11th Sunday of the Year C 2016

11^th. Sunday of Year (C)

(2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13; Galatians 2:16, 19-21; Luke 7:36-50)

While Jesus was at table as the chief guest in the house of Simon the Pharisee, you heard how a woman, unnamed but locally well-known, or rather, notorious, came to the feet of Jesus as He was reclining at table and first of all kissed, then washed and anointed His feet in front of all the other guests, and of the embarrassed and disgusted host, Simon.

Although Simon almost certainly did not appreciate that he was one of those sinners whom Jesus earlier– at a function given in His honour by Levi the former tax-collector – had declared that He had come to call to repentance, nevertheless, Simon, welcoming Jesus to his house and table as Levi had done, was not only showing the attraction that Jesus held for him, but perhaps also, testifying to a certain subconscious awareness of his own spiritual needs.   Under the guidance of God he had invited Jesus into his house, desiring both to honour Him as a teacher and also to learn from Him by speaking with Him more freely and observing Him more closely at table.

The meal had begun well and Simon was looking forward eagerly to hear Jesus speak when, quite unexpectedly, this publicly disreputable woman came into the room where his guests were at table, and:

Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind (Jesus), at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.

That woman, let us call her Mary Magdalene, was indeed a notorious sinner; nevertheless, guided by God, she had courageously entered Simon's house where she found herself -- not surprisingly -- about as welcome as a leper would have been.

That is the situation before us: two sinners of different types and perhaps of different degree, both of them drawn by God's grace to Jesus because they -- either consciously or subconsciously – had been made aware of their need after having listened to Jesus' preaching.   Let us now watch how they both respond to Jesus' presence.

As soon as Mary comes into the room she throws herself down at Jesus' feet, apparently totally oblivious of the revulsion of the others at table.  Simon's attention, on the other hand, is less on Jesus than on the woman and the reputation of his house which is being compromised by her uninvited and unwanted presence.  At first, he had gladly subjected himself to the influence of Jesus, but now – quickly prejudging Mary and totally committing himself to anxious concern about himself and the public standing of his house -- he even began to criticise in his heart the Rabbi he had originally invited in order that he might learn from Him.

There Simon was failing to make the most of the opportunity that God's grace was offering him: for at the very moment when he could have learned most from Jesus, he has stopped listening, because his pride and self-solicitude have reasserted themselves under the guise of righteous indignation.  Mary, however, seems to have learned to hate herself to such an extent that even in this most hostile company, she is totally centred on Jesus: she knows her need of Him Whom she appreciates above all else, and is quite unmoved either by her own feelings of fear at people’s scorn and opposition or embarrassment at their obvious contempt and revulsion in her regard.

The Law and the Scriptures were clear about these things; Hannah, the mother of Samuel, though she was not learned, nevertheless, she was a true daughter of Israel, and in her prayer she said:

Talk no more so very proudly; let no arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is the God of knowledge; and by Him actions are weighed. (1 Samuel 2:3)

Likewise, David, an uneducated soldier on the run from King Saul, cried out to the pursuing King:

Let the Lord judge between you and me, and let the Lord avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you. (1 Sam 24:12)

There is no doubt that Simon, a Pharisee, knew what the Law taught, and while it was both natural and legitimate for him to form an opinion on the basis of what he saw or knew, here Simon was manifestly going far beyond that: he was judging, where Jesus his ‘teacher’ was accepting; judging not simply the outward actions but the inner dispositions of the woman before them, and, indeed, even going so far as to begin to criticise in his mind and heart both the personal holiness and public appreciation of Jesus:

If this man were a prophet, He would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him, and that she is a sinner.

Simon was no longer looking with respect to the holy Rabbi for an example of the right attitude to be adopted in what was a difficult and delicate situation; the imaginary threat to his own dignity and reputation as host far outweighed in his eyes the respect and reverence due to his invited Guest.

Under these circumstances, Jesus turned to Simon and said:

“Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said.

“Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty.    Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?”   Simon said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” He said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Jesus shows here His divine wisdom and human sympathy.  He knows what has been going on in Simon’s mind and heart and so He says: ‘You have judged’; but, because Simon did not directly answer, ‘the one whose larger debt was forgiven’, but, more tentatively:

 The one I suppose whose larger debt was forgiven;

Jesus added the word ‘rightly’.  Now, He was not being so condescending as to congratulate an educated Pharisee for knowing the difference between 500 and 50; rather Jesus was saying ‘In this hypothetical case which I have just put before you, you have rightly judged by saying “I suppose the one whom he forgave more”, because questions about forgiveness and love cannot be judged on the basis of numbers’.   Now Simon’s attitude was both wrong and reprehensible; nevertheless, Jesus chose to make things as easy as possible for him by congratulating his choice of words which, indeed, could be regarded as more praiseworthy than his personal attitude.

For Simon’s answer could easily have been considered somewhat off-hand, rather like: ‘the one whose larger debt was forgiven, but what’s it matter?’  Jesus, however, was trying to lead Simon to recognize his mistake and correct his fault, so He interpreted his words most charitably:  ‘You are right to say ‘I suppose’ because in such a personal matter as the love to be found in a human heart none but God can judge rightly.’  Having thus very gently led Simon to recognize that he was in no position to make a judgement about the present sinful state of this woman before them, He then went on to make the correction He wanted to administer to him:

Do you see this woman? When I entered your house; you did not give Me water for My feet (He might have added: ‘as you should have done’), but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give Me a kiss (again He could have added: ‘as you should have done'), but she has not ceased kissing My feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint My head with oil (again, ‘as you could have done’), but she has anointed My feet with ointment. 

The implication was: Simon, you should not presume in your heart to judge the sincerity of this woman’s actions, because the inner workings of your own mind and heart in my regard are not truly expressed by the words of your mouth; nor, indeed, was the reception you gave Me a truly appropriate reflection of the Law you profess to follow and claim to teach.

Nevertheless, Jesus is trying to be very gentle with Simon, He is not trying to ‘publicly put him down’, so to speak; He is speaking to Simon’s heart and that is why He preferred to emphasise the woman’s public and dramatic actions rather than make any mention of Simon’s subtle and unnoticed omissions.  Jesus was trying to show Simon how He, Jesus, was viewing the situation in which they found themselves, where a woman, in  repudiation of her past life,  had bravely manifested great humility and true love whilst a  legal expert had failed to live up to the Law he sought wrongly to uphold.   He was also recommending to Simon a lesson in humility since He, Jesus, though a guide and teacher, as Simon himself had earlier recognized, was judging no one, rather He was waiting on and watching for the One Who alone could judge.

For, just as Jesus once recognized His Father at work in Peter, revealing to him the truth which he confessed in the words, ‘You are the Christ the Son of the living God’; and, just as He had also recognized the wisdom given by His Father to the Syro-Phoenecian woman who said, ‘even the dogs can eat of the scraps that fall from the children's table’; so, here also, seeing the great sorrow, love, and self-repudiation, being shown by Mary, He immediately recognized it to be the result of His Father’s grace at work in her, and therefore Jesus said:

I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, because she has shown great love. 

Jesus, the Lord and Master, Simon’s Rabbi and Teacher, was humbly looking to God His Father in this situation; Simon, on the other hand, had been too hasty, too proud and judgemental, to wait for, or learn from, Jesus.

Jesus wanted both to encourage the woman to ‘go and sin no more’ and also to give Simon cause to remember what had happened.  Therefore, He turned again to the woman and said to her: ‘Your sins are forgiven’.  For those present who were learned in the Law, those words were of striking significance, and we are told:

(They) said to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

Simon, above all, however, would ponder what lay behind those words of Jesus.  Jesus had not wanted either to condemn him or humiliate him, yet He had wanted Simon to learn a lesson, which is why He added those final words:

The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.

Notice, Jesus does not say ‘to you little is forgiven since you love little’; no, He rather invites Simon to be his own accuser, to humble himself, to repent in his heart, before God.

