Simon
was an important man, a Pharisee, who gave the best, most lavish dinners in
town. He was always inviting the latest
celebrity, the most au courant, talked-about
personages around. Wasn't it he, Simon
the Pharisee, who’d been the first one in all Palestine to snag last year's Jerusalem Idol for one of his little
. . . parties? And when one of the
Herods—or even one of their little toadies or hangers-on— came to town, wasn't his
one of the first places they checked for a good, dinner party? One where they could see—and be seen by—the creamiest of the crop, just the
right people who could advance their interests just the right amount? Of course it was . . .
And
so when this Jesus fellow came into town, with a huge retinue of men and women
(Simon had heard it even included the wife of one of Herod’s top advisors), he
sent his people to negotiate with Jesus’ people for him to attend. And when they returned, and told him he’d
come, he was overjoyed, for Jesus was the hottest ticket in town: such a
powerful prophet that he could heal a man at 30 paces, or so it was said. It was even whispered that he was the prophet
Elijah reborn, come back from wherever deceased men of God went when they
died. It was such a delicious rumor that
Simon almost forgot that he had planted it himself, to build up his guest and,
by extension, himself.
So
the whole town was whispering about
Jesus, and his appearance at Simon’s party, even those who weren't invited, and
it was rumored that as entertainment, Jesus was going to heal a leper, although
some said he was only going to turn old Judge Hezekiah into a toad. And as the hour grew near, and preparations
reached a fever pitch, Simon the Pharisee was practically rubbing his hands
together in anticipation of all the honor that would accrue because of the
dinner party and its honored guest.
Things started to go wrong from the very
beginning. First of all, Jesus arrived alone, for pity’s sake, when he'd been
explicitly told he could bring a
retinue of—not more than two—personal servants to stand behind him at the table. Again, it was a matter of honor: if his guest had servants, it raised him up in
stature which, in turn, raised up his host, Simon the Pharisee. What was wrong with this guy, anyway? Didn't he pay attention to the social
niceties? Maybe—and this was a foreign
thought to Simon—the man didn't have any slaves.
Next—insult upon insult—the man took a
seat almost at the end of the table, about as far away from from him as he
could. Didn't his people inform Jesus’ people
that he was to be the guest of honor?
And when he invited Jesus up to take his rightful place at the host’s right
hand, the man looked at him and smiled, and said “when you are invited to
supper, don't grab the best place, so that when you are invited up to a higher place, all the more honor will
accrue.” Simon just stared at him,
agape: how dare he give social-climbing
advice to the master?
But the worst was yet to come: it was
about half-way through the meal, and Simon was just beginning to think the
evening could be salvaged, when a woman appeared, out of nowhere, right beside his guest of honor. And it wasn’t just any woman, but that
woman, the sinner, the unclean one, whose misdeed was so heinous that it had
rendered her permanently unclean, permanently a sinner. The whole town knew it, too, knew that she
was an unclean woman, and Simon was just
sure that instead of marveling once
again at his power and popularity, everyone was laughing at him already,
knowing that all his plans had been ruined.
But the woman just appeared there, in the middle of his dinner party . . . how had she
gotten in? Was she a djinn, an evil spirit sent to torment
him? Was she the unquiet ghost of
someone he had wronged . . . Nobody had seen her enter, how or even approach
the table. How had she eluded his retainers
at the door? Maybe she was an apparition, maybe she was visible
only to him. To test the theory, he closed
his eyes: hopefully, she'd be gone when he opened them again.
The woman had lost her spouse a few
years ago, and had no male relative to take her in, no husband’s brother for a
levirate marriage, no father to go back to. So she was thrown onto the street,
begging for a time, then finding an occupation that made her perpetually
unclean. And though Simon the Pharisee’s
comment to Jesus implies that it was prostitution, there were any number of
occupations that could do it. Tanning,
for instance: though it wasn't listed as formally unclean, anybody who worked
in a tannery would be unclean a lot, since
touching any dead body made someone unclean.
At any rate, the woman had heard somehow
that Jesus was coming to dinner at Simon’s—his PR machine was so good that even she had gotten wind of it. And
such was her desperation, such was her loneliness,
that she chose to do the unthinkable: she chose to crash the dinner party of
one of the most powerful men in town. Being unclean made her an outsider, unable
to partake of fellowship—table or otherwise—with members of her community, her
religious family, and she was pariah,
avoided, unclean. How she missed the
quiet, day to day rituals that marked Hebrew life. How she longed for a simple touch, or a smile
of recognition with other women she passed on the street. Instead of the averted eyes, the crossing to
the other side of the street when they realized who she was.
