5th Sunday Of Lent

Deacon Tom Vert

Preached: April 6, 2025

About three years ago, I had a consulting contract in a rural area of India, in a town called Rajgangpur, in the province of Odisha. I went there six times and over that time I got to meet a nun named Sister Mary Peter at St. Mary’s church.

She and her fellow sisters had a mission to help the poorest of the poor, the Dalits, or “untouchable” families in this area who had the harshest life and toughest jobs. The parents had the jobs that no one else would do, like sweeping the streets, and cleaning the sewer channels by hand, which was very depressing and let to a high rate of alcoholism and early death. This led to many broken families, widows, orphans, and single mothers with children and no real work to sustain them.

On one of my first trips, when I looked at the “situation” I was distressed, but I only saw the “poor” and the broken families from afar. Over time, Sister Mary Peter had Carmela, and I meet the children first at an after-school tutoring centre that they had set up and it was such a joy, but I still just got a glimpse of the people, the poorest.

On my last trip there, I asked Sister if I could go and meet the people in their homes, to see the person and not just the situation. So, one afternoon, we went to visit a family in the poorest section of town, with no running water, no toilet facilities, and no electricity.

I had the privilege to meet Lily and her two children who were in high school at their house which was 100 sq. ft. and included the bedroom, family room and a small storage room with cooking done outside. She welcomed me like her own family with freshly made tea on the fire outside and cookies, even though she had nothing. We spent a lovely time together and talked to the kids about their dreams to become a nurse and a teacher. I had the honour to see each person as a child of God and not just as a “poor person in rural India”.

The gospel today shows us this same message, Jesus sees the person while the Pharisees and scribes see “the woman caught in adultery”. We hear that they brought the woman and made her stand in the middle, making her situation the key to their perspective.

“What do you say we should do” they ask Jesus? And we see that Jesus does not take the bait. He doesn’t look up at the situation, the crowd in a circle, the woman in the middle embarrassed and fearful. Instead, he bends down and writes on the ground with his finger, pausing, and then as a wise teacher asks the perfect person, the one without sin, to start the punishment of stoning.

Finally, when all have walked away, we see Jesus look at her as a person, talking to her one on one – where are they, he asks. He is full of compassion and love, following the wonderful phrase of God’s love from the letter of James “mercy triumphs over judgement”. “Go and sin no more!” and I am sure that she walked away with a feeling of love and not shame, a feeling of joy and not pain. Jesus saw her heart and overlooked the situation, bringing her back into the fold of God’s love.

The question today is do we see the person or the situation in our everyday life?

Do we see the situation of the people in the homeless tents in Hamilton as those people making our city a mess? Or do we see individuals who are struggling with mental health, with addiction and/or childhood pain and trauma, that we need to find a way to help those root causes, and not the symptoms that we bother us.

Do we see the barista as the situation of not getting our coffee and breakfast sandwich fast or hot enough, or do we see Mia or Amanda, who are studying at McMaster and working at Tim Hortons or Starbucks to help their education, and who are happy to be noticed an thanked as they give us 100% effort to serve us?

Do we see the situation of lonely people who are in retirement and long-term care homes as very sad and possibly even to be avoided? Or do we see a mother, father, grandparent, or a previous parishioner, who needs a visit, who needs someone to tell their story to and feel a touch or a hug?

This week, we are called to look around and ask, “Am I seeing the person, or just the situation?”