by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
Sunday’s gospel fits the #MeToo movement. A group of men who oppose Jesus catch a woman in the act of adultery and bring her to Jesus to set a trap. The woman seems the obvious sinner as the story begins. But these men, Jesus’ opponents, are using the woman and making her an object of public spectacle and shame.
Unwanted sexual advances are what #MeToo aims to stop, employment cultures in which bosses expect sexual favors or flavor the office with their advances. Today no means no, a step forward. The #MeToo movement has led many women to tell their stories of sexual assault and rape in an effort to end them.
Many people in our Sister of St. Joseph community work with law enforcement to help young trafficked women get out of prostitution and find a life rather than go to jail. Human trafficking and prostituting women happens under our noses at malls, hotels, on streets in our cities. Teens whose families fail or abuse them or who get alienated from them become very vulnerable to trafficking.
A woman who participates in a theology seminar I help teach writes about meeting a young woman on the streets. Their encounter echoes Sunday’s gospel.
“When I was shopping on a cold, wet day,” Debby Reisinger writes, “I saw a young woman sitting under a tree with a sign saying she needed money for a bus ticket home. She looked thoroughly miserable.
“After reminding myself that I professed a desire to protect women from trafficking, I parked my car and asked her for her story. She said she had been living on the streets and wanted to change her life.
“After obtaining her assurance that she wasn’t using and had no weapon, I invited her home with me to shower, wash her clothes, and get a bus ticket to Iowa. She napped while I fixed a warm meal, and I heard her phone ding a number of times.
“While we were eating, a friend from the streets called her to ask if she was safe. She assured him that she was fine and told him that my husband and I had helped her out with a shower and clean clothes.
“I was astonished at what she said next; she told her friend, ‘That’s how you know there’s a Jesus.’”
- How do you know there is a Jesus?