Chrism Eucharist 2008

11.00 a.m. Cathedral

Gospel: Luke 7:36-50

If I were asked which of the four gospels I would take to a desert island, I would reply, Luke every day, and twice on Sundays. So it’s a special pleasure, in a year devoted to Matthew, that this morning’s gospel comes from Luke, and is unique to him. It bears, too, all the marks of Luke. It is about forgiveness (Jesus forgives the penitent thief at the crucifixion). It is about a meal (Luke likes his food, from placing the new-born Jesus in a manger to the Emmaus resurrection-appearance). It is about a woman (Luke likes to bring in women – think of the story of Martha and Mary). And it is about reversal of conventional values (think of the Good Samaritan, and the way the priest and the Levite ignored the demands of compassion to the man beaten up on his way to Jericho).

Today’s gospel, moreover, brings out Luke’s genius as a story-teller, to the extent that we feel as if we are there. John would have painted a great icon. Matthew would have made Jesus’ teaching central, and Mark would undoubtedly have taken an opportunity to show Jesus as enigmatically as possible, with the disciples unable to understand him – yet again. But it’s different with this passage, because we have no other version with which to compare it. Jesus is invited to a meal by a Pharisee, and others are present as well; and along comes a sinful woman, who washes his feet with her tears and anoints him, as a sign of hospitality, even though she is not the host. The conversation that follows is all about the woman, and what she is doing, not the table-talk of the invited guests. And it ends with the woman’s sins declared forgiven.

Because Luke makes us so easily feel part of the scene, the question has to be asked, with whom do we identify ourselves? Is it Simon, the Pharisee? Is it the group of folk at table witnessing the scene? Or is it the sinful woman? Before we rush to the woman, let’s look at the other two possibilities. Simon  seems, unusually, to be a good sort of Pharisee. He’s not exactly the company Jesus keeps at meal-time. So far, it’s been tax-collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees have moaned about that enough as it is. Simon – whom we don’t hear about again – is a devout man, who is ready to receive Jesus. Understandably, he doesn’t like the female intruder, nor what she’s doing. And because he already has some respect for Jesus, and thinks to himself that as a prophet he ought to know what she really is, the dining scene begins to fall apart, especially when Jesus tells the short parable about the cancelling of debts.

Then there is the group of people who make up the other guests. We don’t hear of them until the very end, when they marvel at the fact that Jesus forgives sins, openly, publicly, and in relation to questionable company. They watch. They witness. And they comment, when the action is over. It’s a convenient stance to take with Jesus. Many people, I suspect, fit into that category, and they always have. Don’t commit yourself, don’t get too involved, but do make sure that you know what’s going on, because otherwise you might miss out on something.

And of course, we come to the woman. Unlike the host, Simon, she is anonymous. Gregory the Great misled everyone by identifying her with Mary Magdalene, so that when her feast came along a few centuries later, this passage was read as the gospel for the day; but that’s been put right in recent years. She is anonymous, even though bishops, and popes as well, don’t like anonymity, especially if they’re into control! There has, moreover, been a rush to define her as a prostitute – another example of the Church’s prurient obsession with sex. But just as we don’t know her name, so we have no idea of what her many sins were. Yet by taking over as the host, and washing Jesus’ feet, not from a bowl of water, but with her own welled-up tears, she reverses the entire situation. And by anointing him, she makes another gesture of welcome. Both actions, the one underlining the other, turn all the attention away from the meal, the host, and the other guests.

We may well be Simon the host, set in our religious attitudes, even if ready to look outwards at something new, like this Jesus of Nazareth. We may well be the other dinner guests, watching, hedging our bets, and unready to say anything until all is revealed. But, of course, the person we are supposed to identify with is the sinful woman, in all her anonymity. We are there because we want to follow him, and we are only too aware of our own weakness. We bring our tears, tears both of penitence and of love, perhaps saved up for a very long time; and we bring our oils, kept for a really special occasion. We find ourselves cast in the role of a woman, who has somehow very publicly got things badly wrong. So by coming here, we are taking a very big step indeed.

The effect of all this hardly bears thinking about. It is as if this gospel is a massive interruption to our annual Chrism eucharist, and it, too, begins to fall apart. But the interruption is worth pondering, as it turns us from named Pharisee, however open-minded, through non-committal fellow-guest, into anonymous sinner, who has the humility to weep at Jesus’ feet – and know her sins, many as they are, to be forgiven. She is accepted after all.

So be it! So be ourselves. So be the oils we bring for blessing, So be the ministries, of bishop, presbyter, deacon, reader, musician, youth leader or whatever,  to which we recommit ourselves, as we look ahead to what God is saying through all the changes that surround us, and the important decisions that will have to be faced.

So be the grace, mercy and peace, which come from God alone!

+ Kenneth Portsmouth