PENTECOST 3C (PROPER 11) – JUNE 17, 2007
1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a; Ps 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21: Luke 7:36-8:3
What is this woman up to? What does she think she is doing? Here she is flagrantly acting as though she is in some kind of relationship with this teacher of God! Worse than this, she is acting as though she is perfectly free to be here – as though God has not put up a barrier between her and the others. Better she should know what kind of a burden she bears as a sinner and behave accordingly. What would this world be like if all of the sinners started acting as though they had a perfectly intimate relationship with God, instead of suffering under the guilt and consequences of their sins? Would it be a complete breakdown of law and order – perhaps of society itself? Or would it look like something else?
One of the prizes I received in my early years in the Church as a consumer of the Sunday School tradition was an illustrated copy of John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”. I can still see clearly in my mind’s eye the illustration of the hero of the piece named, Christian. He looked rather like the little woman with the hunch back who used to sit close by to us in the church, except that he had a young looking face and body. But on his back there was this rounded burden that seemed to grow right out of his waistcoat. There were no strings or ropes holding it on. It seemed that it was attached more by some kind of tendons. It was so heavy a burden that it bent him over. And he could not remove it. Nor could anyone help him with it. It seemed that it was something that he must carry through all kinds of places and circumstances. I looked at that picture of Christian for hours with the fascination a child has of the misshapen and disabled that don’t seem to be a part of their ordinary world, yet all the while looking familiar and identifiable. Once I was old enough to begin to make sense of some of the antiquated language of the text, I learned that this growth on Christian’s back was the judgement that he was convinced was in store for him and for his neighbours. It was, in fact, the knowledge his sin and its consequences that had precipitated the growth. Now he was on a quest to be rid of this grotesque burden.
This woman from the city that appeared in the Pharisee’s house interrupting dinner was clearly identifiable as a sinner. We have that made clear for us. What does that mean? It means that for one reason or another, this woman’s behaviour had put her outside of the code of righteous action and life that defined a right relationship with God – although in this religious context it is a pretty safe bet that it was some kind of sexual “misconduct”. Of course, in her time, the very fact that she was a woman made her the potential tool for the wiles of the Tempter. It was likely that this woman was clear about her status too. She would know where she did and didn’t belong. Certainly her culture milieu knew. It would be absolutely irrefutable to the Pharisee host, that this woman had no place here in his house accosting his guest and defiling what up until her appearance was a decent, clean event. She had no right to be upsetting the atmosphere of decent, law-abiding people. The pollution of everything around her is made evident in Simon, the Pharisee’s muttered remarks: “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.” Jesus’ reputation is undermined by association. Simon, and later the rest of the guests, can’t believe what they are seeing and hearing. Jesus can’t just go around changing the rules of established order, forgiving sins! Simon and his guests were “God-fearing” men who believed in the Law. Jesus was asking them to believe in God instead. It was too much!
What is the power of human systems? Why do we believe in them so much? What investment do we have in keeping the burden firmly attached to Christian’s back? Is it perhaps our attempt to justify our own sinfulness? We find it so difficult to be compassionate and welcoming of the other that it does our hearts good to look at her and see that she is a sinner. That way we are justified in keeping her out of our lives. We are absolved. She is not worthy of our approach. And what about the burden on our own backs? What good does it do to keep it there? Perhaps it is the perfect guarantee of the wedge between us and God. As long as we know that we are not worthy of approach, then we can stay out of the relationship. Nothing needs to happen. Is it all about change? If this sinner becomes part of my family of sisters and brothers then so much is called out in responsiveness: life will change. Patterns of hostility and superiority will fall apart. If I am no longer separated by my sin from God then I have to face up to my relationship to God and all that God brings me to. It means my life and my actions change their focus. I will be changed. My life will be changed.
We have much invested in the sinfulness of humanity and keeping it there.
It is quite possible that Jesus had been trained and nurtured in the Pharisaic school. He knew and respected the Law of Moses. But what was the purpose of the Law? What he observed all around him was that the Law had become the means of exclusion and a tool for power brokers. It was the measure to keep some people from God and to deny them God’s blessing, while claiming it abundantly for others. The foundational story of the Law was that it was a gift from God bringing the people into relationship with God. God’s purpose was to welcome the people into the journey towards the Promised Land and to keep them on the path, not to find ways to weed them out. In Jesus’ response to Simon we see that Jesus above all held sacred the relationship between God and individuals. This relationship, not obedience to an external Law, kept the children of God on the journey. This woman, so wounded and vulnerable, needed to find her intimacy with God. That is where healing and salvation lay. “Do you see this woman?” Jesus asks Simon. And of course he did not see her. He saw a sinner. “This woman believes in God – just look at the gratitude that is flowing out of her.” And he said to the woman (while acknowledging that her sins are many): “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” The Pharisees at this meal are mistaken in thinking that Jesus is doing the forgiving here. Jesus merely affirms the relationship that this woman knows she has with her God. This makes her worthy of her life and worthy of respect from the rest of us limping along so imperfectly in our own. The burden that Simon and the rest would keep in place falls away. The world can change.
Pilgrim Christian keeps on his journey, looking for relief and wisdom from everyone he meets, to rid himself of the hideous burden. In John Bunyan’s allegory, it is in the moment that Christian stands at the foot of the Cross that the burden falls away. Here in this ultimate instrument of the Law – the punishment for disobedience to the religious and temporal authorities who were convinced that Jesus was the Sinner – here is the sign of the relationship that supercedes everything. The Cross that Christian stands before is empty of its victim. Christ is risen. The burdens that we have invested so much in keeping in place are undone. A new world is possible, where sinners like you and me walk with God towards a new life beyond the injustice and the wounds of the past and into the freedom and peace of lives that are whole.
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