Peter Paul Rubens, ‘The Feast of Simon the Pharisee’Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (15 September 2024). Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Theodore of Tarsus (690), Archbishop of Canterbury.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 7: 36-50 (NRSVA)
36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘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.’ 40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ 41 ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43 Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ 44 Then turning towards the woman, he said 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. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 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.’ 48 Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ 49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ 50 And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’
Today’s Reflection:
In today’s Gospel reading in the lectionary for Holy Communion (Luke 7: 36-50), Jesus is a guest, but the unwelcome guest at the meal, when he is invited to the house of Simon the Pharisee.
Jesus is accused at different times of eating with publicans and sinners. As we read yesterday, he knows that his detractors point to him and say: ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ (Luke 7: 34).
But Jesus also eats with Pharisees too. Indeed, he may have had many meals with Pharisees, although the Gospel writers simply make a passing reference to the host without naming him (see Luke 14: 1-24), or perhaps ignore the meals altogether.
However, at this meal, I imagine an evening when Jesus is found eating with an eminently respectable member of society, a Pharisee, and a leading Pharisee at that too.
Jesus is invited to dinner by a leading Pharisee, Simon, although it is some time before we learn the name of the host that evening. Nor is it clear which city he lives in. Is it Capernaum? Is it Nain or Bethany? I don’t know, I don’t know that it really matters. What does matter is that the man who should have been the host fails at his task, and the guest at the dinner becomes the true host.
Have you ever been at a dinner where you know some of the guests were invited simply to boost the ego of those who had invited them? Do you know what I mean by the dinner-party-name-dropping-syndrome?
Some might think Simon was suffering from DPND syndrome when he invited Jesus to dinner. I am not inclined to think so: after all, just a few verses earlier, Jesus has come in for some severe criticism, and has given a robust response.
Simon may have thought he was doing the decent thing … a Pharisee inviting a visiting rabbi and preacher to dinner would have been common courtesy and a common experience.
Nor is there is nothing unusual, anything offensive, about the behaviour of Jesus at this meal. He takes his allotted or allocated place at the table, and he probably enjoyed the conversation with the people beside him and opposite him.
But then the drama begins.
A woman in the city, a woman known as a sinner, manages to get in. Now, despite popular portrayal and the myths of centuries, it does not necessarily mean that this woman was an open and public sinner, a figure who was known for her sinful ways.
Those who were blind or who were suffering from leprosy or a physical ailment were often treated as sinners. They were seen as having brought their visible scars on themselves, or to be suffering because of the sins of their parents or their ancestors.
Perhaps she was not the easy woman of popular story-telling. Perhaps she was blind, or was disabled physically in some way. We are not told.
And some people ask: how did she get into the house anyway?
But on a balmy summer’s evening in a Mediterranean house, people will normally eat in the inner courtyard that is the part of any house of substance. I just love those long evening dinners in Greece, where you break bread and pour wine for each other at long tables, and as you hand the bread to and pour the wine for the person next to you, the natural response is σε ευχαριστώ (seh efcharisto, thank you), the very phrase that gives us the word Eucharist, thanksgiving.
Anyway, as they were sitting around, perhaps in the inner courtyard, giving thanks to each other, this woman slips in, unnoticed. There was no need for her to gatecrash, she probably just slipped in silently and unnoticed.
At first, even Jesus would not have noticed her, for she stands behind him.
What hurt this unnoticeable woman on the margins so much that she cried so profusely? She cries so much that she must have been deeply hurt, thoroughly dejected and rejected.
I think Rubens and the other great painters get it wrong when they show her in front of Jesus, washing and drying his feet. This woman’s very marginalisation is symbolised in four ways:
• No-one noticed her coming in, or if they did, she was not worth going to the bother of throwing out.
• When she is noticed, she is regarded by all present as being a sinner, although Jesus tells us that she has been forgiven … probably long before this incident took place.
• She remains unnamed, anonymous, throughout this story. At the beginning, Simon is unnamed, but eventually we get to know who he is. This woman is obviously well-known in her town, but no-one calls her by her name. And in Christian tradition, we have continued to deny her identity, often confusing her with Mary Magdalene and with the woman caught in adultery – two completely different people altogether.
• And by her physical place at the table: she is standing behind Jesus, at the back, perhaps just where the servants would have stood as they waited to bring more dishes, or clear away some empty plates. But she takes the place of the servant at the table … in other words, she is a true deacon.
The woman’s behaviour is embarrassing for Simon. He never went through the normal courtesies and formalities of welcoming a guest into the house, seeing that his shoes were taken from him, his feet washed, his head anointed.
But her alabaster and tears used for anointing and washing Jesus, his head and his feet, also prefigures something else: the women who come to wash the corpse of the Crucified Christ, and to anoint him in his grave (Luke 24: 1-11).
This woman prefigures those women who will be the first witnesses of the Resurrection … perhaps she even is one of them.
Wanting to eject her is a rejection of the Easter faith.
Simon thinks Jesus should know who this woman really is, failing to realise that Jesus knows what is really going on in Simon’s heart.
Simon is embarrassed, not by what Jesus might know about him, but by the woman.
But Jesus is not embarrassed at all. Instead of confronting the woman, he confronts Simon, and he commends this woman for her faith. He sends her out in peace – the very dismissal that we should experience at the end of the Liturgy every Sunday, week-by-week. She is sent out as a disciple, as an apostle, as a missionary.
And Simon wants to eject her.
Not because of who she is, or because of her reputation, but because she has shown him up to be a poor host.
There is a sharp contrast between the shallow faith of Simon, the pillar of the Church, and the woman, who has been pushed to the margins, a sharp contrast between those with apparent faith and no response, and those dismissed for having no faith but who are full in their response to Christ’s presence among us.
Simon fails in offering the proper hospitality to his guest. This woman on the other hand receives the full and generous hospitality of God.
Simon has no place in his house for this woman – and to be honest, no place in his house for Jesus. But God has a place for her in his kingdom.
The conversations between Jesus and this woman is a model for all our encounters with people we see as different or as strangers.
Am I like Simon, and only willing to count in within my inner circle those who are like me and who behave according to my standards?
If I am going to enter into conversation with the stranger, am I open to listening to them, to talking openly and honestly with them about where they come from and what they believe?
When the conversation is over, will they remain strangers?
How open am I to new friendships?
How often do I think people get what they deserve rather than sympathising with their predicaments?
Do I live up to my weekly commission to go out into the world in peace and in the name of the Risen Christ?
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 19 September 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The 5-finger prayer from the Diocese of Kuching, Malaysia.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday in reflections as told to Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 19 September 2024) invites us to pray:
Ring Finger (those in need): Today we pray and remember those who are sick or are treated badly. Pray that Jesus would give them new strength.
The Collect:
O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with our whole heart
and our neighbours as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord of creation,
whose glory is around and within us:
open our eyes to your wonders,
that we may serve you with reverence
and know your peace at our lives’ end,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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