11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 12th June 2016)
Every saint has a past while every sinner has the promise of a glorious future – (Luke 7:36 – 8:3)
The Gospel scene this Sunday speaks of a meal in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Into the room walks a woman ‘who had a bad name in the town’. Simon is shocked, firstly that she would dare turn up, never-mind that she would then touch, weep over, kiss and anoint the feet of Jesus. Since Jesus seems to not even flinch for the slightest moment, Simon concludes that he couldn’t be all that he is supposed to be – allowing a sinner to touch him like that surely meant that he couldn’t be a prophet, much less the Messiah.
Simon knew this woman’s reputation well, it seems. Whatever her past transgressions, her name was dirt in that town and people like Simon were unlikely to let her forget it. How sad it is that this woman’s past mistakes and sins seem destined to lock her into a future where she is shunned, condemned and probably treated very badly in the locality.
Jesus sees the judgment that lies in Simon’s heart and he sees the pain that this woman’s past sins cause her in the present. So he corrects Simon and reinforces for this unfortunate woman that God’s mercy can and does restore, heal and transform. Jesus is undisturbed by the touch of this repentant sinner because it is precisely for that reason that he came among us. He came so that we could lay our sins at his feet and with repentant hearts (and perhaps at times tear-filled eyes) we could touch our Saviour and draw from him the merciful love of God that saves.
We believe in the mighty merciful love of God. Christianity would not be Christianity if at any stage we came to the conclusion that sin is greater than God’s mercy – that our sin or the sin of someone else is too big for the mercy of Jesus to deal with. If he or she repents the greatest sinner of all time can, by the grace and mercy of God become a great saint – as many of the great saints we venerate prove. But the question is: Do I really believe that? Many do not – they know they have a Saviour but they fail to grasp, to really believe, how good and merciful he really is. As Pope Francis has taught: “Believing means entrusting oneself to a merciful love which always accepts and pardons, which sustains and directs our lives, and which shows its power by its ability to make straight the crooked lines of our history.” (Lumen Fidei 13)
All of us have crooked lines in our past. With the exception of Our Blessed Lady, every saint has had a past that was at some stage less than glorious, and every sinner, even the worst sinner, while there is still life in him or her, has the promise of a glorious future if he or she but come humbly to lay their sins at the feet of Christ. St. Augustine warns about the attitude of Simon who looks upon the past sins of this woman with disdain and even disgust. He tells us not look down on those who have been rescued from the pit of sin – for the grace which drew them from that pit is the same grace which prevented you from falling into it.
Never must we consign anyone, ourselves included, to the scrapheap. We are all works in progress and God is not finished with any of us yet. As Pope Francis has said: “God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow.” (August 2013)
Fr. Philip Kemmy