Talk given at Healing Service – Sunday 16th April 2023
Gospel Reading: 2 Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him
and he sat down and began to teach them.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her
stand before all of them,
4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.
5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent
down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
7 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."
8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left
alone with the woman standing before him.
10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11 She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on
do not sin again."
(Jn. 8:2-11 NRS)

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

In that Easter proclamation there is so much: joy that death was conquered;
Joy that Jesus’ terrible sufferings were not the whole story.
We know he still bears the scars of the cross even in his Risen body – but they no longer hurt – they
are for glory.

Bishop Laurie, last time, spoke of Job’s comforters and how they assumed Job must have done
something to deserve his suffering. That was a frequent assumption. When Jesus’s disciples saw a
man born blind, they had asked Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus said neither the man nor his parents had sinned, but his blindness would be for God’s glory.
We see from Jesus’ suffering that suffering comes to the most wonderful people, innocent people.
When we are hurting, when we suffer, we look at Jesus and know he is with us.
But sometimes, suffering (our own or someone else’s) is because of our fault. I drove too fast and...;
I spoke a cruel work that is repeated over and over in that person’s memory;.... I stole what wasn’t
mine;...... I lost my temper.... I ignored someone’s need...

She committed adultery – the woman in our reading – and now she is suffering : exposure,
humiliation, terrible fear – of death by stoning – her suffering is not less because she is guilty.

In the early years of my ministry, I worked for 5 years part-time at Wandsworth Prison. The men held
there were usually guilty – to a greater or lesser extent – but now they were hurting, suffering – so
were their families, their children.....My job was to help them know that whatever they had done –
God still loved them; that there is no sin greater than God’s love. God always holds us close in love.
When we fall, we fall into God’s arms of mercy.

The woman in our reading I expect would have been looking down in shame, but if she had looked at
Jesus she would have seen him writing in the dust – he knows of what we are made – that we are
but dust. Jesus is God taking our dust, our frailty, into himself.
The verse of the hymn says:
`Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail
In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end
Our maker, defender, redeemer and friend.`
Jesus/God is our friend. He looks on us with compassion, with mercy.
Julian of Norwich, the 14th century anchorite, to whom many turned for counsel, for healing, says he
looks `with pity, not with blame`. This is so important – for sometimes we blame ourselves, even
when it is not our fault. Julian again: ` If God forgives us, who are we to withhold forgiveness from
ourselves?` We can get so crushed by our sin and suffering that `we let the blessed sight of our
everlasting friend slip from our minds`. Jesus/God knows we are all broken, some of us a bit broken,
some of us very broken. He looks with pity, not with blame, with mercy not malice, with kindness
not condemnation. `Neither do I condemn you`, Jesus says to the woman.
Julian of Norwich received her revelations of divine love, by focussing upon Jesus in his passion. He
tells her he would gladly have suffered more if it had been possible or necessary. It was his joy,
delight, bliss, to suffer for us – for you and for me.
We are probably a long way from being so like Jesus that we can rejoice in suffering, or even trying to
unite our suffering with his, but we can offer our suffering – whether from our own fault or no fault,
for God’s transformation. Healing is usually a slow process, and sometimes healing comes in the
form of acceptance of brokenness.
The Japanese have made an art form out of mending broken posts. They fill the cracks with gold
when they put the broken pieces back together. The glorious scars, if you like. A writer on the BBC
website said when his son reached 18 years of age, he was going to give him a pot mended in this
way (called Kintsugi – joining with gold) to show him how the scars of life could be beautiful and
glorious.
God’s art work with us/of us is even more special.
God pours loves into our cracks, our wounds, our hurts. Pours healing love into our brokenness.
Julian of Norwich saw no anger in God. Indeed, she says, `because of the great endless love that God
has toward humankind, He makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the
least soul that shall be saved`. Wow! No distinction in love between the soul of Christ and of you or
me.
`Love is our Lord’s meaning. Before God made us, he loved us, and this love has never slackened nor
ever shall be`.
I finish with some words from Edwina Gateley – which have been and continue to be very important
for me in my own life. From `Psalms of a Laywoman` - Let your God love you....