Ash Wednesday Salisbury Cathedral 2025
81while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They 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. 7When 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.’ 8And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.* 9When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, sir.’* And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’
Shameful. Imagine the scene as if it were to be played out in front of us here. A woman caught in the very act of adultery, brought before us all, standing there, accused. Imagine the drama, imagine the emotion, imagine the anger, imagine the indignity. And we would probably know her, for the community is small, and everyone knows everyone else.
Just as an aside – where is the man also caught in the very act of adultery? Where is his shaming? Or is this, most likely, another example of the unequal treatment of women in our society which still persists today.
So what happened next? We have just heard how Jesus silenced the accusers by confronting them with their own sinfulness, writing on the ground the things they would recognise in themselves. One by one they leave. Only the woman remains, standing before the Messiah. As no earthly person has condemned her, neither does the Word made flesh. “Go your way, and from now, do not sin again.” But what happens next? What does she do or not do? How is her wellbeing? Does she sin again? What happens next?
We are not told what happens next. Indeed the next words of the John’s Gospel are by contrast Jesus describing himself as the Light of the World. What has been found in darkness, will be brought to life and light.
Lent is a time which invites us to decide what we do next. The past cannot be undone or unsaid. Repentance, which is what we are called to tonight, is an invitation to turn and to decide what to do, or not do, next.
This Lent is an especially important time for the Church of England after recent months of turmoil. A time for us all as individuals and as an institution to acknowledge our past and to do what we can to right it, but also as a time to decide what to do next. The wholly inadequate response and lack of response over time to abuse has rightly come under close scrutiny, but in recognising this, we also recognise that much repentance has taken place, and our people and our policy and practice in this diocese are now largely fit for purpose. That said, the wilderness of being a victim and survivor is never taken away. Some sins committed cannot be forgotten.
In the current movie Conclave, the story is told of a papal election. How ironic it is to have this on release just at the time Holy Pope Francis fights to breathe. We pray for him. All the melodrama of church politics is played out, with tribalism alive and well. After all the competitive wrangling and side taking, (and I won’t provide a spoiler) one unlikely candidate invites the conclave of cardinals to leave themselves and their politics behind and do something new. He says powerfully, “The church is always what it does next.” Thousands of years of history cannot be undone, but if we truly believe in the Gospel and follow Jesus Christ, then as well as being people of repentance, we are people of resurrection. Our reason for being is the fact of the resurrection we shall celebrate 40 days’ time. The incarnation was what God did next. The resurrection was what God did next. Your resurrection is what God will do next. For all that we are caught in the very act of as sinful humans, we are, next time round, the Easter people.
Imagine being a church, imagine being a nation, imagine being a world, if one by one, every human act, every human decision, every human relationship, was better than the last one. Imagine if all our condemnation of others was every next time, an act of divine love. Imagine yourself for your sin being brought here by your neighbours, and God saying go, and do not sin again. What would you do next?
Ash Wednesday provides us with the moment to lay down the stones we are about to throw, be they in words or by invasion, and be what we do next. It’s not easy, most of us fall away one by one, but the sign of ash reminds us where we will end up, so let’s take this moment to be forgiven and to begin again.
‘Has no-one condemned you. Neither do I. Go and sin no more’. What do you do next? What do we do next?
The Rt Revd Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury