Living in the Spirit
June 11, 2016

Scripture Reading: Luke 7:36-8:3

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 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. Then she continued 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.’ –Luke 7:36-39

Question: if this woman was such a sinner, how did she even get into the Pharisee’s house? How did she learn in the first place that Jesus was in the Pharisee’s house? Since she came prepared to anoint Jesus, she apparently assumed she would be admitted to the Pharisee’s house. I rather like John Crossan’s idea that much of the gospels, not only share the parables of Jesus, but are also written in parabolic form telling the stories about Jesus. Is this notation about the women, Luke’s subtle way if saying that this particular Pharisee was not all he was professing to be?

Jesus clearly saw the image of God in every person with whom he interacted. This Pharisee apparently did not. Perhaps this sinner did not matter to the Pharisee because she was a woman. Perhaps it was important to him to highlight Jesus’ lack of good judgement because he associated with “sinners”. We humans seem to have a need to rank one another. To establish our self-worth based on how much better we are than someone else or some group. There seems to be a lot of that going around in the United States today.

It is apparently very hard for humans to accept that all are worthy and that none of us are any less or more than any other. God makes each person an integral part of a synergistic community of caring children of God where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. What we do with that opportunity is our challenge.

Prayer: Lord, help us build a world based on being a community of your caring children. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.