A touching story

‘… go in peace.…’ (Luke 7:50)

Luke 7:36-50 (Year C: Trinity+3)

                                                       pic:  Carmelites - Lectio Divina

An intruder gets into the diner party

Just imagine you were invited to the embassy of a well known European country in your home city. You have passed from the drinks reception to a nice dining table with stiff white table cloth and perfectly arraigned glasses, cutlery etc. The waiting staff are primed and ready with bottles opened and on the ready for tasting.

Then, there is a commotion.  You feel someone touching your feet (having removed your shoes first).  I don’t believe this …. a person of the opposite sex (or the same as the case may be) is rubbing premium Cretan olive oil into our feet as she/he wipes the with her/his hair and kisses your feet over and over again. The evangelist Mark is more dramatic and says that the woman ‘broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.’  No half measures there!.

Fetch the security person and have this crazy person thrown out! 

Jesus ‘misbehaves’ yet again

However far fetched and ridiculous this story might sound like in sophisticated 21^st century Europe consider how ridiculous, abnormal and scandalous such an outburst of affection and emotion would have appeared in 1^st century Palestine in ‘respectable society’ and ‘respectable’ male society at that.  Not only would the gesture have been derided and condemned as inappropriate but the very notion of a ‘sinful woman’ entering ‘respectable’ society to do such a thing would have been an outrage.  Jesus’ crime, in the sight of the religious authorities was threefold:

1. He knew who this woman was and what she had been up to and yet did not push her away when she proceeded to show affection in front of everyone at table;
2. He was complicit in touching a sinner and unclean soul (a big taboo in Jewish society then); and
3. He, himself, forgave sins which was seen as blasphemy for the religious authorities

‘Respectable’ society of the 1^st century had very definite and self-assured notions of purity, righteousness, punishment, reward and deference in a society run by some wealthy, powerful and ‘respectable’ men for the same wealthy, powerful and ‘respectable’ men. It was a boy’s club for the righteousness even if the club had its significant share of corrupt, abusive and dishonest members and many clubs these days also have.

Forgiven much, loved much

But, did this woman care? She did not.  Moreover, she acted confidently clearly indicating that she knew that she would not get a hostile reaction from Jesus. Her intuition and trust told her that.  In she went with the alabaster jar (presumably circumventing some checks and questions on the way in) and determined she was to make contact with the one whom she loved in a special way.  She loved much because she had been loved – in this case by a mercy and a compassion that none of the members of the ‘respectable’ club had a notion of. They saw only the negative in this interloper. And their idea of greeting and providing for a guest was based on norms that left no place for tender, loving compassion. Indeed, their very notion of God was of an impossibly impassible God without feeling or heart.  And as for emotions – leave that to those silly people wracked by guilt and beyond rational order, so it is said.

But the gentlemen at the club has missed the point.  Trust, gratitude and humility in abundance had drawn and inspired one person to come forward and return the kindness, love and forgiveness. Those who have known love – really – are much more likely to love – genuinely.  We love from what we have and have experienced. It is a two-way street (one of the biggest tragedies in high-income as well as low-income societies in the world today is that many millions live and die without ever having really known true and loyal love in their lives).

God is near to the broken hearted as it says in Psalm 35.  God-in-Jesus was near to a grateful and broken heart that met healing and was sent back ‘in peace’ (verse 50).

Reclaiming a true and healing ministry of touch

Touching and ‘kissing’ (it comes in many radically different forms and contexts) can be a challenge in stiff upper lip Northern European and especially anglo-saxon cultures.  That, it is suggested, is what the more tactile, expressive and volatile Mediterraneans do (ever wondered why many of them live longer ? – it can’t all be down to a drop of vino and a diet of lettuce and olive oil!).  The MOT ‘Ministry of Touch’ is an important source of healing for us. We are no disembodied spirits but gifted persons with bodies, minds and souls all wrapped into each other and not entirely separable). The great tragedy in Northern Europe is that just as we were beginning to get over Jansenism (with all due respects to Jansen), Calvinism (with all due respects to Calvin) and related schools we were struck by a tsunami of heart-breaking evidence, stories and witness to evils which are a million miles removed from the life-affirming sacramental ministry of touch. It may take a few generations to get over this.

Was Luke and the other gospel writers influenced by a line from the Song of Songs?:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!  For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you. (Song of Songs 1:2-3)

In this story Jesus responds to a tactile situation of profound emotion, affection, tenderness, gratitude, appreciation and passion.  The woman had courage as well as trust and gratitude. Jesus saw in this situation the fruits of mercy and healing. He also saw through the false religion (yet again) of the righteous of his day. As Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:20):

 All the brothers and sisters send greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Not to us any glory but to the one who loved us from all eternity and called us into being and named us in his own heart (Ephesians 2:8-10):

 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

The display of love in this story has overtones of Jesus’s impending burial. Matthew’s account refers to this gesture as a preparation for Jesus’ burial. It is significant that this woman is preparing Jesus for what is to happen. And it is women who will be the primary witnesses to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  Among others, was Mary the mother of Jesus an important source of information for Luke?

For us today in our homes, villages, offices, factories and churches how can we not take to heart the saying found in Ephesians 4:32:

and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

A 21^st century theologian, Lucy Hogan put it this way:

Our healing comes when we, like the woman, kneel at Jesus’ feet and pour out our love.