So, a Pharisee invites Jesus to supper, and I can almost hear the boos and hisses now . . . Pharisees are the fall-guys for an awful lot of stories in the New Testament, stories that pit them against Jesus, who invariably comes out on top. Because of this, many of us have been conditioned to think very poorly of them, and some of us—no one here, I’m sure—some of us hold Christians up as the opposite of Pharisees, and even get a little self-righteous about it, as in “Thank God we’re not like the Pharisees, who thought one could workone’s way to heaven . . . all they thought about were rules, rules, rules, gotta follow to the rules. Thank God that we’re not saved by rules, but by the grace of God in Jesus Christ!”
But those who demonize Pharisees—again, I’m surenobody here!—those who demonize Pharisees probably don’t really realize who they were . . . they were super-Jews, the most devout of the Jews, the Jews that everybody wanted to be like. Remember Aunt Tilly, about whom you marveled, saying “I wish Ihad as much faith as Aunt Tilly?” That was what the Pharisees were like. Further, it wasn’t that they were stuck on following the rulesso much as they were worried about purity,that is, whether you were clean or not, whether you were in or whether you were out.
That’s the problem with the woman in this passage: she is hamartalos, which commonly is translated as sinner,as in somebody who sins, somebody who does something bad. Actually, the word hamartalos is a technical term for one who is ritually unclean, and therefore unwelcome in the practice of Judaism, unwelcome in the synagogues and in the temple. She has done something that has made her that way, or done failed to do something, but Luke doesn’t tell us what it was. Over the years since, leering biblical scholars and churchmen have assumed that she was a prostitute, but there is not a shred of evidence in or out of the text that this was true . . . funny how we jump to that conclusion, isn’t it? Especially when it’s a woman . . .
So we think we know who this woman is, this hamartalos,but it’s important to consider that this is the same word used for Peter just a couple of chapters back, when Jesus calls him into service as a disciple . . . remember? Luke says that “ . . . when Simon Peter saw [the large catch of fish], he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinner,’” I am hamartalos. Luke doesn’t tell us what Peter has done to become unclean any more than he tells us what the woman at the dinner party has done. Peter goes on to be the model disciple, both in terms of virtues and frailties, and is the hamartalos-woman at the Pharisee’s dinner party anothersuch model, another such signof God’s amazing love and regard for the peopleof God?
But the Pharisee doesn’t see any of this, he doesn’t see the woman as who she really is. Oh, to him she’s an sign, all right, but it isn’t of God’s love . . . to him she’s unclean, outside the pale, and thus, in a way, invisible. And it was verboten to associate with an unclean person, with hamartalos, much less touch one, as Jesus was doing. If you touched something or someone that was unclean, that unclean-ness was passed on to you, and you would have to purify yourself before you were fit to associate with decentpeople, AKA good, ritually clean Jews. And here Jesus was, allowing this, this . . .sinnerto touch him, and did the man have no shame? Did he set outto flout his host’s hospitality? He’d invited Jesus—which he didn’t have to, you know, he was not exactly on the Pharisitic A-list—and what does he do? He throws it back in his face, embarrassing him and causing all manner of discomfort to his guests.
And the unwanted visitor isn’t just hamartalos,she’s a woman. And she was brazenly touching the teacher, rubbing her hair all over him, anointing his feetwith oil that it would’ve set the Pharisee back a year’s wages to afford. Women didn’t get that familiar with males they didn’t know, or who didn’t know her,which he most certainly did not,cause if he did, he would knowshe was unclean, and he surelywouldn’t have let her touch him like that . . . and this guy is supposed to be a prophet? Hah!
Just as the Pharisee is thinking this, Jesus shows he knows what he’s thinking, anyway: “Hey Simon,” he says, “I have something to say to you” and he tells him a short parable about two debtors, one who owed a moderate amount, and one that owed ten times that, but neither could pay the debt, so their creditor forgave the debt, and which one does Simon think will love him more? That’s easy, thinks the Pharisee, and he says “I suppose the one for whom the greatest debt was forgiven.” And Jesus says “you have judged correctly,” and then lays into him for his measly hospitality.
