Luke 7:36 - 8:3
Proper 6 (11) - Year C
"She is a sinner!", comes the complaint as though she were somehow or other not one of us.
The image of a contorted woman — standing behind and yet twisting around the one in front to cry on their feet — is nothing like the contortions necessary to dismiss another for not being a one-to-one correspondence of myself.
Into this contorted scene Jesus brings a question. This question is not to further confuse things, but to straighten out that which is so twisted upon itself that life is denied. Of course the question depended upon the responder having projected themselves into the outline of the story. If they had a large debt cancelled they would be more grateful than if a smaller debt had been taken from them. Having identified themselves with money, they could respond in no other way. There wasn't time for them to note that having a great resources they could handle paying a large debt and so being forgiven or not is a relatively little thing. They couldn't imagine that they were so poor that a large debt was unimaginable and so the forgiveness of their smallest debt would be a big deal.
In falling into the trap of projection the judgers found the screen of themselves turned into a mirror. Bottom line became, "She is forgiven!" And disciples who happened to be female increased in number. And so it has ever been — judged and exiled sinners turn out to be included and forgiven disciples who will support and travel to invite other transformations.
Settled faith needs projection and passive aggression to cover and deny any growing edge that would reveal we are still on a journey.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/06/pentecost-4-year-c-luke-736-83-she-is.html
Where and when does forgiveness take place?
Did Jesus have a previous encounter with the woman that had been curative for her? Had her sense of gratitude happened outside a direct encounter with Jesus and she heard of this meeting of Jesus with the Pharisees who, word had it on the street, were plotting against him and she knew of being plotted against and went in solidarity? Was forgiveness tied to the prior actions of washing and anointing and kissing and only after giving Jesus these honors did she receive forgiveness? Was this whole forgiveness scene a set up to be able to further draw a distinction between Jesus' way of dealing with the Law and the Pharisees/Sadducees way of dealing with the Law?
As we think about forgiveness and healing, it will be important to tie them to our time, energy, resources, and relationships. Does your sense of forgiveness energize you on behalf of a movement of forgiveness first (preemptive forgiveness) to put your own body in the space of the legalists who will get you or to provide such a movement with your resources, both cash-flow and accumulated?
Where does your forgiveness intersect with your faith? Where does your forgiveness intersect with your flesh?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
ON A JOURNEY: Meditations on God in daily life
By Tom Ehrich
- - -
I ask the bank teller for my current balance. Her number seems different from mine.
The bank's mistake, my mistake – I won't know until I explore the facts. An hour later, after digging through records, I discover that the bank's number is accurate.
I could have fussed, blamed the teller, questioned their systems, or blamed and questioned my own. But to what end? The point is truth, not blame. I can't pay bills with blame.
The Christian movement, it seems to me, finds itself fussing and blaming. Each subgroup offers what it purports to be "truth." Few combatants go deep enough to discover God's truth.
Maybe it has always been this way. Even during his lifetime, the followers of Jesus were fussing and blaming. The institution they launched was grounded in disputes. The critical decisions of those formative years were shaped by shallow exploration, a desire to stifle opposition as "heresy," and a search for uniformity.
We now fight over their shallow exploration and lost uniformity. Like our ancestors in the faith, we dig shallow holes and present our opinions as facts, our preferences as truth, and our desires as God's will.
Nothing new in that, I suppose, and nothing unusually dire. Thanks to faith's current status as a cultural option, not a requirement, we aren't likely to slaughter our opponents in the Name of God, as French theocrats did in 1562, launching a 35-year reign of religious terror. But the tenor of our debates – icy logic, relentless judging, serene citing of ultimate authority – suggests that it wouldn't take much to unsheathe our swords.
We have the answer before us. We just don't want to see it.
A Pharisee watched a sinful woman anoint Jesus with ointment and her tears. More horrifying, he watched Jesus accept her touch. If he knew the truth about this woman, the Pharisee thought, Jesus would behave differently – more like the Pharisee, perhaps.
Jesus did know the truth about the woman. He had no illusions about her moral stature. But he wasn't deterred. If anything, her sin drew him closer and made her humility more compelling. Her touch became holy.
Her truth, you see, wasn't her sinfulness, but her faith. Her faith wasn't measured by obedience to religious codes, but by the depth of her submission and gratitude. Her depth, in turn, wasn't something that the Pharisee had to recognize and certify, but was between her and God.
Those dynamics can be profoundly unsettling to us. They put religious codes to the side. They affirm a person's direct relationship with God, without the institution as intermediary. They mean that the Pharisee has no business judging her or questioning Jesus, because he cannot possibly know what is passing between them.
The Pharisee won't want to be a bystander. No religious authority wants to think himself irrelevant to God's salvation drama. But bystander he is.
