A meditation on the story of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus (Luke 7.36-8.3)
Anyone who has anything to do with Jesus of Nazareth ends up asking, ‘Who is this?’. So here’s how that question came into focus for me.
My name is Miriam. Like half the women in Galilee, I’m named after the sister of Moses. I’m also a sinner. A public one, I mean: shut out of the synagogue on account of my lifestyle. You don’t need to know the details. Let’s just say that all my adult life I’ve got used to men treating me as an object and women regarding me as a threat. I’ve got used to living without much intimacy or friendship in my life. I’m not asking for pity though. I’ve made choices knowing the consequences – and financially, anyway, I’ve done alright. But always to be an outcast, never to belong, that was hard. It’s different now. I could never have imagined doing what I’ve been doing these last six months, living the way I’m now living, or belonging the way I now belong. Now the men I’m with treat me with respect and the women have embraced me as a friend, as a sister even. I can’t tell you what that means to me. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’d heard of Jesus weeks before he turned up in our city. He’s been preaching and teaching in the region for a year or so and he’s widely thought to be… well what exactly? That’s disputed. A rabbi obviously; no-one argues about that, because he teaches with such authority. Most people also regard him as a prophet because he’s not afraid to challenge authority or defy convention. That’s not normal for rabbis, at least round here. But to me, he’s more than a prophet. And here’s why.
The day Jesus came to our city, there was great excitement. People flocked to hear him in the synagogue, to which I of course couldn’t go. To be honest, I don’t usually have any desire to go where I’m not wanted; but that day I felt left out. You see, Jesus has a nickname. He’s called ‘the Friend of Sinners’. He eats with tax collectors and touches lepers, which most religious leaders won’t do. That intrigued me and I did want to see him.
Then I heard he was eating that night at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Simon more or less runs the synagogue. He’s the most devout religious leader in the city. And he’s rich enough to lay on a feast. Plus his house is big enough to hold a crowd -- and loads of people would be there. The great and the good would be invited; but in our culture, at big banquets, the door is left open so neighbours can just turn up and sit around the edge of the room, listening to the chatter and soaking up the atmosphere. So I decided to go. I knew I’d not be very welcome. But I also knew it wouldn’t be easy for them to throw me out. This way, I’d at least get to see Jesus and maybe hear him too.
Then I had a mad idea. I was thinking about that nickname, ‘Friend of Sinners’, and how weird it is for a holy man. There has to be some danger, surely, that Jesus will be misunderstood and that because of the company he keeps, he will be dismissed as a sinner himself. I’m not a religious person and I don’t claim to know about these things, but to take that sort of risk seems like the mark of a true prophet. So I got this urge to do something for Jesus, to thank him, to let him know that his stance matters. But what do you do for a prophet? Well, in our tradition, you anoint him. Sometimes an idea hits you which leaves you no real choice: as soon as you think of it, you know you have to do it.
I had some perfumed oil. In my line of work, I needed it. I laughed out loud when I realised I was planning to anoint a holy man with oil I’d bought with um… immoral earnings. It seemed fitting somehow for a 'Friend of Sinners'.
I waited until I knew the meal would be in full swing. I could hear the noise of the dinner two streets away. Once or twice I nearly turned back. But then there I was, at the door of the house: on the outside, looking in, as ever. I waited a second to get my bearings, scanning the room as I leaned against the doorframe. It wasn’t hard to work out which was Jesus: he was immediately on Simon’s right hand side, and he was speaking.
It would have been so easy just to stand there and listen, but I knew that if I didn’t act at once I wouldn’t act at all; so I crossed the room. The murmuring, as people caught sight of me, was predictable. The hubbub grew as they realised I was approaching Jesus; that was predictable too. What I hadn’t anticipated was how hard it would be to get to Jesus’ head. I knew the guests would be reclining, heads towards the table, feet stretched out behind. But the dinner guests were packed together so tightly that short of climbing over a forest of legs, I couldn’t get near Jesus’ head. I ended up stranded a bit helplessly at his feet. I was feeling a bit foolish about that, and in my embarrassment, I couldn’t even get the stopper out of the perfume bottle. And I panicked. I’d so wanted to do this. It’d seemed important to do it. But now I felt I’d made a mess of it, like I’d made a mess of my life. So I burst into tears. Floods of tears. Great rivers of tears streaming down my face, and falling on his feet. At which point I lost all my inhibitions. If I had a reputation as a loose woman before that moment, I had it twice over afterwards. On impulse, I let down my hair (at which there was an audible gasp, which I can still hear in my head, because we don’t do that in our culture, not outside the bedroom). Simon actually flinched. I saw him draw back and wince, as if my actions were physically hurting him. I fell to my knees and – I know this sounds silly – started trying to dry Jesus’ feet with my hair and then I was kissing his feet, which I probably shouldn’t have done, but I did, and then I remembered the oil, and I poured that on his feet as well. And the most wonderful thing was: Jesus didn’t flinch.