So
it was desperation that drove her to the house of Simon the Pharisee that night
. . . She’d heard that this Jesus was a prophet, mighty in word and deed, that
he could heal lepers, even . . .
Surely, she thought, he could do
something for her. So she waited until
several guests—a judge and a famous dancer—were admitted, and she followed
along, keeping her face averted, as if she were one of their servants. And it worked! The gaze of Simon’s door man slid right over
her, as if she didn't exist, and she probably didn't, to him: she was a woman,
after all . . .
And throughout the evening, as the
prophet was invited to sit at the host’s right hand, as course after course
were brought forth, the woman thought that at any moment someone would
recognize her, someone would cry “Unclean!
Unclean!” And she'd be thrown out
and beaten or worse. But no . . . she
just stood behind the judge, and he thought she was one of Simon’s servants and
they thought she was one of his, if they thought of her at all. And everyone’s eyes kept sliding over and
around her, as if she didn't exist . . .
Finally, after the appetizers had been
served, she slid over so she was behind the guest of honor, and she stood
behind him, at his feet, unbound her hair, and began to wipe his feet with her
hair! And now everyone saw her, and a
gasp went up as the recognized her—unclean, unclean!—and at the intimate way in
which she touched the great teacher.
And Simon the Pharisee heard the gasps
and opened his eyes, and his worst fears were realized: unclean and a woman to boot, she was touching the great man, making him unclean, breaking so many Jewish
taboos that his head spun. And at the
same time he thought “Ha! If he were a prophet he’d have known what kind of
woman this was that was touching him—that she was unclean, a sinner.”
And just as he thought that, Jesus
turned to him as if he’d read his mind, and his eyes bored into him. “Simon,” he said, “I have something to say to you.” And the
Pharisee knew by the formality that it would be a lesson, so he addressed him
formally? “Teacher,” he said, “speak.”
“A man had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of
them will love him more?” And Simon said “The one who was forgiven more,” and
Jesus said “Right,” and looked at the woman “see this woman? You gave me no water for my feet, yet she
bathed them with her tears. You gave me
no kiss of greetings, yet she can’t stop kissing my feet. I tell you: her sins have been forgiven;
hence, she has shown great love. But the
one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
And he said to the woman: “your faith has saved you, go in peace.”
And everyone around the table gasped, as
the woman strode from the room, head held high: “who does this man think he is, anyway? Only God
can forgive sins, through his anointed priests that is . . .” And after that display of effrontery, all
conversation was muted, all the badinage seemed forced, and they hurried
through the meal as fast as they could, furtively glancing from time to time
over at the honored guest.
And Simon the Pharisee’s little soirée
was ruined, and though everyone was talking about it the next day, it was not
in a good way. Everyone kept saying “He
forgave her sins. He forgave her sins!”
Completely missing the whole point of Jesus’ teaching: the woman’s sins
had been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves
little.
A well-known theologian of the last
century—it might have been Rudolph Bultmann—said that Christianity is a
religion of the kitchen help, and he might have been thinking of this passage
when he said it. If you go down the
socio-economic scale, the fervency of—and time spent at—their religion surely
increases. Their worship opportunities
tend to blossom, they spend more time in church, and they reach out more to
their neighbors, too. By contrast,
middle-class congregations—by and large, you understand—tend to spend less
weekly time in worship—most Presbyterians think that one whole hour a week is more
than enough—they tend to throw money at a problem instead of getting out among
the people they are serving, and etc.
The expression of their faith tends to be inward, not visible to their
friends and neighbors, restricted to that hour or two on Sunday morning.
Those who have less—and I’m not talking
just, or even primarily, about money—those
who have less power over their lives , who feel less able to cope, tend to more
grateful and empowered by a faith that gives them dignity, gives them peace (as
Jesus told the woman at the dinner), gives them power over their lives.
Folks who already have some of those things . . . don’t.
When Jesus said “your faith has saved
you; go in peace” our minds go immediately to what happens after you die. We immediately—most of us, anyway—think he’s
talking about what we call in big quotes “salvation.” But I don't think that’s it at all, or at
least not all of it. He makes her clean,
he saves her from the shame, he saves her from the humiliation, he saves her
from powerlessness, from loneliness, from being outside the kingdom of God.
And does he not do that for us as
well? We who’ve rarely missed a meal,
who have transportation and cell phones and HBO, don't we also have shame,
haven't we also felt lonely, haven't we felt outside of the bounds of
respectability, inadequate, even for just a little bit? And hasn't Jesus done the same for each one
of us that he did for the unclean woman?
Hasn't he given each one of us his unconditional love and forgiveness
right here in this planet? I think so. Amen.
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