13 June 2010

2 Samuel 11.26-12.10, 13-15
Psalm 32
Galatians 2.15-21
St. Luke 7.36-8.3

Jesus in today’s Gospel story seems to have gotten himself a bit jammed up in terms of how a religious person ought behave. He’s accepted an invitation to the home of Simon the Pharisee, not exactly the most hospitable place for him to be found given what Jesus has been up to. The Scribes and Pharisees are already convinced that Jesus is a heretic – someone who seems to pick and choose which parts of Scripture should be followed and which parts can be qualified or ignored. And what’s about to happen at Simon’s house isn’t going to make Jesus look any better in the eyes of the religious authorities.

From our vantage point, it’s rather difficult to completely understand how scandalous the presence of this party-crashing woman at dinner is. We know this woman is a first-class sinner, a woman of the city as the narrator of the story tells us. She’s brought with her an alabaster jar – and everyone knows alabaster jars are expensive – and then some. And it’s filled with myrrh – a costly ointment – usually used to anoint the dead. And given the status of women in that day and age, there is only one way a woman comes by the sort of money needed to buy all of that – merchandising – of herself, of course. And then there’s her behavior at Simon’s house – utterly inexcusable. Bathing Jesus’ feet as he reclines at dinner – her hair unbound (breaking religious law), weeping, touching in a very sensual way a male who is not her husband, kissing a male who’s not her husband – even if it is his feet – but then again, the feet thing is totally gross in and of itself. And Jesus is doing nothing to stop her. But why she’s doing all of this really isn’t clear. What is clear, however, is that Simon-the-Pharisee’s judgment of her presents an opportunity for Jesus to tell a parable – a rather obvious one that teaches us that those who have lots of sins forgiven might have reason to be more thankful that those who don’t have much to be forgiven. In addition, Jesus says that this woman inappropriate behavior is a better show of hospitality than Simon’s has show to Jesus. And then Jesus announces that her sins, which were many, have been forgiven her. There’s a problem here though – she hasn’t asked for forgiveness. Nor is there any indication in the story – and going outside the story is an illicit move – or even in earlier scenes or stories in Luke that there’s been any previous act of confession and repentance of any sort on her part. So how can her sins be forgiven? And besides, a true teacher and prophet in absolving her of sin would have demanded she cease her shameful behavior and would not have allowed this woman to carry on as she has been doing – and a true prophet, even if he did forgive sin, would still demand penance. As radical as it was when the prophet Nathan pronounced forgiveness to David for that sordid incident with Bathsheba, there was still a penalty to be paid for David’s sin: the death of his child by Bathsheba. What Jesus seems to be providing in his summary and unqualified forgiveness of this woman of the city is a free pass. All  Jesus does is proclaim peace to her. Complete forgiveness of all her sins seems to require nothing other than her trusting that indeed, all her sins are forgiven. Seems there is such a thing as free lunch after all.

With that, it’s now time to allow this text to have its way with us. Being the sort of Christians that we are, we profess that we are indeed made completely righteous in God’s eyes through a gift that is ours merely for trusting that it is ours; and so we likely approve of Jesus’ actions. And after some examination of conscience, we likely admit that with the woman in the story, our sins too are many, and we are thankful that our sins are forgiven. And we like being forgiven. But then there’s Simon the Pharisee – the one who is not forgiving. Oh, maybe on a good day he’s able to forgive – but he is certainly not going to forget. He of course is the villain of the story. He’s like James Dobson or any other religious hypocrite. But, heck, if we look around the room, I’ll bet we can all identify someone here who might also fit the bill of hypocritical Christian. And then the trap closes, then are we each hoist by our own petard. Each of us looking down our noses at the hyposcrites around us then becomes the one sitting in judgment upon the other – the Pharisee looking askance at the sins of someone else. Loving to see our own sin freely forgiven, we are not quite so keen on hearing that the sins of someone else are both forgiven by God and considered by God as if they never were. While we like that our slate has been wiped forever clean – without pre- or post-conditions, we’re not too keen on the slate of the Pharisee being wiped forever clean – and there are certainly people in each of our lives whose sins – or even missteps -- we’re certainly not going to forget ever happened. And so we become judged because we sit in judgment of the Pharisee of the story. What’s a body to do?

What are we to do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Quit trying to struggle, quit trying to escape the net. We’ve been caught. But – we, like the Pharisee in the story – and everyone else in the end – we too are forgiven – our judgments of the Pharisee and of one another completely overlooked, completely forgiven – just as the hypocritical judgments of Ted Haggard are forgiven by God as if his misdeeds had never occurred – even if it seems unlikely to us he’ll ever change his ways.

It’s also not likely that we will be completely successful at changing our ways – for though in Baptism we have been declared to be as Christ in God’s eyes – we are not fully yet what we shall be. We are not yet in our glorified bodies, and the old self clings to us, and we cannot seem to escape judging one another – we cannot forgive and forget as God would have us. Which is of course why we’re here all the time – to hear that we are fully forgiven, to hear that our neighbor is fully forgiven – and with our forgiven neighbor we come to the altar to receive a bit of Christ, a bit of who we are already, a bit of who we one day yet shall be – so that even in this realm and in these bodies we come to do that which on our own we cannot do – with Christ, forgiving not only the woman of the city but the Pharisee as well – to do that which on our own we cannot do – to trust that we are truly forgiven – along with absolutely everyone else, to trust that there is such a thing as free lunch, a free pass, for you and for all. And it has nothing to do with religion; rather it’s the scandal of the Holy Gospel. Thanks be to God.