Fr. Gerard Kelly
As we get to the end of that gospel,
Jesus says to the women, “your sins are forgiven.” This can present a bit of a puzzle for us, as
nowhere are we told what her sin was.
Yet, the Pharisee who had invited Jesus to the meal was quite clear that
this woman would not be welcome at his table, that she had a bad name in the
town. He was even beginning to have his
doubts about Jesus: if Jesus were truly a prophet he would know the woman had a
bad name and he wouldn’t have anything to do with her. However, what we see from Jesus is a true act
of prophecy both in what he says and in what he does. Jesus knows the truth about both the woman
and the Pharisee, and he proclaims the truth about how God deals with people.
The first thing we should learn from
this scene concerns sin. The Pharisee
seems to be very confident that he knows what sin is and who the sinners
are. He points to the woman. Jesus never denies that the woman is a
sinner. In fact, in his final words to
the Pharisee he acknowledges that she has many sins. The action of the woman seems to indicate
that she too knows that she is a sinner.
There is no indication, however, that the Pharisee ever thinks of
himself as being a sinner. In true
prophetic style, Jesus shows him up as a sinner. So, what is his sin? His sin seems to be in the way he slots this
woman into a category and responds to her in that way. While this is hurtful to the woman – and,
indeed, she has probably long been forced to live the way he has categorised
her – it is just as damaging to the Pharisee.
He has created a wall around himself that doesn’t allow other people to
enter in. He is unable to respond to the
love that other people show, and only responds to a pre-determined and narrow image
that he has of them. His sin is that he
is unable to recognise what his life is like and so is not open to changing it.
When thinking about sin it is easy to
focus on the woman in the scene, but less easy to focus on the Pharisee. When we focus on the woman we see someone
whose sin is public and well known. If
we turn to the Pharisee in the story, then Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisee
becomes a challenge to us to recognise the sin that is part of our lives but
that perhaps we have never acknowledged.
I think Jesus wants us to recognise the sin that is probably bigger than
any one of us individually, but which can pervade the group, be it family or
society. Jesus wants us to think about the
sin that is all pervasive and for that reason is never acknowledged.
Let me give a couple of examples from
recent events in our society. The first
is the incident of the racial slur screamed at a footballer by a young fan at a
recent football match. This led to very
wide media coverage and public discussion.
The thing that struck me was the statement, “I didn’t know this was a
racist word.” This is what the Pharisee
was like: he didn’t truly recognise the person bent low on the floor near him. His whole worldview was blind to anyone or anything
beyond his immediate circle. He didn’t recognise
that she was a woman who was capable of much love. The second example I think of is related to
the on-going debate in our society about asylum seekers. Of course, we need to recognise that the
arrival of boats presents us with difficult practical and political
challenges. Yet, some in the community
easily make judgements about these people without knowing their true
story. It is as though we are blind to
the humanity of other people. This too
is a bit like the Pharisee, who failed to show hospitality to Jesus when he
arrived after a long walk. It is Jesus
who points this out: the woman washed his feet, dusty from the journey, with
her tears; she anointed them with perfumed oil.
She showed him love in a way that the Pharisee did not. The Pharisee was focused on himself; the
woman was focused on Jesus. Because she
showed such love, says Jesus, her many sins must be forgiven her – otherwise
she would not show such love.
If the first thing to take from this
gospel is Jesus’ prophetic words and actions about sin, there is something else
we must notice. This is how Jesus deals
with sin. He doesn’t yell at people or
get angry with them; he simply loves them.
He shows extravagant love – so extravagant that he died on a cross for
all of us. Here once again we see Jesus
the prophet. Encounter with Jesus frees
people to begin to love in a similarly extravagant way. This is what happened to the woman. There is no doubt that she underwent a
conversion. Her love was the sign of her
repentance. This is what Jesus was
calling the Pharisee to do: to let people love, let them show their very best,
rather than push them into acting in the worst way.
This takes us to the core of Jesus’
message. We are all capable of great
acts of selfishness and misery just as we are all capable of great acts of
love. Jesus, by his love for us, invites
us to renounce what comes from the worst of human nature and to live out of the
goodness that resides in each one of us – that goodness given by God when he
created us.
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