Don't Hide: Homily for Monday, March 18, 2025

"Where are you?" That was the question in the book of Genesis when Adam and Eve sinned. Where are you? They hid. In fact, it's what we all do, on some level, when we are confronted with our own sin. We hide. We hide from God, and we often find ourselves hiding from each other, presenting one image, but knowing deep down inside that's not who we are.

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It started when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. They hid. We are challenged to come before God, even when we sin, and not to hide. God’s love is more powerful than our sin.

Don’t Hide

“Where are you?” That was the question in the book of Genesis when Adam and Eve sinned. Where are you? They hid. In fact, it’s what we all do, on some level, when we are confronted with our own sin. We hide. We hide from God, and we often find ourselves hiding from each other, presenting one image, but knowing deep down inside that’s not who we are.

In fact, I think that’s the reason why social media, as an example, fails to satisfy, because we present on social media only one image, the perfect image. We’re happy. Life’s good. We’re surrounded by people who are just tremendous. But deep down inside, we know that we do not always do what we know we should.

And this hiding is exactly what we see in the first reading, this very powerful story of two men who have grown wicked, and they commit sin. We don’t know how the story would have ended. It probably would not have ended well for the two men if they simply had admitted to themselves first that they were filled with lust, that they were tempted, that they had this in them and it needed to be addressed in a way that was healthy and holy.

But rather, they hid, and they hid in ways that were quite awful. They used someone else to cover their own sinfulness, even though the cost of that use was the life of this woman. We see the same type of thing in the gospel. The scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman before Jesus. They use her to test Jesus.

And much like the ways in which Susanna was used in the first reading, the potential problem in the gospel could lead to the death of this woman, who unlike Susanna, did engage in something inappropriate. But at the same time, Jesus recognizes this for what it is. It’s a trap.

In our own lives, we can find ourselves, at least I know I can find myself, hiding. I think that’s why it’s difficult sometimes to enter into prayer, because there’s no hiding with God. When God asks Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” He knows where they are, and He knows why they’re hiding, and He knows what they’ve done.

The same thing is true for us. God knows who we are. I often say when celebrating the sacrament of confession, we don’t go to confession because we’re telling God things He doesn’t know. We go to confession because we know that God is the only one who can forgive our sins and keep us on the right track.

Today, let us ask the Lord as we enter into these two weeks, these last two weeks of Lent, to help us to be honest with ourselves, but more importantly, to be honest with God, so that like the woman in the first reading, and like the woman in the gospel, we might experience eternal life.

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