Eleventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
LUKE 7:36-8:3
Two major themes of Luke's gospel and his Acts of Apostles are repentance and forgiveness. Examples: the parable of the prodigal son; the repentance and forgiveness of the criminal crucified with Jesus. This Sunday's gospel is another illustration of these themes. The setting is a dinner at the house of a Pharisee. Jesus is an invited guest. It may surprise some readers that Jesus dines with a Pharisee because popular opinion, even if misguided, understands the word "Pharisee" in a derogatory way. There was no doubt some Pharisees deserve a negative reputation, but that was not true for the Pharisees as a group committed to keeping the laws of Moses (the Torah). Jesus had friends among the Pharisees. A former persecutor of Christians, St. Paul, was a Pharisee and proud of it.
During the dinner a woman with "a reputation” approached Jesus with an alabaster flask of ointment. "Standing behind him at his feet," her tears flowed over his feet. She wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. There may be some difficulty in understanding the position of this woman in respect to Jesus during this process. At a dinner of this kind people did not usually sit at the table as we do. They reclined. The weight of the upper body was held up by an elbow propped on the table. The feet stuck out behind the reclining guest into the room, not under the table. Therefore we do not have to imagine her crawling under the table to get to Jesus’ feet. She had easy access.
Simon, the host of the dinner, mused with himself as he watched the strange scene before him - "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of a woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." With a knowledge beyond the ordinary Jesus knows what Simon is thinking. He challenges him with a parable. Two men owed money to another man. One owed far more than his fellow-debtor. Since neither one could pay, the creditor forgave both debts. Question: "Which of them will love their benefactor more?" Simon answers correctly, "The one to whom more was forgiven."
With this parable and the consequent revelation of Simon's failures Jesus gave his host an opportunity to recognize his own failures and to repent as the woman repented of her failures. The parable is however not concerned with Simon's future but with that of the woman who has publicly repented. Jesus recognizes her sinfulness, " . . . I tell you that her sins, which are many, are forgiven." He turns to the woman with the absolution we all need to hear, "Your sins are forgiven." This statement causes consternation at the table, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" In an earlier episode, Luke 5:18-26, Jesus forgave the sins of a paralytic who was lowered in front of him through the roof. There too his critics attacked, "Who is this that speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God only?" One catechetical lesson from both episodes is this: if Jesus can forgive sins, (and he proved it in the earlier episode by curing the paralytic), then he is God.
Luke adds a postscript about Jesus' preaching and healing throughout cities and villages. He was accompanied by the Twelve and "some women healed of evil spirits and infirmities." Luke does not tell readers what kind of evil spirits nor what the infirmities were. He adds the names of three of the women. "Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons
had gone out." Church Fathers, and especially a celibate monk/pope of the sixth century. concluded without evidence that Mary Magdalene is the repentant "sinner-woman" of the previous story. Magdalene was also combined with Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha, thus formed into a three-headed combo. Luke mentions Joanna, wife of Herod's prime minister - thus high political connections. He adds Susanna, of whom we know nothing, "and many others." Luke points out the crucial ministry of these women disciples. "They "provided for Jesus and Co. out of their means."
2 SAMUEL 12:7-10
This reading is sequel to a story in which the house-prophet of King David (1,000 B.C.) confronts and challenges the king with a parable just as Jesus confronted and challenged his host in today's gospel. David was guilty of adultery, but the cover-up, as usual, was worse. He became guilty of conspiracy to murder and murder. David listens to Nathan's parable about a rich man with many sheep of his own. But he took the one little pet lamb of his neighbor and made it the main course of dinner for a guest. David was furious, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, etc." Nathan intervenes at just the right moment, and says, "You are that man!"
GALATIANS 2:16. 19-21
Paul has established a major foundation of his theology and proclamation. Justification, that is, being made acceptable to God, does not come through doing "the works of the law," but through faith in Jesus Christ. In this reading Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ...." At the end of the letter he writes, "From now on let no man trouble me, because I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Does Paul claim to have the wounds of the crucified Christ, a grace granted to St. Francis of Assisi twelve centuries later?
