Posted by The WORD in other words (2018) by Fr Joseph Suson SVD – University of San Carlos, Cebu City
Thursday 24th Week in Ordinary Time
The scene began when a Pharisee bade Jesus to dinner. The dinner setting introduced the sinful woman who violated social taboos. Firstly, the woman arrived at a dinner attended mostly by males. In a gender-segregated, male-dominated society, the ancient world expected no decent woman to cross this borderline like she did.
Secondly, the woman was a known public sinner, a prostitute. The Pharisees fostered a spirituality of exclusion and quarantine (Leviticus 11:45-46), extolling the people to keep themselves holy for God was holy. Holiness meant uniqueness, unrestricted from the pollution of sin and the profane.
However, this woman dared to touch Jesus, making him profane.The woman, a public sinner, broke these taboos to make a public exhibition of her repentance. She sobbed on the feet of Jesus, wiped his feet with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with expensive perfume.
The woman in this Gospel episode made not only a public display of repentance but a public commitment to Jesus through her act of hospitality and service. She, like the other women in the Gospels, would follow Jesus to Jerusalem and to his death.
Jesus compared the Pharisee’s seeming lack of hospitality (a deliberate act of hostility) to the woman’s show of repentance. In effect, he rejected the Pharisees’ fellowship and accepted that of the woman.
She would be allowed into the Kingdom, because her sins were forgiven. She demonstrated the type of love that was the hallmark of the Kingdom. She willingly washed the feet of the Master to show she was his servant. She kissed them as a sign of her fellowship with him. She anointed them in preparation for his death and resurrection.
Such actions caused scandal, but they showed her faith and her salvation.
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