This, I think, is the answer we don't want to see. God doesn't require our affirmation. God doesn't wait for our nod. God does what God wants to do. If that means doing one thing today and another tomorrow, so be it. If God wants to love sinners, so be it. If God wants to step beyond the boundaries of Scripture, so be it. If God wants to allow diversity, even in those areas we consider critical, so be it. If God has other pathways, so be it. If God considers the tears of a fallen woman to be holy, so be it. If God loves the haughty Pharisee, so be it.
Rather than debate our edicts and judgments, we need to let God be God. We need to seek God's truth, even if it differs from our own.
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"On a Journey" meditations are e-mailed seven days a week to interested readers. Subscribe at www.onajourney.org.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
The called and the cured, the twelve and the women, are important components to the "good news of the kingdom of God." They bring together and balance the insight and the experience needed to apply their resources compassionately and deliberately to life.
The called can sometimes get so caught up in their position of undeniable authority applied to every event. The cured can sometimes get so caught up in their extending one transforming moment into all moments. Together they can support and correct one another as they move on to witness to "good news" without the physical presence of Jesus.
It would serve us well to consider which side of this polarity we find ourselves first affirming. Where does our personality and encounters with life put us? First called? First cured?
Knowing that, Lady Wisdom, Holy Spirit, can open us to better connect with our identical, but quite real in its own right, twin -- the cured or the called.
We need these ancestors of our faith to witness to the mutuality of ministry between them lest those with authority have too much to say and those with experience have too little to report.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
Stories are never meant to carry the whole freight of a lesson. Who would be loaned 500 coins if they were not expected to be able to pay it back in full. Likewise with 50. The more one has to pay back with, the higher the loan possibility (in theory).
To be forgiven 500 coins worth to one person may be the equivalent of being forgiven 50 coins worth to another.
Simon might be said to have judged rightly in absolute terms, but in relative terms he might also be said to have judged less than rightly - without relationship, mercy, or compassion. Is forgiveness forgiveness or is it caught in the same economic thinking as we apply to everything else in our culture?
What would it have taken from Simon for Jesus to commend him for judging mercifully instead of rightly? And from you?
- - -
greater forgiveness
equals greater faith
so we set up equations
for the living of life
we love to measure
we measure love
according to one standard
and then another
does this act mean I'm loved
more than ever before
or is it now all over
rapturous catastrophe
when we can back away
we see a weeping woman
and all this right thinking
equates to nothing
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
A Rewrite:
"One of the Bible-Law Believers asked Jesus to confirm his way, to come and eat at his table, and Jesus went into the Bible-Law Believer's house and took a place at the table of the Heart of the Law.
And a woman in the city, identified by Biblical Law as a law breaker, having learned that Jesus was moving from acts of compassion to association with those who enforce penalties upon those deemed breakers of Biblical Law, brought a gift from one considered dead. From behind a reclining Jesus, in anticipation of Jesus later following her lead, she bathed his feet with tears and wiped them with her hair; she kissed his feet and anointed them with her whole being.
When the Bible-Law Believer saw this, he muttered to himself, "If this Jesus were a real prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him - a Bible-Law breaker making him unclean by association.
Jesus spoke, "Bible-Law Believer Simon, I have a Testimony for you."
"I'm listening," said Simon.
"A certain creditor had two clients who owed him money; one owing ten times more than the other. When neither could pay the creditor canceled the debts for both of them. Now, which will be more thankful?"
Simon responded, "I suppose the one who owed the most."
"Yes." said Jesus, "That's a Bible-Law response and there are other responses also available."
Turning toward the woman, Jesus continued speaking to Simon, "There has been a dearth of welcome in your Biblical Law way of living. You were interested in my appearing with you but you did not refresh my traveling feet, greet me with a kiss of welcome, or cool my heated head. This woman you claim is a Biblical Law breaker came to welcome me from head to toe with welcoming actions including weeping over my dirty feet and soothing my weary head."
"Therefore," Bible-Law Believer Simon, I see she has forgiven you who sinned against her through your judgment of her and she has covered your lack of welcome. She has shown an expansiveness of love that I will teach to my disciples. I am glad to confirm what she already knows - she is forgiven even before I announce it."
The other Bible-Law Believers, witnessing this event, began to inquire of one another, "Who is this Jesus who forgives those we have judged as a Bible-Law Breaker."
Jesus, turning to the woman, simply said, "Your continued compassion and integrity of identity as a Daughter of G*D is not only your source of wholeness, but a saving act for those who judged against you. Let us go forth with this peace of passing compassion to self and others."
Soon afterwards Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the Presence of G*D, "All are welcome."
Jesus, the twelve who were with him, as well as additional women with identified integrity of spirit: Mary, called Magdalene, Joanna, the anonymous wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and so many others, went on to raise many more from death in life to life itself through acts of loving-kindness - welcome for all, more grace for those outside Biblical Law, and preemptive forgiveness of self, one another, and others.
This story of a woman of integrity has come down to us through the generations and the promise is that it will continue to echo as we extend her witness in our time.