He (then) said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

With those final words, Jesus would leave Simon’s house bidding the woman to take up her life anew, whilst discretely inviting Simon himself to seek his peace of heart through greater faith and greater humility.  For it was not the woman’s love that had saved her, Jesus was careful to point out, it was her attitude to God -- her faith in Jesus and her humble obedience to the Spirit’s guidance -- that had brought her to Jesus’ feet and thereby won her forgiveness and peace.  Simon had started along that same path when he originally invited Jesus to his home, but pride, his own personal and ‘professional’ pride, had got in the way.  Jesus’ final words would help both of them: the woman would, indeed, experience deep peace and renewed hope;  Simon, on the other hand, realizing perhaps for the first time that he did not know true peace, would, thanks to Jesus, know better how to seek it: not so much through rigid adherence to the letter of the Law, but through greater humility and deeper faith in the God of Israel Whose Spirit  had originally led him to invite that remarkable Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, to his home and table.                           

                                          

10th Sunday of the Year (C) 2016

10^th. Sunday of the Year  (C)

(1 Kings 17:17-24; Galatians 1:11-19; Luke 7:11-17)

In today’s Gospel reading we are told of a very significant miracle performed by Jesus when He raised a young man from the dead.  What most impresses us today however, is not so much, perhaps, the objective fact of the miracle itself, for we believe Jesus to have been the Son of God made man, One very capable of performing such an act, but the human sympathy of Jesus which led Him to spontaneously involve Himself and perform so striking a miracle with such tender Personal compassion.   There are deep and most powerful human emotions involved here which secretly stir-up and evoke our own sympathetic involvement even today.  For here was a tragically distraught woman appearing before Jesus: already a widow, her only son -- a young man Jesus called him -- had just died as the promise of the fullness of life   had begun to dawn for him and bring some measure of warm hope back into her heart.  For a second time now she was walking alone, though followed by a crowd of sympathizers; walking upright in body yet with head bowed and her heart overwhelmed with grief as tears blinded her eyes.  She was no longer young in years and, most probably, had little or no idea of her future livelihood and security, let alone of any hope of love and companionship.  At the best, the crowd of sympathizers could suggest that she might find herself with some happy memories of friends and family; but would that enable her to face up to a doubly lonely and possibly threatening future?

In such circumstances, was Jesus foreseeing His own mother’s grief and loneliness on Calvary?  Possibly.

For, in the course of His public ministry Jesus was compared to, even mixed-up with, Elijah:

Jesus went on with His disciples to Caesarea Philippi.  And on the way He asked His disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’  And they told Him, ‘John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.’    (Mark 8:27)

And Elijah was not merely one of the prophets Jesus had remotely heard of, but one whose life and work for the glory of the God of Israel against the wicked queen Jezebel’s worship of Baal He admired, one who  – as would be shown at His Transfiguration when Elijah appeared with Moses speaking with Jesus – came readily to Jesus’ mind:

Jesus began to speak to the crowds: Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. All the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if your are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. (Matthew 11:7, 11-14)

Jesus would, therefore, have been acutely aware of the similarity between His present situation and that of Elijah who performed a miracle for the widow of Zarephath grieving for her dead son, as we ourselves have just heard in our first reading

Elijah said to her, ‘Give me your son.’  Taking him from her lap, he carried the son to the upper room where he was staying and put him on his bed ... Then he stretched himself out upon the child three times, and called out to the Lord: ‘O Lord, my God, let the life breath return to the body of this child.’

Now, had Elijah stretched himself out upon the child not only three times, but also in the form of a cross: with the prophet’s outstretch arms and full length body covering those of the child to symbolize the warmth of life being transferred from the prophet to the child by God’s healing goodness and mercy?  A great miracle of vindication in Elijah’s time indeed, but in God’s Providence a truly wondrous foreshadowing not only of the crucifixion of Israel’s  promised Messiah,  but of the life-giving, death-and-sin-destroying, power of His resurrection as the Saviour of all mankind.

After Elijah restored the living child to his mother:

The woman replied to Elijah, ‘Now indeed I know that you are a man of God.  The word of the Lord comes truly from your mouth.

