
The little letter of Jude, tucked in just before the Book of Revelation, is one of the sternest pages of the New Testament. It was written against people inside the community who, Jude says, “defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.” Yet in the middle of his rebuke he sets a strange example. Even the archangel Michael, when he “contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” If the greatest of the angels left judgment to God, how much more should we. Then Jude pours out images of a life that promises much and gives nothing: “These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted.” In March, when the heat lies heavy on Kerala, farmers look up at every cloud that gathers over the hills, hoping for the first summer shower; a cloud that passes without a drop is a bitter thing. Jude names three old figures of the way away from God: Cain, who killed his brother in envy; Balaam, who sold his gift for gain; Korah, who rebelled against the order God had given. Envy, greed and pride are still the roads by which a believer becomes a waterless cloud. The Great Fast asks: when people come to me, do they find rain, or only shade that passes? And Jude's own letter does not end in condemnation; a few verses later he tells the faithful to have mercy on those who waver, and to snatch others out of the fire.
The Gospel shows us how Jesus judges. Early in the morning, as he sits teaching in the temple, some scribes and Pharisees bring a woman “who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them,” they say: “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” She is not a person to them but a trap; the man is nowhere to be seen. “Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.” No one knows what he wrote; the Fathers remembered that the finger of God had once written the law on stone. When they press him, he stands and says: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And he bends down again. “When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders.” St Augustine said that in the end only two were left, misery and mercy (in substance). Then Jesus stands and speaks to her for the first time: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” Mercy does not call sin nothing; it calls the sinner by name, lifts her up, and sends her into a new life. This is what happens in every confession of the Great Fast. We come holding the stones we wanted to throw at others, and we go away holding nothing but his word: go, and do not sin again.
Theme: “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
The waterless clouds of Jude, the archangel who left judgment to God, and the meeting of misery and mercy in the temple.
“They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.” Psalm 1:3
“They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;” Jude 12
Apply: Name one promise you made to God or to someone else this Lent, and keep it today.
“And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?”” Zechariah 3:2
“When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”” John 8:7
Apply: For one day, say nothing negative about anyone who is not present.
“As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live;” Ezekiel 33:11
“Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” John 8:11
Apply: Make your Lenten confession this week, and choose one concrete step away from your most frequent sin.
Judgment belongs to God, who does not want the death of the sinner but his life.
Let us put down our stones, receive his mercy, and go out to sin no more.
Take-home resolution: Go to confession before Hosanna Sunday, and pray each day this week for one person you have judged.
Dear friends, Jude reminds us that even the archangel Michael did not dare to condemn the devil, but said: the Lord rebuke you (Jude 9). Judgment belongs to God. And he warns us not to become waterless clouds and autumn trees without fruit (Jude 12): lives that promise and do not give.
In the temple some scribes and Pharisees bring Jesus a woman caught in adultery. They do not care for her; they want to trap him. Jesus bends down and writes on the ground.
Then he says: let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her (John 8:7). One by one they go away, beginning with the elders. Only two are left, as St Augustine says: misery and mercy.
Jesus tells her: neither do I condemn you; go your way, and from now on do not sin again (John 8:11). This is what happens in confession. This week, let us put down our stones, go to confession, and begin again. Amen.
Children, some people wanted to throw stones at a woman who had done wrong. Jesus said: only someone who has never done wrong may throw a stone. Everyone went away! Jesus forgave her and said: go, and do not do wrong again. Jesus forgives us too when we say sorry.
Lord Jesus Christ, you bent down and wrote on the ground, and the stones fell from the hands of the accusers. Take from us every stone we hold against others, and save us from becoming waterless clouds and fruitless trees. Look on our misery with your mercy, call us by name, and send us out to begin again, never to return to our sin. Amen.
Today’s two readings stand side by side like hard and tender hands, and they meet at one point: judgment belongs to God. Jude uses fierce images against false teachers, yet he recalls that even the archangel Michael would not pronounce sentence, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” In John a crowd of accusers holds stones, and Jesus, the one person with the right to condemn, does not condemn, and sends the woman away to sin no more. Neither reading makes sin small. Both take the verdict out of our hands.
