Giving is Forgiving
Last week we suggested that all readings are about "giving" - and particularly the giving of God - therefore no special readings have to be chosen for a series of semons about giving.
The above readings refer to what God gave David. Nathan lists all that God had given David an then says "And if all of this had been too little, I would have given you even more." In spite of all that he had been given David had taken what was not his - the wife of Uriah.
Yet, even then Nathan declares to David: "The Lord has taken away your sin", though he makes it clear that David has to continue to live with the consequnces.
Paul, writing to the Galatians, points out that nobody can be jusified by observing the law. Justification itself is a gift. "The Son of God loved me and gave himself or me".
The gospel reading describes the gift of the woman "who had lived a sinful life" who brought an alabaster jar of perfume. She wet Jesus' feet with her tears, kissed them and poured perfume over them". The host was extremely critical of Jesus for allowig the woman near him. Responding to this croiticism Jesus told a parable pointing out that the love the woman had for Jesus was because she knew just how sinful her life was and the depth of her forgiveness. On the other hand, the one who "has been forgiven litte loves little"
The gospel reading finishes be referring to the women who travelled with Jesus and the other disciples who "were helping to support them out of their own means." | Forgiveness has the word "GIVE" within it. Giving involves forgiveness. We are used to thinking about our forgiveness by God as a GIFT. But what aout our gifts to on another.
Sometimes we give to one another expecting something in return. We talk about "returning a favour", "I owe you one", and there is a sense we can become bound to the giver, as we become involved in what pehaps should be called an EXCHANGE.
The best gifts are those that come out of the blue - when we say something like "what have I done to deserve that?" Giving and Forgiveness It is easy to see what the woman gives to Jesus. But Jesus gives to the woman. He gives to the woman forgiveness. He gives to the woman the opportunity to be a "giver" - the host of the dinner didn't want her to be agiver. He wanted her hands to be bound by her reputation. The Aramaic word for "forgive" also means "untie" with its connotations of release and liberation. I wonder what she had done to have been known to have led a sinful life - to have got such a bad reputation. OK - we're all sinners, but not many of us sin remarkable enough to be known for it in our neighbourhoods. Who, in our village is known for their sin? What have they done? Can we see them in the place of the woman in the gospel story? Did this woman join the others following Jesus from town to town? What motivated these women to follow Jesus and support "them out of heir own means"? Perhaps the motivation is implicit in the reference to their having been "cured of evil spirits and diseases". |
Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee by Peter Paul Rubens HERMITAGE, ST PETERSBURG There were two sinners before Jesus that day: the woman who had experienced forgiveness and was expressing it and Simon, who wouldn't admit his need for forgiveness, nor recognize Jesus as the way to be forgiven. How did woman ever get into the house? There was a custom prevalent in the Palestinian and Roman world of Jesus' time. As invited guests were arriving to a wealthy or prominent person's house, if someone who was poor, starving, a leper, prostitute, homeless, or anyone in need, could slip in with the guests, the host was obliged to feed them--- though not at the main table. Frost calls these people "shadow people." Perhaps the woman got into the Pharisee's house because she was a "shadow person," ---she shadowed the invited guests thro ugh the door. Frost goes further noting how many times Jesus is at various people's homes, sometimes invited, as in today's account; but sometimes there is no indication whether or not he was invited. Perhaps in some of those gospel stories where Jesus is at a dinner he showed up uninvited, a "shadow person." When Simon doesn't honor Jesus with the usual ablutions and anointings he is treating him as one would treat a "shadow person," an outcast.
Who are the shadow people round the table in our lives? Are we them? Wha can we give them/be given by them? |
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