God's forgiving love

John 8 : 1 - 11

Neither do I condemn you; go now and leave your life of sin

Just yesterday a couple of friends and I were asking ourselves whether the churches we belong to do model the forgiving and restoring love of God. And sad to say, we all felt that this was something sorely missing....as we could recall quite a number of occasions when people were taken to task for various things, perhaps even disciplined but not fully restored.

Of course our 'theology' includes the forgiving love of God, but often the way this is worked out in practical terms seems to be rather legalistic. It is more important to be doctrinally 'right' (which can easily veil our 'self-righteousness') than to grapple with how to handle in a gracious way, someone who has erred. We did not think that our churches have a culture of seeking to bring people to greater wholeness, through forgiveness and loving restoration.

When I think of the Pharisees in this episode, I wonder how they could so coldly ask to stone another human being. Sure, it was part of the 'law', but as they sought to apply it, did they not consider the human person before them? Did they presume to understand her whole situation and why she committed such an act? Did they not consider that another party was also involved?

Perhaps Jesus was the first man who looked at the woman in a tender and respectful manner, free of lust. Perhaps this was the first time she had encountered someone who could love her for who she was rather than just to make use of her. Whatever it was, Jesus modeled a most 'godly' way of dealing with those who have sinned. Have we experienced for ourselves the way our Lord deals with our sins? Have you and I received God's tender and forgiving love, a love that restores us and speaks of the 'magnificent beauty of our soul and its marvelous capacity'? Or are some people who sit in judgment today, 'without sin'?

"God our Father, we find it difficult to come to you, because our knowledge of you is imperfect. In our ignorance we have imagined you to be our enemy; we have wrongly thought that you take pleasure in punishing our sins; and we have foolishly conceived you to be a tyrant over human life. But since Jesus came among us, he has shown that you are loving, that you are on our side against all that stunts life, and that our resentment against you was groundless. So we come to you, asking you to forgive our past ignorance, and wanting to know more and more of you and your forgiving love, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Prayer of St Augustine)