the good news is… great love for God and neighbor
READ
A Sinful Woman Forgiven
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.”
REFLECTION
Hope is good news!
In her book “The Book of Hope,” the naturalist Jane Goodall defines hope as “what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.”
The Apostle Paul speaks similarly of hope. Hope keeps company with affliction and hardship. Hope is part of the movement and transformation out of affliction.
To put it another way, Paul and Goodall argue that hope stands in opposition to adversity. But intriguingly, hope is often forged and strengthened by adversity.
Both Paul and Goodall knew adversity first hand. Paul in the persecution he experienced in spreading the Good News, and Goodall through the challenges of her work and the death of her spouse at a young age.
In many ways, hope is a choice.
In our New Testament reading, we hear the story of a prostitute who anointed Jesus’ feet with her hopes and with her tears. She took a chance. She made the choice to hope and to seek out Jesus. She could have been turned away by the host. She could have been rejected by Jesus. But she lived into hope and “worked hard to make it so.”
And Jesus, the one who welcomes all, welcomed her. Jesus did not judge her — as we might have — as the host did. Jesus responded to her hope and loved her, as Jesus responds to each of us as we deal with adversity through hope.
Written by Rev. Mary Bowman
REFLECT
Is there something for which you hope so fiercely that you would endure the vulnerability to fall at Jesus’ feet in worship as the woman in this story in Luke did? Picture how Jesus would receive you and what he would say to you.