This Sunday, our story from
Luke’s gospel recounts the incident in which Jesus’s feet are washed by the
notoriously sinful woman. The story was (and is) shocking, because it is a
story of the breaching of barriers between those who benefit from privilege and
those who do not.
The main part of the story
deals with a meal at the house of a Pharisee—only belatedly given the name of “Simon.”
A woman behaves in a shocking way—and most of the people around the table
expect Jesus to know who exactly this woman is, and to rebuke her for her
improper actions. It’s important to note that the woman is identified not by
name, but only as “a sinner.” Unlike every one else in the story, she alone is
identified with such a pejorative. We’ve got a Pharisee named Simon; we’ve got
a Teacher named Jesus; we’ve got those who are at the table (and supposedly
righteous folk); we’ve got women who were healed by Jesus and became his
disciples regardless of rules about the proper behavior of women; and we’ve got
a “sinner.” Then, as now, her status as an outcast in the eyes of the community
of decent folk is understood as robbing her of her claim to full humanity,
especially because she is not just a woman but a woman condemned by the common
opprobrium of the community. And we still behave the same way. Here we sit, two
thousand years later, imitating with the wrong characters in story, still prone
to self-congratulations and self-righteousness, too eager to condemn others
while demanding mercy for ourselves. We still want to insulate and separate
ourselves from others rather than practice the radical hospitality of Jesus
that recognizes no barrier as insurmountable except stubborn hardness of heart.
There’s a lot of talk lately
about barriers and walls in our American political life. Yet, when looking over
this passage, I noticed a lot of tacit walls being taken down stone by stone. We
start with walls to protect purity and privilege-- the Pharisee maintained his
purity by erecting a virtual wall between the notoriously sinful and himself.
In his head, even though he has invited Jesus under his roof, he starts trying
to toss Jesus over this proverbial wall when he thinks he has found proof that
Jesus is a fraud. Jesus points out that the Pharisee, in his zeal to maintain
to maintain his wall, has violated all the norms of hospitality. Jesus breaches
the wall between the Pharisee’s thoughts and the action of the story,
demonstrating that this is no ordinary wandering holy man, but at the very
least a prophet—and we’re in on the secret that Jesus is so much more than
that.
It’s always been a puzzle to
me how the Pharisee gets so condescending about the woman approaching Jesus at
his own table and under his own roof. This woman has broached the wall of
“polite society.” The story makes clear that the Pharisee certainly was
familiar with the woman and her reputation, yet somehow she got into his house
and is now making this scene. As a matter of fact, perhaps he resents the fact
that his dinner invitation to this wandering teacher has resulted in all the
riffraff of the town from pressing into his doorways. The Pharisee fears being
overrun and defiled by being brought into contact with people who do not meet
his requirements for decorum and decency. In the Pharisee’s world, only those
who behave in certain ways have the right to come inside the walls of
regulations he and his fellow Pharisees have created in order to keep
themselves pure and undefiled. From beginning to end, it’s also interesting
that the female characters outnumber the male characters. It’s not often that
happens in scripture-- and there goes another wall.
Jesus smashes a proverbial
wall when he allows a notorious woman to touch him in a very personal, humble
way, shocking the sensibilities of that time and that place. Yet rather than be
shamed, she is forgiven and sent away, freed and healed by the authority of
Jesus himself. Another wall cast to the ground. Even at the end of our gospel
passage this week, we see Jesus breaching a wall again by hanging out with
women who have required healing from him.
But here’s the problem with
walls: as much as we think they keep “undesirable” people out, they also keep
the fortunate ones penned in. In the end, both are in a cage. And even a cage
of your own making is still a cage. Walls hold us in and limit us as much as
keep others out. We like to think that walls will keep us safe, or at the very
least will keep our possessions safe. We ignore the fact that for every story
in which walls protect people, there are two stories in which walls are used to
imprison people. With every wall we make, we overlook the fact that we have
made ourselves feel ever more alone and therefore vulnerable.
In forgiving and loving the woman who anoints his feet, Jesus
reminds us that the love disciples are called to embody is a love without
limits, or we all stand condemned. The
story of Jesus is all about dismantling walls—certainly not building them.
Jesus was constantly violating boundaries and deliberately moving into liminal
spaces in order to realign the thinking of the religious authorities about what
God’s love was really about. Jesus came preaching repentance to all, because,
as Romans 3:23 reminds us, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of
God.” All have sinned, yet grace is available to all as well—if we are willing
to trust in grace rather than some sort of human calculus Jesus was constantly
tearing down walls- between clean and unclean, between the poor and the
privileged, and in our story today, between those who congratulate themselves
on their ability to determine who is “in,” and who is “out--” who is a “sinner,”
and who is “righteous.”
Every
wall we build makes us feel less safe and more besieged. Eventually, defensive
walls close in upon those who build them. The free becomes the prisoner.
Scripture reminds us of this over and over: you can’t be made free by building
walls. In order to bring about the kingdom of God on earth, we are called to
tear down walls, rather than build them up—for our sakes as well as the sake of
those we try to keep out. The love of Christ always breaks through.
(This was first published on Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on June 10, 2016.)
