Minister of the Church of South India and a pastor in Karnataka Central Diocese. She is president of the Women's Fellowship of her diocese and also vice-president of the synodical Women's Fellowship.

As I prepared this sermon, I began to read some materials with reference to violence against women. I became very disturbed, because material on violence against women has become so common and popular that it is very easy to write on this topic. But to write on the elimination of violence against women is very difficult, because the scenario appears to be without hope. You feel numbed by the violence suffered by women all around you. People no longer take notice of the violence, since it has become part of everyday life. Women face violence from womb to tomb. For various reasons, a female child is not welcomed into the family. This is made very clear in the decline of the female-to-male ratio. Ten years ago, the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen spoke about the cultural and social discrimination against women that has led to the disappearance of 22.1 million females from India, 30 million females from the Republic of China, and 7 million females from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, West Asia and Egypt. This loss was due to female foeticide and infanticide. Today, ten years later, there is no visible change in the situation for the better.

According to Salman Rushdie, women in India are on their way to becoming an endangered species. How very true; but the problem does not end here. The female child is under threat of sexual abuse from the age of three. The risk may begin even earlier, but I have known cases where three-year-old children have been sexually molested. A woman is not safe anywhere, and many a time her home becomes the most dangerous place for her. Physical violence is not the only form of violence that a woman faces, though this is the form that is visible. Whether mother, wife, sister, or daughter, whether she belongs to Europe, Asia, or America, whether she is poor or rich, or whether she is educated or illiterate, a woman faces violence. It makes no difference where she belongs. Women face cultural, structural, and psychological violence all the time, as they become targets for men's expression of their anger or for one community's revenge on another community. They also become easy victims for those who wish to teach a lesson to the men of their family.

With this background let us look at the two biblical passages that I have chosen for reflection. John 8 speaks about the woman who was caught in adultery. There is no information as to whether this woman was a betrothed woman, for the mosaic law prescribes death by stoning for this category of offenders. Both partners in crime should be punished, but here only the woman is brought forward. We find physical, mental, and psychological violence being perpetrated on this woman. To be brought forcibly before Jesus and accused by men in public must have been a humiliating experience for her. The threat of death by stoning must have terrified her. We can only imagine the feelings of this woman, but we find that there was no consideration shown her by the religious leaders. It appears that what would happen to this woman was of no consequence to them. Their only aim was to find some means to catch Jesus making a mistake that would give them an opportunity to condemn him in the eyes of the public. The woman was used as a tool to achieve this end. How often we see this kind of exploitation of women with no sensitivity towards the effect this treatment will have on them! One could cite many examples to show how men use their own wives to achieve their goals without any reference to the feelings of the woman involved. The religious leaders use this woman in the same way.

The system was such that the woman was made the victim, but not the man who was involved in the act of adultery. One person alone cannot commit an act of adultery. Here in their eagerness to trap Jesus, the religious leaders bring the woman alone. Many a time this is what happens in our system: the victim is victimized further by the system. In many of the rape cases that are reported, the victim is made to tell about her experience so many times before so many people that she ends up feeling raped a hundred times. In such cases very often the victim is blamed as the cause of what happened to her. The victim is stigmatized for life by the system.

Often women are judged with a legalistic attitude; the accusers forget that they will be judged with the same measure. One of the college girls was kidnapped and raped by six men. They took her away while she was entering the college building. When a reporter spoke to the female lecturers about this incident, eight out of ten blamed the girl for what happened to her, saying that she used to wear revealing clothes, and she was tempting the men. If this is the attitude of women towards another woman, imagine what will be the attitude of men. Thus women are always under pressure and anxious about their safety. They are anxious about what the discriminatory system will do to them, and whether they will get justice. The violence towards them is constant and continuous. Is there hope for eliminating this kind of violence unless and until we change the system and change our attitudes?