The word of the Lord spoken by Elijah was a prophetic word.  The word of God in Jesus was salvific, a word bringing salvation for mankind; and such a word, Jesus knew, could only come from His Cross-transfigured heart and soul, blood-drained body and being; it was indeed a word of life from the One Who alone could and would engage and conquer death. 

Again, was Jesus at that very moment foreseeing and anticipating His own mother’s grief and loneliness on Calvary?  Quite possibly, for we are told that, after His miracle He simply, and quite mysteriously, gave the widow her restored son without any further Personal words of sympathy or encouragement, not even words of blessing.  It would seem that this widow’s tragic suffering might well have occasioned in Him what He had not anticipated and to which He could not, at that moment, give any suitable expression for merely human sharing.

Saint Paul wanted to make most clear to the Galatians this aspect of the Gospel message in his letters when he declared that:

The Gospel preached by me is not of human origin.  For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ Who died for all, that all those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him Who for their sake died and was raised.    (cfr.  Gal. 1:11s. + 2 Cor. 5:15)

In other words the Good-News of Jesus was not something as it were cogitated, argued, and proof-read beforehand, for St. Paul; nor was it anything of that nature for Jesus Himself especially on the occasion of this sudden and unexpectedly-most-touching encounter with a grieving mother suffering – so much like His own mother would soon suffer – for her beloved, only, Son.

This meeting with the widow of Nain, this raising of her son from his coffin, bier, of death, was uniquely intimate.  Immediately before and, in St. Luke’s narrative, straight after, this incident at Nain,  Jesus restored to health the servant of a Roman Centurion and also:

                               

Healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind He bestowed sight. (Luke 7:27)

On these occasions He spoke directly to the attendant crowds.  But not here at Nain.

When the Lord saw her He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’

Private words of most sincere sympathy, surely to be heard by her alone who so needed them. 

On approaching the dead man’s bier He simply touched the bier to stop the bearers and then addressed the young man himself saying:

                Young man, I say to you, ‘arise.’

Whereupon ‘Jesus gave him to his mother.’   Nothing more.  All so tender and utterly  intimate.  The restored son was enough for the woman, she would quite possibly not even have heard words of sympathy about her situation from Jesus; and as we have hinted, any words expressive of His own emotions at that moment were above ordinary human appreciation.

Elijah took up the restored child and, we are told, gave him to his mother.  Is that perhaps why St. Luke seems to have been in such a rush to tell us that Jesus likewise gave him to his mother although – according to the actual words describing Jesus’ act of healing – he was still seated in the coffin held by its bearers?  Or was that parsimony of words possibly because Jesus, immediately on healing the young man, turned to his mother and with a glance or perhaps a slight gesture of His hand said, with truly sublime humility and sensitivity, ‘There you are good mother, take him’, and left the two together?

Of course, the accompanying crowd could not fail to see and enthuse over what had happened, and they whole-heartedly cried out: A great prophet has arisen in our midst!

Just as the widow of Zarephath herself had done when she exclaimed: You are a man of God, the word of God comes truly from your mouth.

Here at Nain,  however, revelation is proceeding and there is something more; not that the people proclaiming realized just what they were saying, but was the Father perhaps once again witnessing to His Son, for all glorified God exclaiming, GOD has visited His people?

God indeed, God-made-man, was visiting His People in Jesus our Saviour Who would be stretched out on the Cross of Calvary for love of men, and Whose death and Resurrection would give life to all those touched by the Gospel of Jesus’ Good News.

That revelatory report of Jesus -- the crucified and risen Lord -- has spread throughout the intervening ages indeed, and has reached us once more this day to refresh, inspire, and comfort us with the truth it brings and the beauty it contains for us.  Truth because it is a revelation of the Risen Lord Who was crucified for us, because Jesus is ever the Way, the Truth, and the Life.   And Beauty, because (Psalm 27: 4, 13):

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in  the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord ... I believe I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! 

Truth guides and sustains, beauty inspires and comforts; so, dear People of God, let us ever seek to embrace God’s Truth in all its Beauty as we hear and strive to understand, embrace and put into practice, the authentic Gospel proclaimed to us in Mother Church, the Immaculate Spouse of her Risen Lord and Suffering Saviour, Jesus Christ.