Luke 7:36-8:3  is the third action by Jesus in the seventh chapter of Luke that embodies the salvation Jesus is bringing to humanity through his commitment to the “outsider” of both Israel and of Rome.

The story of a woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears is unique to Luke, capturing his emphasis that the gospel is for the rejected and marginalized of society.  She is both a woman and a “sinner” (i.e., likely, a prostitute), so that she is doubly marginalized (vss. 37, 39).

Jesus is having dinner at the home of one Simon, a Pharisee.  This woman breaks into the dinner party, kneels before Jesus, and begins washing his feet with her tears.  Simon is scandalized, saying to those around him, “If this man were truly a prophet, he would know what sort of woman this is who is touching him”.  Jesus, knowing Simon’s thoughts, tells Simon a parable about the greater thankfulness a person would feel who had been forgiven much versus one forgiven only a little.  He then says to Simon,

“Do you see this woman?  I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.  You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.  Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.  But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little” (vss. 44b-47).

Jesus then forgives the woman her sins.  And Simon and the other Pharisees are scandalized at this apparent breach of the Law.  Their offense bothers Jesus not at all.  Rather, the story ends with Jesus’ words, “You faith has saved you; go in peace” (v. 50b).

The richness of this story is not apparent unless one realizes the significant slights Simon (as the host) had intentionally done toward Jesus at this dinner.  The Jewish Law required the performance of certain “entrance” rituals, welcoming an honored guest into your home for a meal or a sojourn.  You were first to provide water so the guest could wash the dust from his or her feet that was accumulated by walking the dirt roads to your house (Gen. 18:4).  Second, you were to give your guest a welcoming kiss signaling your bestowal of “shalom” upon him (Gen. 29:11).  Finally, you were to anoint the visitor’s head with oil (Ps. 23:5; 45:7; 92:10; Eccl. 9:8).  Jesus had been accorded none of these civilities, thus signaling that he was no guest but one who was there to be measured and criticized.

But the woman provided these symbols of welcoming, and did so far beyond expectation.  She washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, kissed his feet repeatedly, and anointed his feet with ointment from an alabaster jar (thus indicating the ointment as being of great price).  Jesus is welcomed by her generosity and love, but also by her repentance and her desperate need to be forgiven.  Therefore, despite the shock of his host, Jesus forgives her. 

Further, the treatment that Jesus received before the woman entered the room indicated to him the nature of this meal.  He was to be no guest (although he would be served food and they would all eat together), but rather he was to be on trial.  Given Simon’s status in Jewish society (a Pharisee) and the nature of the venue, Jesus would have known before he arrived at the meal that this meal was occurring in order to attack, embarrass and perhaps even undermine him.  Yet it is significant to note that Jesus does not shun this confrontation.  Rather, he welcomes it.  This is evident in the way he confronts Simon at Simon’s reaction to the “invasion” of this party by this woman.  Jesus takes charge of the questioning, so that it is Simon who is put on the defensive and Jesus who is the inquisitor.  Jesus did not shy from a fight!  

Finally, Luke has written this story so that it is open-ended at both the beginning and at its end.  At the beginning, we have no idea whether this woman previously knew Jesus or whether Jesus had dealt with her in the past.  Rather, she simply appears and begins her ministrations.  At the end, we have no idea how Simon the Pharisee responds to Jesus’ words.  We do not know whether he is convicted by Jesus’ words and actions and thus receives this woman, or whether he rejects both Jesus and the woman.  For the point of this story is not Simon’s response, but the woman’s response.  The message of Luke is that Jesus forgives the marginalized, the unwanted and rejected.  And he holds the rich and powerful accountable for their uncaring response to the woman and their rejection of him.

The Gospel Lesson for the 11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time then ends with a summary statement.  But what a summary statement it is.  “Soon afterwards Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.  The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Suzanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources” (8:1-3).      

Galatians 2:15-21.  As we reflected together in last Sunday’s Epistle Lesson, the primary focus of the book of Galatians was Paul’s argument that it was God’s act of mercy through Christ that saves people, not obedience to the Law.  Paul began the construction of that argument, not by an examination of scripture nor in theological debate, but by sharing his own story of how he was saved out of Jewish obedience to the Law and into faith in Christ.  That personal testimony is contained in Galatians 1:11 through 2:14.  But now, in today’s Epistle Lesson, Paul moves into theological reflection and debate on this issue.

Paul asks, “How has God acted to redeem us and to draw us into a transforming relationship with Him?”  Jews and some Christian Jews will argue that we are drawn into a saving relationship with God through our careful obedience to the Law of Moses.  But think what you have asserted if you contend that it is our obedience of the Law that will save us.  Paul points out, “No one will be justified by the works of the law.  If, in our efforts to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?” (2:16b-17) 

Paul is presenting a carefully honed argument here.  You contend, he argues, that it is through obedience to the Law that you are made right with God (“justified”).  But the fact is, and any sensible person will recognize, that no one will be totally obedient to the Law.  The reality is that every one of us sin, and in that sinning, disobey the Law.  Therefore, ipso facto, no one can be saved, for one disobedience of the Law makes salvation as invalid as if one chronically disobeyed the Law.  And therefore that means that if we perceive salvation as earned by our obedience of the Law, that makes Christ complicit (“a servant of sin”) in God’s rejection of us because we disobeyed one particular of the Law.

There has to be a better way.  And there is – the way that was created by God through Jesus’ death and resurrection upon the cross.  “We know that a person is justified not by the works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ.  And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law” (2:16).  A person is made right with God not by his or her good deeds or obedience to the Law, but by God.  It is God who makes us right with God’s self, not we who do it for God (as if God didn’t have the capacity to save us).  Christ has already died, already risen, and is already promised to come again.  How we respond to what Christ has already done, doesn’t in any way change what it is that Christ has done for us and for the whole world.  It is already done.  Salvation for humanity has already been provided.  The only question is whether we can accept what Christ has already done for us, and embrace the God who has already embraced us. 

Thus, our embrace of what God has already done for us through Christ is an act of faith on our part, in which we simply accept God’s act that already chose us.  That is why, Paul argues, I state that we are saved through God’s grace that we appropriate through simply believing and accepting it (faith), and not by our acts of being good or of obeying the minutiae of the Mosaic Law.

Paul then concludes this magnificent but logically confusing passage with a great testimony of faith.  “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (2:19b-21).

The essence of Christianity is that it is a relational faith, not a legalistic faith, Paul here declares.  To perceive salvation as being dependent upon the obedience to a law or doing good deeds reduces our religion to the obedience of rules and regulations.  It perceives salvation as being \achieved by obeying such rules.  But Christianity is not legalism.  It is a relationship – a dynamic, vital and loving relationship between God, Christ and all of us.  And an authentic deep relationship is not built upon the obedience to regulations; it is built on trust, on faith in each other.  If you don’t have loving trust in each other, you don’t have a relationship on which you can depend! 

Our salvation comes about through our relationship with God that comes through God’s love for us exhibited through the cross.  When we respond to the embrace of God’s love through Christ, then we give ourselves in love over to him so that we become “flesh of each other’s flesh and bone of each other’s bone”.  It is as if we are absorbed into Christ, so that in our very existence, we become Christ to the world.  We become a living union with God, so that we become, in our actions and in our life together, an extension of Jesus alive in the world today.  Our union with Christ becomes a spiritual relationship of the most intense intimacy.  Because that is what Christianity is all about – not institutions, not structures, not laws, not regulations – but relationship with God, each other and the world because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. 

(Copyright © 2007 by Partners in Urban Transformation)