Jesus was aware of the intentions of the leaders, and his response was silence. This response frustrated the leaders, and perhaps the woman's fear became a hundredfold greater as she dreaded the judgment Jesus would pronounce on her. The leaders were persistent in demanding an answer. Maybe they were abusive, too. Jesus' answer when it came surprised both the leaders and the woman. Jesus eliminated the threatened violence by making the leaders realize that they were no better than the woman; they were also sinners like her. Even if they had not committed adultery, they were still guilty of other sins. Certain commentaries on this passage suggest that maybe some of those present in the crowd were committing adultery then and there by looking at her with lustful eyes. Maybe some of them had had a relationship with her on earlier occasions. So when Jesus said, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her," the leaders were at a loss to say or do anything. All their plans went down the drain. Convicted of their own sins by their own consciences, they left one by one without punishing the woman. When Jesus looked up again, he found the woman alone and questioned her, saying, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" Her reply was no. Then he said, "Neither do I condemn you." If Jesus had stopped there, people could have accused him of encouraging immoral life. But Jesus went one step further by saying, "...do not sin again." Jesus wanted her to understand that she had been given an opportunity to change her life, and she needed to turn away from sin.

What lessons do we learn from Jesus' attitude and the way in which he dealt with the situation? First, we need to analyse the situation as Jesus did without being judgmental. Second, we need to tackle the root of the problem rather than treating the symptoms. The problem behind this particular incident was the assumption that only a certain kind of sin is sin, and others are not. Third, we need to treat people equally. Jesus did not accept the accusation against the woman at face value just because the religious leaders brought it. He dealt with the accusers and the accused on an equal basis.

Furthermore, Jesus allowed the leaders to think for themselves and make a decision for themselves whether their judgment had been right. He gave them an opening to have a new beginning. I think this is very important for our effort to eliminate violence; for we cannot eliminate violence by violence, even though sometimes a victim may want to retaliate with violence.

Just as Jesus gave the religious leaders the opportunity for reflection and a new beginning, so Jesus also gave this woman enough time to reflect and to decide what she should do in the future to enjoy peace and joy in her life. He gave the woman a new opening to correct herself and an opportunity to rebuild her life on different values. Many a time the victims of violence do not get this opportunity. They are not given freedom to rebuild their future. They are forced by outside influences to act in a way that affects their lives adversely. If violence is to be eliminated from the lives of women, then there has to be change in the attitudes of people. There has to be a shift in the understanding of a woman's body. Often the body is considered to be an object of pleasure to be played with, to be exploited, to be violated at the whims and fancies of men, since they feel that women are created to be subservient to men. Jesus by his response indirectly gives dignity to this woman by treating her as he did the religious leaders.

In the passage from Luke, the violence faced is of a different kind. Here this woman who was physically disabled had been pushed to the periphery; she was not able to contribute to society due to her deformity. She was probably an insignificant person who had no influence or wealth, a socially invisible person. Because her deformity was incurable, people may have branded her a sinful person, since it was believed that only sicknesses caused by sin were incurable. So she may have suffered physical as well as mental violence. Since she was bent over, people must have ridiculed her, and she must have suffered psychological violence. Her personhood must have suffered, and she must have been ashamed to mingle with people. Jesus was sensitive to this person and responded to her positively. He called her, spoke to her, touched her, healed her, and united her to the family of Abraham. By doing so, he eliminated all forms of violence that had been inflicted upon her by society. By healing her, Jesus set her free from her physical suffering and restored her dignity. By touching her and speaking to her, he made her feel included and equal. By calling her the daughter of Abraham, he made her feel that she belonged to the community, and that she was an important part of it. Jesus made this woman whole to stand straight and face the challenges of life.

In our society there are many who are made to feel excluded, and who are pushed to the periphery of the community. Those who suffer from various forms of physical deformity sometimes feel that they are a burden to society, and that they cannot contribute to the community. They all need the healing touch that will liberate them and make them feel included. This change in attitude will pave the way towards eliminating the violence they face. We need to extend this kind of support to women who have suffered different forms of violence in their lives and restore to them the dignity and confidence that they have lost over time, becoming helpless and leading a life without any hope. We need to meet the physical and emotional needs of these people to make them whole so they can return to the centre of society.

May this celebration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women empower each one of us to become sensitive to the needs of all women who suffer violence and help us to give the healing touch of Jesus to these people, so that they may become whole and regain their dignity.