Taking Sides

Today's gospel reading:

"Go away, and from this moment sin no more."

One day they almost forced Jesus to take sides against someone, the woman caught in adultery. He refused to take sides against anyone.
What he did was express his belief in her inner goodness.
He told her not only to go home, but to change her life.

He did what the prophet Isaiah once foretold God would do: "No need to remember past events, no need to think about what was done before.
Look, I am doing something new, now it emerges; can't you see it?" (Is 43:18-19).

It isn't only the woman who goes home a better person when he tells her: "Neither do I condemn you; go away, and from this moment sin no more."
Her accusers and molesters, who didn't throw their stones, also go home better persons.
Jesus healed all of them by awakening something in them that was greater than they were.

Jesus refuses to discriminate between the "good' and the "bad" in the story.
He refuses to take sides in that way.
The side he chooses is that of unity and cohesion, and of the ultimate goodness hiding in each one's life.
It is a choice that is against anything that tears human life apart, makes it impossible, or kills it. Jesus did what he helped the woman and her accusers to do: "Don't condemn. Go home, and

don't sin."

It is an invitation, a piece of advice, or, better, a command we should apply in our own lives.
It is no good condemning ourselves or others.
It is better to get away from the past and change our lives.