“I Have Something to Say to You”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus is no stranger to sinners. He is surrounded by them, and He knows it. In fact, He knows every sin of everyone He meets, before a person even opens his mouth. Jesus eats with sinners, touches sinners, worships with sinners, lives with sinners, and dies with sinners.

In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus eats with sinners. Not just the woman, whom tradition identifies as a prostitute, but also the Pharisee who thinks he lives a more holy life than Jesus. Sinners are all around, and Jesus deals with each sort in turn. The same treatment will not apply to both the woman and Simon the Pharisee.

The woman, whom the Church has traditionally identified as Mary Magdalene, is a sinner of the worst kind, at least in the eyes of her community. She lives in open, manifest sin. Prostitution is not something one does secretly, after all. One must attract business to ply the trade. She is a woman of ill-repute, some of which is probably deserved. She probably bears the marks of her trade – well-coiffed hair, gilded and painted face, plentiful jewelry. When she walks through town, she is a marked woman, known for what she is and scorned because of it. She might as well be wearing a scarlet letter, for as much ability as she has to live privately.

Fear and Mercy

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Lord came into this world to lay down His life as a sacrifice. But He seems to get distracted, almost impatient, along the way. Consider today's Gospel lesson – the widow in Nain. Our Lord knows the boy will be raised on the last day and the widow's grief will come to an end. But when He sees her sorrow, perhaps thinking also of His own mother, He is moved by compassion. He acts right then.

It is the same with all His miracles. None of them are planned. All of them are spontaneous. All of them, even the withering of the fig tree, come from Our Lord's compassion and serve to re-order creation.

The miracle in Nain fills the people with fear. Then, immediately, they glorify God. And rightly so. Our Lord's compassion should scare you. Because it is holy, pure, and focused. It is hard for sinners, at first glance, to distinguish it from His wrath. It is more absolute, more solid, more unbending than anything of earth. Nothing of the Lord is cotton balls and marshmallows. Even His mercy is severe.

Who is Worthy?

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Who is worthy to receive the gifts of God? Who is worthy to receive anything at all from God, other than wrath and condemnation? That is the question today's text sets before us.

In Capernaum, there was a centurion – a commander in the Roman army – who had a slave who was highly valued by him. This centurion was wealthy enough to have a well-filled household. He probably was also a God-Fearer, a Gentile convert to Judaism – or at least one who had heard the Torah and was what we might call a catechumen. After all, he was well enough disposed toward the Jews to build for them a synagogue. This man was respected enough by the elders of the synagogue that they would go to Jesus and intercede for the centurion on behalf of the valued slave.