Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Luke 7:36-50

“Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.”

John Shea, a theologian and storyteller, writes beautifully about this story of forgiveness. Modern Christians, he says, don’t take sin seriously enough. For example, according to David Steindl-Rast, the word sin no longer “communicates a serious negative condition with serious consequences.” In place of “sin,” Steindl-Rast recommends the word “alienation” because we all know how it feels, what it’s like to be cut off from anything that gives us meaning. Similarly, Shea appreciates Dorothy Soelle’s image of “frozenness”: “[Sin]…is the Ice Age – this slow advance of cold, a freezing process which we experience and try to forget… [it is] the destruction of our capacity for relatedness.”

            We need to reclaim the seriousness of our own sin, Shea writes, or we risk missing the depth of God’s forgiveness. Since sin is so pervasive, we often overlook it. It fades into the background of our daily lives, although we think we see it clearly in others.  That’s the irony of Luke’s story. The Pharisees, those masters of suspicion, hardly scrutinize their inner selves. They aren’t aware that the ice of sin has destroyed their capacity for relationship.

            In contrast to the “cold shoulder” the woman receives from the Pharisees, she overflows in her love and gratitude for Jesus. She knows the depth of her alienation, but she feels Jesus’ acceptance. The warmth of Jesus’ love breaks the ice of her sin.

            According to Shea, Jesus calls attention to the woman’s behavior, and holds it up as a mirror to the Pharisees to invite them into true self-awareness. We don’t know how they respond.

            The story of the woman is also a mirror for us. Are we aware of our alienation from ourselves, from others, from creation, from God? Are we aware of how cold our hearts can be? Even more, are we aware of God’s extravagant offer of love inviting us out of ourselves and into warm relations with others?

(You can find more insights about this story and other stories from Luke in John Shea, “The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers: Luke: The Relentless Widow”)

- David Shumaker