June 17, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
2 Samuel 12: 7-1- + Galatians 2:16-21 + Luke 7:36-8:3
This little love story in the seventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel is troubling and far too complex for the superficial and shallow. This silly Pharisee can’t even see what is going on in his own house. All he can see is that she “touched him.” He is so shallow that he cannot see that Jesus touched her first. These Pharisees are too busy “watching” Jesus. They are so busy “watching” that they cannot see him. The preacher of repentance comes to the home of the Pharisee who refuses to repent. Conflict and controversy are sure to come.
These Pharisees have been busy attacking both John the Baptist and Jesus. Their shallow superficial lives cannot begin to deal with the message John and Jesus have brought: a call to change. Unwilling to address the challenge of that message, they content themselves with name calling and character attacks.
So obsessed with externals, the Pharisee cannot look into the wonder of what is happening in his home. He thinks Jesus cannot see what kind of woman this is, when in fact, Jesus sees quite well not only what kind of woman she is, but also what kind of man he is.
Compassion and Forgiveness are not for the shallow who can only look at the sins of others. To enter into the mystery of compassion and forgiveness one must venture into the depths of one’s own sin, name it, and then recognize the source of grace and mercy. Her presence there in the house of that Pharisee suggests a powerful tension in this gospel that takes the form of a question: Do we love because we are forgiven, or are we forgiven because we first love? Forgiveness is not something earned. We are not forgiven because we love. We are forgiven because we are loved, and the embrace of that love changes everything. It is called “faith.”
This is the real story being told in this Gospel: a story of love, not the love of the woman, but the love God has for her. She has come to realize it, believe it, hear it in the teaching of Jesus, and it brings her to his feet.
The Pharisees who talk among themselves, but not to Jesus can not grasp the simple connection between love and forgiveness. And so, they stay in their shallow little game-playing world pointing at the sins of others, calling Jesus “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” while they fail to see that Jesus is really a friend of God.
That woman who has no name teaches without words a lesson only those who listen to Jesus can learn. The Pharisee will not listen, he will only watch, But she has listened and heard the news of God’s Love. The gift of that love is forgiveness, and the loving response in her heart leads her to service and sacrifice. What the Pharisee does not do for the divine guest in his home, she does because she has heard the news of God’s love for her and risks the scorn and judgment of the Pharisee to enjoy the presence of mercy.
The observers think Jesus is forgiving her sins when he is actually confirming her love. This places the emphasis not on divine forgiveness but on the human openness and courage to respond to that love. It is her faith that saves her in contrast to the Pharisee whose lack of faith keeps him from love.
A holy woman in our own times described sin as the “Ice Age:” a slow advance of cold, a freezing process which we experience and try to forget; the absence of warmth, love, caring, trust and the destruction of our capacity for relatedness. It means being separated from the ground of life, having disturbed relationship to ourselves, our neighbor, the creation and the human family. The end of sin then will mean the warming of our hearts, the reunion of the human family, an age of compassion led by those who haves suffered, and ultimately, the victory of love found in sacrifice and service.