Guess who’s coming to dinner
There was an American film, released in 1967, Guess who’s coming to dinner… It starred Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn as the parents of a girl who brings home her new fiancé, a black doctor, played by Sidney Poitier, for a dinner party. The Poitier character’s parents also come, not realising that his fiancée is white. The whole thing deals with issues of race and the assumptions made by the various parties. It was controversial at the time, because inter-racial marriage was still illegal in 17 American states…
Luke’s gospel has some good insights into the kinds of people Jesus mixed with, and those with whom he expresses solidarity. And in Luke chapter 7, we find this story about a dinner party.
Jesus has been invited by a Pharisee named Simon, to have dinner at his house. And so, at this dinner party, they’re probably sitting round a low table, reclining, with their feet behind them. Much like we might sit round a picnic blanket. This was the custom.
Luke says that “a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that [Jesus] was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment…” (Luke 7:37) I think calling her a sinner is Luke’s way of saying she was a prostitute. What is interesting to me is that she knows, or even cares to know, that Jesus is here. Anyway, she bursts in on this scene with her alabaster jar of perfume – probably an essential item for a prostitute in Palestine. And she stands, or maybe kneels, behind Jesus, at his feet, weeping. And she washes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. She kisses them, and anoints them with her ointment.
Assumptions
This commotion prompts mutterings of disapproval from Simon, the Pharisee host – and maybe others there too. Simon says to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner…” (Luke 7:39).
This line gives away a lot of assumptions that Simon has. First, he assumes that Jesus is thought to be a prophet, but is sceptical about this. Second, he assumes that Jesus doesn’t know who or what kind of woman she is. And third, he assumes that Jesus would be bothered…
Of course, as Simon sees it, Jesus should be bothered. This is a sinful woman – for people like Simon, that puts her in two of the worst categories. Good Jews like Jesus should steer well clear of people like this. Simon probably invited Jesus because he was a visiting rabbi – in verse 40 he calls him “teacher”, which is rabbi – and this usually merited dinner invitations. So as a rabbi, Jesus shouldn’t be mixing with the local riff-raff.
Simon assumed that this sinful woman was not in the in-crowd. She’s not good enough to sit at the table with Jesus, at the top table of the religious… She’s not blessed, like Simon, in God’s good books… She’s not good enough to touch what God has and what God is doing…
Well, they say you should never assume…
Kisses
We could spend a long time looking at this whole incident, thinking about God’s grace, and forgiveness in Jesus, and much more. But there’s one thing I’d like us to think about: she kissed his feet. The woman washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, and dries them with her hair, and then she kisses them.
I wonder if, in fact, this woman who is supposed to be on the outside of God’s stuff, looking in, from a distance – I wonder if, in actual fact, she understands it all better than Simon and those like him. Maybe this poor, outcast, sinful woman sees what’s really going on here. Maybe she kisses Jesus’ feet because they’re beautiful…
Centuries before this episode, God’s people in exile, in Babylon, were comforted by these words of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 52:7
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”
Those exiles were longing to see the feet of the one who was going to tell them it was all over. There was peace, salvation, it’s good news! They were desperate to see this messenger, who would tell them and prove that their God did indeed reign. Because it looked like he didn’t. It looked like God wasn’t on their side, or in control. They needed to hear this message, and to see the feet, the beautiful feet, on the mountains of the one bringing this good news…
Sign language
In the Old Testament, some of the prophets were commanded to perform, or to go and witness, ‘sign-acts’: these were symbolic actions that were used to make a point – like Jeremiah going to the potter’s house and watching the potter at work. This was a symbol of God being able to mould His people Israel, so that when they went wrong, like the clay on the wheel, he could re-shape them…
Well, I wonder if this incident here is kind of a sign-act. I wonder if this outcast, sinful woman, is somehow drawing attention to this passage from Isaiah. Maybe she knew that line, about the beautiful feet, and wanted to come and acknowledge that Jesus is the one who comes announcing peace, who brings salvation, and good news, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns…” Maybe she didn’t know that line from Isaiah, but she certainly knows that Jesus fulfils it.
Jesus started his public life with the proclamation that “the kingdom of God has come near (or, is at hand)” (Mark 1:15). In other words, Jesus announced, “Your God reigns…” To all those who worshipped or trusted in the God of Israel, Jesus made clear in his words and his deeds, that their God reigns, his kingdom was at hand – reach out, you can touch it, you can see and hear and feel what God is doing… That’s what Jesus is about.
And so this woman recognises, perhaps for the first time, that her God reigns. She’s included in what God is doing. She is welcome. She’s invited. Jesus has shown her that she can be a part of God’s kingdom, even though she’s a mess.
The passage in Isaiah goes on to say, in verse 9: “Break forth into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem…” Those words originally referred to very literal ruins of Jerusalem – Jerusalem had been flattened by the Babylonians. And there were two lots of outcasts in the whole piece – there were the exiles, who were taken away to Babylon, and there were the not-good-enoughs, who were left behind in the rubble. They were seen as not worth taking, or not threatening… All these people wanted comfort, they wanted God to put things right. They wanted salvation. And God was going to do it.
And here, this woman is a ruin of Jerusalem. She’s a not-good-enough. She’s an outcast. She’s been cast into the rubble, left there. She’s been degraded. Just an aside, thatI don’t think anyone ever wants to be a prostitute – they usually end up there through bad circumstances and bad choices.
But no longer is this woman an outcast. No longer is she a ruin. Because Jesus comes announcing peace, bringing good news, announcing salvation, saying to Zion – to her – “Your God reigns!” The God she knew was there, but wasn’t allowed to believe was on her side. The God she always wanted to believe in, but never felt good enough. The God she had hoped would one day reach out to her and lift her and save her from the mess she was in… Her God reigns. That’s what Jesus came to show and to tell.
That’s good news, isn’t it? That’s the gospel. If the gospel isn’t good news for everyone, it isn’t good news. The heart of that good news is that
Our God reigns.
Your God reigns.
Their God reigns.
God reigns.
Let’s kneel before this God, to whom we come in Jesus, and worship him, and have our assumptions challenged, and be restored…
No comments:
Post a Comment