NewCreation

Homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this, the homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time. This Gospel, which is sometimes referred to by the name "A Sinful Woman is Forgiven," but I think should more probably be called "The Daughter of Zion Comes into the Banquet" — something much richer, as we'll see. This Gospel doesn't come immediately after the last Sunday's Gospel, which was the raising of the widow of Nain. In between there's been a chunk about John the Baptist, but because that's read at a different time of year it's jumped here, and we move on in St Luke's Gospel. I'd also like to say that because it's the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, it's very, very rare indeed that we get this Gospel text read on a Sunday in church, which is a huge pity because it's an absolutely central text to understand so much of St Luke's Gospel and about Jesus in St Luke's Gospel. It's because of the changing dates of Easter — it's very rare that we get the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time either before or after Easter. So I'm leaving this here, even if it's many, many a year before the Sunday appears, because this is such a wonderful text and I think that it's very important to have it as part of the record of going through St Luke's Gospel. So here we have Jesus, and one of the Pharisees asks Jesus to eat with him. So he goes into the Pharisee's house and takes his place at the table. Actually, the verb is "he reclined" — he was invited to go and lie down with him in the house, invited to go and recline, and that's exactly what he does: he goes in and lies down in the home of the Pharisee. So this is a Roman style, with those long couches, people leaning up one end, their feet out behind them the other end, so they're not sitting as around a table as we might with chairs. And at this moment, a woman in the city — it says she was a sinner. It's interesting: it says "a woman in the city." It could have just said "a woman." But every word counts here: "in the city." Well, which city? I suggest to you that it's Zion, whichever city they happen to be in. This is a daughter of Zion, and we will see quite what a daughter of Zion she is. She may indeed be the daughter of Zion from the Song of Songs, and there's much of that in today's passage. So a woman in the city who was a sinner — it doesn't say what sort of sinner she was, and it doesn't need to. Why? Because the only thing that's important about her being a sinner is that she's been forgiven. The only thing we know about her, and which Jesus shares with us if you like, is that the activity we're about to witness is that of someone who has been completely forgiven — the daughter of Zion, if you like, with all the sins of Jerusalem. Remember, the daughter of Zion was also a way of referring to Jerusalem with all the sins of Jerusalem forgiven. We're talking about a person who is prophesied in Isaiah and in Jeremiah as part of the way in which, when the Lord is going to make himself present in their midst, this is how he will be as a teacher. Anyhow, this wonderful woman about whom we as yet know very little, other than that she's a sinner — which we now know means she's been forgiven, because that's what the whole of the story is about. She brought an alabaster jar of ointment, and it says myrrh, and Luke is not interested in telling this story as a story of preparing Jesus for his burial, which we get in a different account. So this is probably nard, rather than anything to do with burial. And guess what: our first reading of the woman — both people assumed that by the word "sinner" was meant prostitute. And of course that goes along very nicely with an alabaster jar of myrrh, because myrrh was considered an aphrodisiac, and it was just the sort of thing that would be used to, let us say, spice up slightly illicit encounters. So she's bringing perhaps one of the most valuable tools of her former profession — or so people might have thought. But this is going to become very interesting very quickly. So she stood behind him at his feet. She doesn't dare to come in front and see him. There are a number of occasions, famously in the Gospel, where people behind Jesus — or women behind Jesus, being very respectful — touch him, and he has to look around and see. But she stands behind him at his feet, weeping. The beloved in the Song of Songs does a good deal of weeping. What's she weeping about? Well, only time will tell. And she begins to bathe his feet with her tears. Now, if you come into the house of a Pharisee — and she appears to have come in uninvited, just turned up. And remember that Jesus has already been criticized by others for eating out with tax collectors and sinners and the kind of people you shouldn't. So here, in the middle of the Pharisee's house, if you like, the worst dream has happened: a notorious sinner has turned up for a meal with Jesus in his own house. So she begins to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Now, this is deeply inappropriate behavior. This is not proper decorum. You would need to be a very free or a very loose woman to have done this on this occasion. And of course the first assumption is that it's a loose woman who is doing something very erotic — really quite striking — and we miss an awful lot out by trying to pretend that this isn't as erotic as it appears to be. The Song of Songs, after all, is very erotic. Let's remember that in the Song of Songs, amongst other gems, we have: "your head crowns you like Carmel and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses." In other words, the beloved knows what she is doing. She's bathing his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet. And this is a word for kissing — I mean, there were quite, you know, ordinary rules for kissing, social rules, customs. You know, you kissed relatives, very close friends, and you kissed as a sign of respect people who were superior to you. That would be as a way of greeting people, rather like we might bow and kiss the Pope's ring or a bishop's ring, though nowadays quite rightly they encourage us not to do that because it's kind of creepy. But that kind of sign of respect would have been absolutely normal. So there were perfectly proper ways of kissing, and this is not it. Kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment — in other words, she is treating his feet for much, much more than could be thought to be to do with washing or anything like that. She's treating them as some sort of holy place. And again, there are two ways of understanding feet. Feet of course have an erotic connotation in many societies, and for various and obvious reasons. But also, to be doing something to someone's feet meant respecting their way — the way that Jesus was walking. This was, if you like, sanctifying his way. And to refer to someone's feet as their way of walking would have been again a standard thing. So there are two readings: there's the erotic — is she just bathing his feet as a prostitute might