The Nonsense of God

Luke 7: 36 - 8:3

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said 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.’ Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

One of the biggest challenges in the spiritual life is that God is not like us and we are continually trying to define him and form relationships with him based on common sense. How many times in your life have you heard, “Well, it’s just common sense,” or “Use your common sense”? Common sense is the understanding held by a majority of people and in many areas, common sense just makes…sense. The place where common sense often breaks down is in the spiritual life. In understanding the Lord, what we need to rely on is uncommon sense and quite often nonsense.

Let’s look at some of the world’s common sense. As a child, you learned that when you were polite, didn’t fight with your siblings, ate all your food and kept your room tidy, Mom and Dad were pleased with you. At school you learned that if you studied hard, did your homework and handed in assignments on time, the teacher was pleased with you and your parents as well as the teacher were even happier when you made high grades. In life in general, you learned that you should keep the speed limit, not steal, pay your bills, be honest and not hurt anyone. All this is common sense or what our society has deemed to be acceptable behavior necessary for a healthy society and the common sense is right.

Common sense in the spiritual life is good too, up to a point. Common sense helps individuals and communities, whether it’s families, parishes or the whole church, function in an orderly way.  The place where common sense breaks down is when we attempt to fit God into our common sense about love. When it comes to his love, he’s all nonsense. He doesn’t fit the mold. We are challenged to leave behind all common sense – otherwise we’ll never fully grasp how loved we are. 

  

It’s very easy to miss a key word in this week’s Gospel. It’s in verse 47 where Jesus says, “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.”   The word that makes all the difference is “hence” or, in modern language, “therefore”.

This woman is weeping, her tears anointing Jesus’ feet as she pours expensive ointment on them. This woman has come knowing already that she has been forgiven her many sins.  Jesus said that her sins, which were many, “have been forgiven” not “will be forgiven”.  How did she know that? Well, it wasn’t through common sense, that’s for sure. Common sense would have told her to stay away from that house. Common sense would have told her that as a sinful woman, most likely a prostitute, she was worthy of being stoned or, at the very least, scorned, judged and thrown out. That was the religious common sense of the Jewish society in those days. We don’t know if she entered that house in fear and trembling knowing the kind of reception common sense almost guaranteed she would receive from the Pharisee. However, something had penetrated common sense. It was the nonsense of God. She came in knowing that Jesus had forgiven her. She came with the uncommon sense that she was a beautiful beloved child of God. She came in love knowing she was loved and that Jesus was the full manifestation of the nonsense of God.

Common sense would have us read that sentence as “her many sins have been forgiven because she has shown great love”. There is a very subtle difference but it’s one that keeps us from the nonsense of God. We interpret it to mean that Jesus pronounced her sins forgiven because she had come in and anointed his feet with tears and ointment. This makes sense to us because of all our natural common sense. If I am good for Jesus, he will forgive my sins and love me. Certainly, we are called to express awareness of and repentance for our sins but in this gospel, the woman had already come face to face with her own weakness and had already encountered the forgiveness of God. She was ministering to Jesus in pure love, not because she wanted to earn his love but because she could not keep her gratitude ‘sensible’.

The nonsense of God is that we are completely and utterly loved in spite of all that is broken within us, all the times we fail and react in unhealthy ways and all the poor judgments we have made in our lives. We can do absolutely nothing to make ourselves more loved. The act of repentance is not so that God will love us more, it is so that we can move past our own walls, be healed of our inner distortions and be freed from our blindness so that we can open ourselves to transformation; it is so we can find our True Selves, see and experience his inconceivably wild love and fall in love with him in return.

The woman came into the Pharisee’s home with her ointment and tears because she had fallen in love with God, not in order to make God love her. She wasn’t looking for a pat on the head, a high religious grade or a certificate of merit. She came in knowing that she had been forgiven much and though she had very little to offer in return, she offered what she had: overwhelming gratitude, tears of love and fragrant ointment. Perhaps she was inspired by Song of Songs 1:3, where the beloved said, “Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your Name is like ointment poured out; therefore (hence) the maidens love you.”

In our world, common sense tells us we need to do and accomplish in order to earn and deserve anything.

God is not like us.

Thank God!