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Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent
February 22, 2023
Feast Day of Margaret of Cortona, 1297 AD
Invitatory
Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Reading: Luke 7:36-50
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and when he went into the Pharisee’s house he reclined to dine. 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. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair, kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 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.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “A certain moneylender had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward 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. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
The problem with forgiveness – as we experience it between one another – is that it can easily leave whoever has extended forgiveness feeling duped. The expected response never comes: no gratitude, no acknowledgement of its grace, nor any sign of a change in behavior. Our forgiveness can seem simply to provide license for more offense, as if it merely removes the consequences for those who have done wrong and caused harm. Forgiveness has no levers by which it can force reform. Thus, we have far more confidence in the effectiveness of punishment.
When Simon critically observed that Jesus was allowing a woman – who he euphemistically referred to as a “sinner” – to have a place in his house and at his table, it is clear that he thought that she remained who she had been. She was not among the righteous. This was not something he dared to say directly, putting himself on record. This was his suspicion, the judgment of his inner eye. His silence indicated that his only focus – the only sign of change that he felt could be true – would be some form of penalty. Apart from this, her touch could only be the continuation of her past and of her sin.
It should be noted that Jesus never withheld forgiveness, demanding that some form of penance be completed first. (The church should own up to this; it’s a lesson still not learned.) Jesus didn’t impose the law or set a code of regulations between others and himself. Instead, he had a way of interacting with others that convinced them only of this: that he saw them – who they were in the vast complexity of being human beings. This was his judgment: this being fully seen and fully known, where nothing was hidden. Jesus didn’t have to do any more than convey this. And in doing so he didn’t then have to declare something against others; instead, he gave them a future freed from the detritus of their past.
Our confession is simply our direct and spoken acknowledgement that we know that we are wholly known. The forgiveness that follows is God’s gift of freedom; and when we are freed from all that we fear might catch up with us, that pinches us into much smaller selves, our lives can be broadly opened to love, which is a form of flourishing, not hiding.
In the way that the woman touched Jesus, she revealed that she knew who he was too. It was an intimacy of particular power and beauty. What more could have been asked? Nothing was lacking. Yet, those at table couldn’t see it. And we are quick to see how hypocritical and suffocating they were – when often we don’t see how much we are exactly like them.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
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