"You your best thing, Sethe. You are." These are the words of Paul D to Sethe in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. Beloved follows the story of Sethe, a woman who was formerly enslaved and is literally and figuratively haunted by the memories of slavery and trying to wrest herself and her family from that memory. Today’s lectionary texts on this 5^th Sunday of Lent, like Beloved invite us to reflect on our past while seeing ourselves as our own and God’s best thing, a particularly critical insight for the time we are in.

Isaiah 43:16-21 hearkens back to the exodus of the Israelites from exile, illustrating how God freed them, having "made a way in the sea, a path on mighty waters.” In this victorious remembrance, the Lord says, "Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." While they reflect on the good ole days when God delivered them from Egyptian slavery, God says, don't get lost in the past. "You are your own best thing."

The Psalm also invites us to remember through a prayer for help that has two components, memories of what the Lord has done and prayers for restoration from current trials. Part one of this prayer is the memory of the Lord's deliverance of Zion and the joy experienced as a result, with people and other nations proclaiming, "The Lord has done great things for them."  In the second part we see the prayer for restoration by a community in distress, and we again see the Lord making a way out of no way, particularly in dry places. Psalm 4 indicates this when the psalmist says, "Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb." This is God's quenching Israel of their thirst, famine, and deprivation.  

Paul’s letter to the Philippians continues our journey of remembering. Paul enumerates all he has obtained in the order of doing the right thing and being the right kind of person. He lays it out in Philippians 3:4-6 when he says, “…circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." Yet before he becomes too boastful, he confesses that whatever "gains" he had, he regards them as loss because of Christ. Paul tells us that knowing Christ is the gain. It was not any amount of doing and being the right kind of person but rather having faith in Christ and active participation in the pursuit of knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection—which is what we do in this Lenten season. The work is in the faith of Christ and carrying forward the work of Christ, not simply obedience to laws. It is from here that springs Paul’s signature words in Philippians 3:13-14, “… this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead…”

Today's Gospel reading^[1] brings us full circle with God in Christ, making a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. We meet Jesus in the temple area of the Mount of Olives, teaching until the scribes and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They were testing Jesus to see how he would respond to the woman. Jesus does not immediately respond to the scribes and the Pharisees. Instead, he writes something down with his finger on the ground. We do not know what he writes, but my imagination immediately conjured the ground as dirt, the sand of a desert pad that he was contemplatively writing in. At this, the scribes and Pharisees questioned him again, and to this, he stood up and said, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." He then bent back down and proceeded to write with his finger on the ground again. I envision this writing on the ground as Jesus drawing a line in the sand, a boundary line protecting the woman and that made a way for her to be seen. I also imagine Jesus writing in the sand for this woman to see, "You are your own best thing."  Whatever it was, one by one, the scribes and Pharisees departed from the eldest to the youngest. Once Jesus was alone with the woman, he asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" To which she says, "No one, sir." "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on, do not sin again,” Jesus said.

Jesus did not shame her or make her the sum of her actions. He did not pile on her alongside the scribes and the Pharisees; instead, he reminded her of her worth and dignity as Paul D did to Sethe. Jesus tells this woman; you are your own best thing, and as such, you deserve to participate in a life-giving relationship as opposed to death-dealing ones—here, the death-dealing is as social as it is soul-ish.

And isn’t this what our journey this Lenten season has been about? For the last five weeks, we have been tapping back into spiritual disciplines, meditating on the life-giving word, and nurturing life-giving relationships for the upbuilding of God’s kin-dom. Today’s lectionary readings show us what remembrance looks like and how to re-member ourselves as the body of Christ. In this re-remembrance, we bring ourselves, our own best things, to our work in faith for God's church and the world, bringing about justice and peace. As people made in the image of God, we focus on making a way out of dry places for those who have all but given up hope for restoration. May we remember that God continues to make rivers in our deserts and ways in our wilderness. Let us carry ourselves forward as our own best things, beloved by God, creating pathways of love, justice, and mercy for all of God's children.

^[1] John 8-11 text appears in the Gospel of John as an "interpolation." Some scholars suggest that this story was added to the Gospel. The text leaves some, or at least me, with more questions than answers. Questions such as: Why was SHE caught in adultery? Adultery takes two; where is the man? Who caught her anyway? Did the scribes and Pharisees have a practice of bringing women into places? And if this is an addition, why was it inserted? Was it to prove a point about Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees or the woman? I think it was about how the incarnation of Jesus brought about a new way of seeing and doing things. A way of mercy, love, and justice.

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