As you can imagine, by then all conversation had stopped. Everyone else was in complete silence. They were all waiting, I was waiting, for what Jesus would say. I remember thinking, now we’ll find out if he’s a 'Friend of Sinners' or not. If I’ve got this wrong, I’ll have to leave the city for good. Jesus must have rumbled my reputation. He’ll have read it in the faces of the other guests the moment I entered the room. I had meant to anoint him with dignity but now I’ve gone and acted with such abandon. If Jesus rejects me, I was thinking, I’ll never live it down.
But he didn’t reject me. He told off Simon. It took a moment or two for me to realise that’s what was going on, but by the end it was dead clear. Jesus compared me with Simon, and applauded me.
In all, Jesus spoke five times. I can remember every word. First, he turned to his host and said, ‘Simon, I want to say something to you’. That was odd in itself. There we were, waiting for Jesus to pass judgment on me, and he just got our attention by telling us he had something to say. By then my hopes were already rising. My gut instinct was that if Jesus was going to condemn me, he’d have done it at once. So when he said he wanted to speak to Simon, my heart began to pound in expectation.
In all, Jesus spoke five times. I can remember every word. First, he turned to his host and said, ‘Simon, I want to say something to you’. That was odd in itself. There we were, waiting for Jesus to pass judgment on me, and he just got our attention by telling us he had something to say. By then my hopes were already rising. My gut instinct was that if Jesus was going to condemn me, he’d have done it at once. So when he said he wanted to speak to Simon, my heart began to pound in expectation.
The second thing he did was tell a story. I think I knew where the story was going before Simon. It was a story about two debtors. No; really it was about an unlikely debt collector who freely forgave two debtors, simply because they couldn’t pay. One owed about two months’ wages and the other nearly two years’. I knew at once which one was me. ‘When the creditor cancelled the two debts’, Jesus asked Simon, ‘which one loved him more?’. Simon didn’t answer very confidently; but we all knew it must be the one with the greater debt.
When Jesus spoke a third time, you could have heard a pin drop. He started to compare Simon’s behaviour with mine. I was still kneeling there, not daring to look up, still clinging onto his feet. Three times, Jesus pointed out the meanness of Simon’s welcome, and each time he drew attention to something I had done. ‘You gave me no water for a footbath, but she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair; you gave me no kiss of greeting, but she’s not stopped smothering my feet with her kisses; you gave me no olive oil for my head and face, but she has anointed my feet with her perfume. Why?’, he asked, ‘In her case, it’s because she senses her sins are forgiven: this great outpouring of hers is an outpouring of love and thankfulness. This is an act which is only possible for those who have felt the touch of God’s forgiveness. But someone who has never known that forgiveness (or thinks they have no need of forgiveness), shows little love and still less thankfulness’. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.
And then Jesus spoke to me. Twice actually. Until then he’d been speaking about me, gesturing at me. Usually I resent being treated as an object. But this was already different, and then, as I say, he did speak to me. He addressed me personally, tenderly. First, he said the thing I most needed to hear in all the world, and he said it for all the world to hear: ‘Your sins are forgiven’. That startled everyone; me included. That’s when they began asking ‘Who is this?’. A few meant, ‘Who is this, who seems so at ease even declaring God’s forgiveness?’, but others meant ‘Who does he think he is, claiming to forgive sins? That's God's job’.
Now here’s a funny thing. I looked up at this point. I was pretty sure I’d see Simon grabbing the opportunity to reassert himself by ridiculing Jesus’ right to declare forgiveness. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t looking outraged at all – just thoughtful.
And then Jesus spoke again. To me, a second time. ‘Your faith’, he said, ‘has saved you. Go in peace’. I don’t know much about faith. But I do know this: Jesus has set me free to become the person I was created to be – by accepting my tears and my kisses, by reading my heart and blessing what he read there, by telling me I was forgiven, he set me free. He said my faith saved me. I say, he saved me. Is he a rabbi? No question. A prophet? Surely. But to me, he’s now my Saviour.
One last thing. My story doesn’t end there. You see, I’ve joined his community. There are about twenty of us on the road with him. I was right in a way that anointing Jesus would require me to leave my city. But I was wrong to think I’d leave because I could never again belong. In fact I’ve left because I’ve now found a community where I fully belong and am completely accepted.
The extraordinary thing is, it’s a mixed group, men and women. On the road, travelling together. And the contribution of the women is valued. A few of us are actually using our wealth (me now included) to provide for Jesus and the Twelve. He calls us (the women) his partners, co-workers with him in the mission to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom. He says we minister to him. After what I’ve been used to, it’s a bit of a shock to be in a community where women are taken seriously and treated as equals. Following Jesus is going to be like that, I reckon: pretty much constantly a bit of a shock. I’m not naïve. I know there will be dark days in times to come; but the vision of the coming kingdom of God, of a day when love will finally drive out fear, when women and men, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile will feast together at God’s eternal banquet, well that’s a cause to live and die for. For that, I’ll follow my Saviour come what may. I wouldn’t do it for a rabbi. I wouldn’t even do it for a prophet. But for a Saviour… Well, wouldn’t you?
