Do You See

Luke 7:36-8:3

I must admit to some ambivalence when it comes to this morning’s reading from Luke.  I’m unsettled by it and not sure what to do with it.  (Which may explain why this sermon sat as a blank screen on my computer so long.)  But I’m confused about with whom I am supposed to identify in the story.

I want to identify with the woman who comes and washes Jesus’ feet.  She is quite the role model.  She doesn’t care about convention or the proper way of doing things.  She bursts into this dinner uninvited, probably as the only woman in the room, and shows her gratitude and joy at Jesus’ feet.  She has what in Yiddish they call chutzpah and I admire that.

But I worry that I’m more like Simon, the Pharisee who invited Jesus into his home in the first place.  Simon might be an okay sort of guy.  He’s curious about this traveling preacher who’s in town.  So he invites him over to share a meal.  Not a bad start.

But from there it’s down hill for Simon.  He doesn’t offer the usual good host sort of things: water to wash off hot, dusty feet or oil for anointing his guests’ heads.   Not even a kiss to greet his guest.  There’s no way he’s going to earn the first century good housekeeping seal of approval that way.  But that’s not why I fear I identify with Simon.  It’s his reaction to the woman at Jesus’ feet and then to Jesus himself that has me nervous.

You see the woman who came in was a sinner.  We’re told that right off.  Now we all know about sinners.  We know that all of us are sinners; we’re human, we just can’t help it.  But we also know that some people are “capital S sinners.”  Well, this woman was a “capital S sinner” without a doubt.  Her sins were well-known and, undoubtedly, well-discussed in the community.  Her reputation wafted into the room long before the scent of the perfume in her jar made it.

Jesus asked Simon a question: “Do you see this woman?”  It’s a simple question, and of course Simon saw her.  But did he really?  Or did he just see the sin that she carried around with her.  Simon wondered why Jesus would affiliate with such a person, but in our eyes, we wonder why Jesus was associating with Simon. 

I’m still stuck however with worrying that I’m more like Simon than I am like the woman.  I want to think that I’d be the one on my knees, weeping and cleaning feet.  But more likely, I’m sitting at my table judging others, deciding whose sin is allowable and whose isn’t; who is a “capital S sinner” and who isn’t. 

I want to relate to the woman for a couple of reasons:  first she puts herself into this wholeheartedly without reservation.  She’s in it mind, body, and soul.  She doesn’t hold back and I admire that in her.  But second, I know too what it means to need to be forgiven and the release that finding that forgiveness brings.  Knowing the grace that brings about transformation is a joyous and beautiful experience.

And who doesn’t dislike Simon?  He’s judgmental and hypocritical.  I can really get going when it comes to casting aspersions on him.  He doesn’t do what’s proper, he doubts whether Jesus is a prophet, and he is too much like one of the good old boys of Judea of the time.  He’s disgraceful in his behavior.

I mean, look at me being open-minded and open-hearted about the woman while seeing through the thin facade to the core of Simon.  I know his type.  And then, of course, I realize that I’m acting no differently than Simon is and here I am haughtily dividing the world into two types of people--the sinners and the “capital S sinners.”  The more things change the more they remain the same!  I can almost hear Jesus saying, “Gerry, do you see this man?”

Because that, I believe, is the highpoint and most important section of the reading, that question, “do you see this woman?”  It’s one that I should be listening for time after time.  Because I am quick to look past the person and just assign sin to any number of people.

There are those who disagree with me politically.  “Gerry, do you see this woman?”  And there are those who read the Bible differently than I do.  “Gerry, do you see this man?”  The question echoes through my head time after time and more often than not, I have to say, “No, I didn’t see that man or that woman.  I only saw their sin or their veneer of whatever it is I’m reacting to.”  I’m no better than Simon, the one I sit in judgment of.

We’re all victims of a sort of tunnel vision that only allows us to see what we want to see in others.  We’re all in need of the question, “Do you see that woman or that man?  Do you really see him or her?”  That tunnel vision has been going for millennia and has caught many off guard.  Simon was using it when he looked on the woman who came into his dinner party and he used it again when he make suppositions about Jesus because of his association with the woman.

We use this tunnel vision all too often and don’t even realize we’re doing so.  We’re called to see though, to really see the other: those who are marginalized, those who are our enemy, those who live lives as different from ours as can be.

Let go of your tunnel vision as best you can.  We can all be more hospitable, more accepting, less judging and kinder than we are.  We can recognize that we are much more like that “capital S sinner” woman who is standing in the need of grace and forgiveness in the story from Luke this morning.  We can try to see, really see, the other.