Pentecost 4 (Luke 7:36-8:3)

The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.

There is a saying that those who know don’t tell and those who don’t know teach.

The people in Jesus day who considered themselves righteous not only believed they were uniquely favored by God, they knew it. In that knowledge they assumed the role of “teachers of righteousness.” They defined who was approved by God and who was not. Who is defined as righteous and who is defined as a sinner. Who God approves and who God condemns.

St. Paul once believed in this way. After his personal encounter with the risen Lord Jesus Christ, Paul would write: knowledge puffs up. Love builds up. Righteousness that is defined by law and knowledge always cultivates hubris, the presumption of fatal pride.

That presumption of fatal pride locks the soul into a rigid inflexible uncompromising belief. Sadly, that belief blinds the soul to both the problem that defines our species and the solution.

By the standards of the day the Pharisees were righteous. They gave every evidence of holding the right set of beliefs about God, society, politics, economics and religion. BY definition as the righteous their actions were righteous. The presence of Jesus revealed to the Pharisees the fatal flaw in their beliefs and in their actions.

Jesus does not deny that the woman is a sinner. Jesus is not a moral relativist. He acknowledges her sin but he does not define her by her sin. Because he does not follow the teaching of the Pharisees that the woman is fully completely and only a sinner, he perceives her faith, her repentance, and her piety. Where the Pharisees see a reprobate sinner, Jesus sees a lost soul yearning to be found. Jesus sees a person that His heavenly Father created by the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ own image and likeness.

Pride blinds a separated soul from its true state and its true call. Where the woman feels the pain of separation through her sins, the Pharisee numbs himself to the pain of separation through self-righteous arrogance.

The Pharisee actually fails to live up to his own standard of righteousness as a result of spiritual numbness. He fails the test of sacred hospitality in the most obvious and egregious way possible.

Sacred hospitality is the common belief of all people in the Middle East that the realm of the divine periodically tests the integrity and virtue of the world of humanity. The test is called sacred hospitality. In this well-known and understood test the righteous Pharisee fails and the unrighteous woman succeeds.

Pride blinds the Pharisee and numbs him to his spiritual condition despite his right beliefs and right actions.

Humility allows the woman to see with the eyes of faith and act from the place of the divine image and likeness imprinted on her soul despite her many sins.. Her faith leads her to acknowledge her sin and seek forgiveness.

The Pharisee can’t even perceive his sin and so as he is locked in a rigid self-indulgent belief system he numbs himself to his moment of salvation. He refuses to repent because he is convinced he has no need of repentance.

Pride subverts love. Humility facilitates love. As Jesus comments: The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.