Setting.
This short letter calls its author “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James” (v. 1). Many identify him with the Jude named among the Lord’s relatives (Mark 6:3), while other scholars think that a later disciple wrote in his name. Its date is uncertain. The letter warns against intruders who “pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness” (v. 4). Jude writes as a Jewish Christian steeped in Scripture and in Jewish tradition, and he even quotes the book of Enoch (vv. 14–15). Many scholars think that 2 Peter 2 draws on this passage.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”” (v. 9)
This dispute is not told in the Old Testament. Early Christian writers such as Origen traced it to a Jewish writing about the end of Moses’ life, whose relevant part is now lost. The words themselves come from Zechariah 3:2. Even the prince of the angels leaves the sentence to God.
“Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion.” (v. 11)
Three old warnings: Cain the murderer (Genesis 4), Balaam who, in Jewish tradition, was led by gain (Numbers 22; see 31:16), and Korah who rose against those God had set in authority (Numbers 16).
“They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;” (v. 12)
Clouds that promise rain and bring none, trees with nothing on them at harvest time. The danger is the appearance of life without its fruit. A season of fasting asks whether our religion gives what it promises. The Malayalam POC does not have the phrase “twice dead”.
How the Church reads it.
Jude’s anger is a pastor’s anger for a flock in danger, and the letter also says, “have mercy on some who are wavering” (v. 22). The Catechism names rash judgment, detraction and calumny as sins against the truth (CCC 2477), and it asks us to take our neighbour’s words and deeds in a good sense as far as we can (CCC 2478). In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul also speaks of abuses at the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17–22): the table of love can be damaged from the inside.
Setting.
Jesus is teaching in the Temple. Those who bring the woman are “the scribes and the Pharisees” (v. 3): a particular group on a particular morning, and not the Jewish people. They are using her to trap him. If he says to let her go, he sets aside the law of Moses. If he says to stone her, he gives up his mercy and perhaps offends the Roman power, which many scholars think had kept the death penalty to itself (see John 18:31). The law they quote names both the man and the woman (Deuteronomy 22:22). The man is not there.
A note on the text. This passage is missing from the oldest Greek manuscripts of John and from the earliest Syriac versions, and some later manuscripts place it elsewhere, one group after Luke 21:38. Many scholars therefore think that it was a very old story that entered the Gospel later. The Catholic Church receives it as inspired Scripture: St Jerome kept it in the Vulgate, and the Council of Trent received the sacred books “with all their parts”.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.” (8:6)
The Gospel does not say what he wrote, and we should not claim to know. St Jerome reports the view that he wrote the sins of the accusers (Against the Pelagians 2.17, in substance). Others recall Jeremiah 17:13, where the Hebrew says that those who turn away from the Lord are written in the earth, or the finger of God writing the law (Exodus 31:18). The action itself turns the eyes of the crowd away from the woman.
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (8:7)
Under the law the witnesses threw the first stones (Deuteronomy 17:7). This sentence turns the accusers’ attention to their own lives. Jesus does not call the adultery a small thing. He does not let anyone else’s sin become a place to hide from one’s own.
“Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” (8:11)
Both halves belong together. Mercy comes first, and the call to change is its fruit. Jesus does not say that she did nothing wrong. He says that she has a future.
How the Church reads it.
St Augustine sums up the scene: when the others had left, two remained, “the wretched woman and Mercy” (Tractates on John 33, in substance). Pope Francis took those words as the title of his letter Misericordia et Misera (2016), which opens with this scene. The Catechism says that the Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners (CCC 1846). It also teaches that adultery is a grave wrong against the marriage covenant (CCC 2380–2381). Both are true in this passage, and both are true in the sacrament of Reconciliation.
If this passage was not in the oldest manuscripts, is it truly the word of God?
Yes. A passage’s place in the canon does not depend on its being in the earliest copies we happen to have, and the Church received this story as Scripture long ago. A note about manuscripts tells us something about how the text came to us, and the story has every mark of the mercy of Jesus. That is why NRSV prints it in double brackets, and why the Church goes on proclaiming it.