exercise her profession? Or is she bathing his way, the way that he's been teaching people and which has obviously affected her? So let's not downplay the eroticism here. "When the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself" — and this is not a stupid thing if you're the Pharisee who invited him — "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." In other words, if he had any special sense at all about matters to do with God, he would realize that this is completely inappropriate and that she should be rebuked or sent out or something like that, but certainly not allow this to happen. Well, and then here we have one of the gloriously ironic passages of the Gospel, in which Jesus appears to say one thing and in fact says quite another. Let's imagine that he's not simply rebuking his host; he's actually saying and hinting at something much bigger and better. The key thing here is to do with the word "profit." So, Simon, "I have a word for you. I have something to say to you." And a word means that he could be expected to be saying something a bit official. And Simon replies very properly, "Teacher, speak." Then he tells him the parable: "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed 500 denarii and the other 50. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" 50 denarii would have been several days' hard labor without pay — so quite a long time of hard labor without pay. A poor bondsman could sell himself for several days in order to be able to pay that back. It's just about doable, though extremely unpleasant. Whereas the sort of person who owes 500 denarii — you don't get to be able to pay that back without a major overhaul of your life. So now: which of them will love him more? And again the answer is fairly obvious — the one who's had the greatest, most overwhelming undoing of his life. So Simon answers, "I suppose" — and you know, it's a little bit, "I suppose, if you put me on the spot, the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." In other words, quite right. This was pretty obvious, and certainly this is not a surprising answer. Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?" There was wonderful irony there of course, because it was not clear that he had seen this woman — he had seen what he imagined the woman to be. "Do you see this woman?" And here we are at the question of who is the prophet. "You see, I entered your house and you did not give water for my feet." Now that doesn't mean that the host didn't provide water in bowls for the feet — that would have been absolutely standard. What it means is that the host himself didn't come and wash his feet, which would have been very rare and a sign of extraordinary respect for someone. In other words, he just let the bowls at the entrance stand so people could get the dust off their feet — no special reverence. "You gave no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair." Again, he's hinting at the beloved from the Song of Songs. "You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet." In other words, there was no particular reason why you should give me a kiss — that would have been if I was a relative of yours, or if I was somebody whom you greatly respected; that would have been the sign of recognizing that I was perhaps someone more important than you think. "But she has not stopped kissing my feet from the time I came in." In other words, she picked up who I was far earlier than… You did not anoint my head with oil. And that's basically a quote from Psalm 23, but in the negative: "My head thou hast anointed with oil in the face of all my enemies." Talking about the banquet — you have not anointed, you did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. In my way, she has seen who I really am and what I am about. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven — understanding: must have already been forgiven. And that apparently is the sense in the Aramaic behind this. There's no real grammatical doubt here. Must have already been forgiven, hence she has shown such great love. In other words, the picture you have of her is of a sinner, but in fact she has become a prophet. And you were wondering whether I was a prophet. No, she's become a prophet because she's seen who is in our midst. "But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little." And here this extraordinary use of the word love. And it's fairly rare — it's fairly rare in the Hebrew text — the word that in the Greek is translated by agapē. We're so used to discussions of eros and agapē that we don't often notice actually how rare the word agapē is used in Scripture, but here it is used abundantly. Here the point is being made that in the fulfillment of Scriptures it's God's love that is very present in her life. She's showing it out. She's living it out. And this is a fulfillment of the prophecy that comes at the very end of the book of Zephaniah, one of the last books in the Hebrew Scriptures. "Sing aloud, O daughter Zion, shout, O Israel, rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, do not fear, O Zion, do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory. He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love" — in other words, he will make in you the love that is love. So here we have Jesus effectively talking about this one in this extraordinarily rich way, indicating that yes, she has been fulfilling love; she is the daughter of Zion getting it exactly right. Something that the host could not notice. So those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" And they've missed the point completely. Jesus isn't actually forgiving her sin; he's pointing out that her sin must have already been forgiven. Hence her being able to act with all this freedom, such that what looked to them like Eros was in fact Agape, showing that her previous profession, as it were, did teach her valuable tools that were actually positively worth it in helping her adore and worship and be more than in her love. In other words, it's not a putting down. She's been taken to an even bigger place. So he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." And of course that's the central point, because she had perceived who she was, who he was, and had acted accordingly. And she probably had that just with a hint of a sense that this was the one who could do everything for her, because she had that. Her faith had saved her, and she could go in peace. Just in case we don't take this seriously enough, let's remember that this is one of the most repeated passages that comes in all four Gospels, though in different places. It was clearly of enormous importance at the time, an importance we tend to forget, because we downplay the place of women in the Gospel. But the next passage in the Gospel, just the last three verses, is all about how when Jesus moves on, he's accompanied by women. And it's women who provide the means for his ministry to continue. It is women, the daughters of Zion, who are helping to usher in the arrival in the midst of the bridegroom of Israel.