And do we detect a note of irony here, a note of disapproval of a guy who knows the value of a transaction—the one who has more debt cancelled “pays back” the creditor with more love in return—but doesn’t know about true hospitality and regard? It reminds me of the old definition of a cynic as a person who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing . . . is this a reflection of Jesus’ summation of the entire law with “Love thy neighbor as thyself?”
This short parable bears closer examination . . . our translation has it that the creditor cancelledthe debts of the debtors. But the Greek verb hecharisato carries more weight than mere cancelling . . . it carries the connotation of generosity and great good will on the part of the one doing the cancelling. And in fact, the cancelling of debts just because somebody couldn’t pay was every bit as rare in those days as it is today, perhaps even more so. And finally, a noun derived from hecharisato—charis—is frequently translated in the New Testament as grace. So, while the parable seems to explain the slavish devotion of the woman—she is forgiven a lot—it’s the fact that she is forgiven at all that is the real point.
The woman’s slavish love is not only a sign of God’slove, but it’s a sign of hergreat faith and willingness to serve Christ. And notice that she serves him, she washes his feet and dries them with her hair, beforeJesus declares her forgiven. Perhaps she has heard about divine pardon—after all, she comes prepared with the oil in its expensive alabaster jar—or perhaps not, but is truly her faith, her trust, and her willingness to serve Christ without strings attached, that saves her.
And the Pharisee? Well the Pharisee is certainly not a sign of God’s love . . . he doesn’t even do the minimum in the way of hospitality that is required by ancient middle eastern customs. “You gave me no water for my feet,” Jesus says, “but she has bathed my feet with her tears . . . You gave me no kiss, but . . . she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head . . . but she has anointed my feet . . .” The Pharisee, presented with the same evidence as the hamartalos-woman, having heard perhaps the same words about the work of Jesus the Christ, finds the grace offensive and takes the woman’s presence as a scandalous imposition.
Now, it would be easy to compare and contrast on the basis that of biological sex, and I think there’s some room for that—after all, there are often a lot more women in church than men—but it’s father’sday, so I won’t do that, and really, this is a story about two sinners, two hamartalos—one who realizes she is one, and one who doesn’t. The unexpected guest knows full well what she is, that she has fallen short before God, and because of that, she is enormously grateful. The Pharisee, on the other hand, doesn’t even know he needs forgiving, that his debts need cancelling: if he has been forgiven, he doesn’t know it, and really: how can you live into that forgiveness, how can you live a life of joy, live a life of wonder and service, if you do not know you are free?
The Benedictines celebrate Compline, or night prayer, just before they go to bed . . . it’s the only one of seven daily hours that monastics can celebrate on their own if they choose. It’s the most personal hour, where they are directed to examine their conscious to see where they have fallen short of God’s plan and will for them. And that’s what our confession of sins is for as well . . . so that we can acknowledge—to ourselves as well as to God—that we have fallen short, that we are indeed, as the old hymn goes, standin’ in the need of prayer.
But the Benedictines do something else at Compline: they say the Song of Simeon. “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all the people.” They acknowledge that they haveseen God’s salvation during the previous day, that they have seen that they are forgiven, and that because of that, they can go to their rest in peace, in knowing that by the grace of God, they are free from the bondage of sin.
Sisters and brothers, when Christ said to the woman “Your sins are forgiven,” it was assurance to her—and a lesson to the Pharisee—that God had forgiven her sins . . . it is and was God who forgives sins, and the same thing is going on when the liturgist declares our sins are forgiven. And what is our response? Is it joy, is it celebration, is it grateful service to Christ? We have been redeemed, we have been set free, let us be glad of it and rejoice. Amen.
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