June 16 2013
2 Sam 12:7-10, 13; Gal 2:16, 19-21; Luke 7:36-8:3
Once when Frederick the Great, an 18th-century king of Prussia, went on an inspection tour of a Berlin prison, he was greeted with the cries of prisoners, who fell on their knees and protested their unjust imprisonment. While listening to these pleas of innocence, Frederick’s eye was caught by a solitary figure in the corner, a prisoner seemingly unconcerned with all the commotion. “Why are you here?” Frederick asked him. “Armed robbery, Your Majesty.” “Were you guilty?” the king asked. “Oh yes, indeed, Your Majesty. I entirely deserve my punishment.” At that Frederick summoned the jailer. “Release this guilty man at once,” he said. “I will not have him kept in this prison where he will corrupt all the fine innocent people who occupy it.”
Were the prisoners just trying to fool the king into thinking them innocent? Or did they really believe they were innocent? We’ve all read about crooks, cheats, and murderers who protest their innocence when they are caught, with claims like: “He made me kill him”; “I had to do it or lose the money”; “I didn’t do anything illegal.” Obviously King David in today’s first reading did not feel guilty about stealing Uriah’s wife and killing Uriah, until Nathan ended his self-deception and made him see his crime.
Something like this happens to Simon the Pharisee in today’s Gospel story. But first let me provide a little background on Pharisees, who typically get an undeservedly bad rap from the Gospel writers. The Pharisees were a Jewish sect, similar to today’s conservative or orthodox Jews. While the temple religion focused on animal sacrifice, the Pharisees—many of whom lived far away from Jerusalem and the temple—served God by strictly adhering to the laws laid down in scripture. They were generally very good people, and most were kind and generous. But they avoided eating at other people’s houses, because they might inadvertently break the dietary laws. And they avoided contact with sinners, which might pollute them. Their goal was to keep themselves pure and sinless.
The Pharisee Simon in today’s Gospel was intrigued by Jesus and invited him to his house. At dinner parties in those days, people lay down to eat, with their heads toward the table and their feet pointing away. As they lay there, the sinful woman came in—uninvited—and started washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointing them.
I can imagine how Simon felt. I’ve had a prostitute come into my house—not at my invitation—and I did not like it one bit. Simon probably feared that her presence would pollute his house, where his wife and children lived. And Jesus, the supposedly holy man, didn’t seem to worry that this public sinner was touching him and wiping her hair all over his feet!
But of course Jesus is not clueless. He addresses not the woman, but Simon, and asks, If a lender forgives one person a debt of 500 days’ wages and another a debt of 50 days’ wages, which one will love him more? Simon gives the obvious answer: the one with the larger debt. But Jesus now turns this reasoning around: if the woman loves so much that she cleans and anoints his feet, then she must have been forgiven for many sins. Simon, however, has actually neglected the normal gestures of hospitality of the day—greeting his guest with a kiss, directing his servants to wash the dust of the road off the guest’s feet and to anoint his head. Simon hasn’t given Jesus the honor he would probably have given to a richer man or maybe a fellow Pharisee. He has been a poor host, because he thought himself better than his guest. He was judging Jesus, and now Jesus is judging him.
So how is this like the story of King Frederick the Great? The prisoners in that story all hoped to convince the king of their innocence, but of course in his eyes they were all guilty. He was impressed by the man who was honest with him, even though the man confessed to being a robber. He cared more about the man’s honesty than his crimes. In today’s Gospel, Simon the Pharisee hopes to please God by leading a sinless life, but in Jesus’ eyes everybody is a sinner. He is impressed not by a sinless life but by love. In John’s Gospel, Jesus at the Last Supper defines love by the humble service of personally washing his disciples’ feet. That is just what the sinful woman has done at this supper. She passes the test, and Simon does not.
For me, this is good news. I know that I’ll never be sinless. The good news is that God doesn’t demand perfection. God is looking for simple acts of kindness and service to others.