The Good new way

Sunday readings in Brief 5 Lent C
Is 43:16-21; Ps 125(126); Phil 3:8-14; Jn 8:1-11
The new good way
Dear friends today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. Next Sunday will be Palm Sunday, the triumph entry of our Saviour into Jerusalem. Today’s readings talk to us about the new good way. The world is ever changing and every day we see and experience new ways of doing things. For those who have lived longer, the changes are even more pronounced. Take for example those of us who had knowledge before the coming of the mobile phone. The transformation of the mobile phone from the late 1990s to date is tremendous.
There are also new ways of doing things that have made things easier though not necessarily made life easier because their also many new bad ways that tend to counteract the good. The evolution of technology has changed the way we did things before, such as, farming, doing business, travelling, communicating, etc. Learning the new way of doing things in all aspects of life can be very advantageous if learnt well. Those who are computer literate today have more advantage in the cooperate world than those who are not.
In matters religious also, learning the new good ways is helping so much those who have learnt them well. The great of them is the Good News of the Kingdom of God proclaimed to the world by our Saviour Jesus Christ. His was and still is the New Good Way that transforms our lives and makes us better human beings.
Prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading alluded to the advent of this Good News. He says “No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed”. Last Sunday we heard about the Prodigal Son, when he returned back to his father, he had a well rehearsed prayer to his father. However, the father did not want him to recall his dark past, he asked his servants to put a new cloak on him. This is similar to the new cloak we were given at our baptism, covering all our dark past for good.
St. Paul boast about discovering the new way in Christ Jesus. He say, “I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in Him”. Similar conviction like that of St. Paul is what impelled the Martyrs not to look back when they were persecuted and killed. Paul says that to be perfect by means of following the law was very tedious and almost impossible. Now he has learnt a new way that of faith in Jesus Christ and his way of doing things makes him authentically free. To strive and remain in this way of Christ is the call for everyone who would want to taste eternal life.
In the Gospel reading today, the new good way of Jesus has caught many of the Jews off-guard. Following their old ways of doing things that were discriminatory against women, the Jewish leaders come to Jesus with a woman purported to have been caught in the act of adultery. The question that anyone in his or her right mind would ask is, “Where is the man whom she was coming adultery with?” Surely, she was not doing it by herself! Jesus would have asked this question but he knew that they were testing him. If he said they should not stone him, the leaders would discredited as false messiah for opposing the Law of Moses, which they had amended to their own advantage anyway. If he said they should stone him, they would get a chance to discredit him in front of many poor people and women who saw in him a refuge and solace. Jesus used a new way of making every one of them look into his or her life probably for first time ever. By appealing to the conscience of each one, Jesus was able to rescue the life the woman who would otherwise been stoned to death.
We have so much evil being perpetuated against women and the girl child today. The male chauvinism is still heavy in many parts of the world. Last Friday first of April, as we marked the Tree Growing day, the theme of “Stop Male Chauvinism and discrimination against women and girls” came out clearly in many of the speeches given and the performance from the schoolchildren. Among them was the Female Genital Mutilation, Child marriages, and denying the women and girls their rightful place in the society. This is as a result of people remaining stuck in their bad traditions and refusing to see the light. The society that discriminates against its women will never see any tangible development.
Dear friends, we all may have come across an instant of female discrimination or we are witnessing it as we speak. I invite you to say or do something to rescue the situation, do not just stand there and think it is none of my business until it affects you or your loved ones.
Have a blessed Sunday.
Fr. Lawrence Muthee, SVD