Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
I do not know how the authorities could catch only one person in the “very act of committing adultery”. The other person must have been invisible or jumped out the window when he heard the police were coming.
The man was not seen because the woman’s place in society was invisible. Those who place in society is invisible are the ones who suffer most by the rest of society. Many do not see children in the womb, so the children suffer. Many do not see single mothers trying to raise their children and so the women and children suffer. Many do not see the minority groups in our society and culture, such as teenagers, people different from the majority in color, sexuality, “race”, religion, and so these likewise suffer.
Which of us has not been an outcast in our lives somehow or other so that we cannot feel with the outcast? Jesus challenged those who had not sinned to throw the first stone. Jesus took our sinfulness onto his shoulders, and so had compassion, love, and forgiveness for the one surprised in the “very act of committing adultery” with some unseen accomplice.
In-groups generally want to keep the out-groups out in order to preserve the standing of the in-group. Power tends to put down the weak in order to grow in power. Only the people of Jesus know how to include even the weak in their power. Jesus welcomed the woman of the gospel today, just as he welcomed the Samaritan woman at the well, the man born blind and the dead Lazarus.
Jesus likewise today welcomes the black, the brown, the green and the orange, as well as the so-called white, into his embrace. He welcomes the male, the female, and those whose sexuality does not match the male and the female. He calls those with mental illness as well as people with other handicaps, and challenges us to do the same.
The woman taken in the “very act of committing adultery” received forgiveness. Her invisible partner would also have received forgiveness, but he could not be seen. When we discover our own “invisible” sins, we will find them forgiven, but we have catch ourselves in the very act of having committed them.