This weekend, we celebrate
Fathers’ Day. This is the day set aside
for children of all ages to say thank you in some special way to their
fathers. Today is not only about
celebrating our birth fathers, but also our grandfathers, our uncles, our
godfathers, even our brothers - all the men of faith that we know. Today gives us a chance to say thank you to
all those men who teach us by word and example, the lessons of life, of faith
and of love.
As we think of our earthly
fathers, and the men who walk the path of our lives with us, we also think
today with gratitude to God for the gift of faith that has been shared with
us. God is the one who has first loved
us and invited us to enter into a relationship of friendship, trust and
confidence with him. The gospel passage
we heard today gives us a glimpse at the ways in which our God is willing to
reach out to us, to meet us where we are and to model for us the forgiveness
that is necessary in order to fully appreciate the gift of love.
Jesus, the Son of God,
accepted an invitation to share a meal with one of the Pharisees – the keepers
of the law. The Pharisees were known to
keep the laws of Judaism strictly, but when we keep laws too strictly,
sometimes we get more preoccupied with the observance of the law, and forget to
concentrate on the reasons for the laws.
Saint Luke tells us that a woman …
who was a sinner came into the house and found Jesus. Whereas the Pharisee who owned the house
might have been more concerned about how she managed to get through the door,
Jesus was more concerned with allowing her to tell her story. How often do we make ourselves vulnerable
enough to allow others to share their stories with us? By reaching out to the woman in this way,
Jesus teaches us that we must be willing at times to put aside our own egoism,
and instead make room for others to tell their stories.
Jesus had every right to tell
the woman to leave. Her reputation was
well known, and her mere presence would have been enough according to Jewish
law to defile him, to make him impure – but Jesus endeared himself by the mere
fact that he never allowed the law to limit his ability to demonstrate mercy
and forgiveness. He said nothing as the
woman wept, as she washed his feet with
her tears, presumably pleading even without words to be forgiven, and even
as she dried his feet with her hair – perhaps the only material she had at her
disposition. He said nothing as she
covered his feet with kisses, a sign of her belief that this man was indeed
holy, and that he had it within his power to see her not as an object but as a
person. He watched silently, and allowed
her to anoint his feet with very expensive ointment, without questioning where
she had gotten so precious a substance.
Many times in the gospel, Jesus encountered people, in all kinds of
situations, and he always accepted them, rarely judged them, but challenged
them to change their ways. This was no
exception. Has Jesus ever encountered us
in situations which we know are imperfect? He is always gentle and caring, especially
when we have been wounded, but he always invites us to return to wholeness.
In order to return to
wholeness, we must first recognize the error of our ways, and trust that we can
be forgiven. The great King David
experienced the Lord’s forgiveness.
Saint Paul spoke eloquently about the power of faith in his life, and
how he had come to believe in the love of Christ for him because he too had
experienced forgiveness. Jesus taught a
valuable lesson to the Pharisee and to the others who had been invited to dinner
that night by modeling the power of forgiveness. When they challenged his choice to allow the
woman to get so close to him, he used that moment in order to teach them that
God’s capacity for forgiveness is infinite.
We too must pray for one another, that each day we might outdo one
another in our willingness to forgive, but more than this, we must not be
afraid to admit our wrong-doings, especially when they have harmed
another. We must be willing to wash one
another’s feet, bathing them with compassion if not with our tears, and we must
be willing to dry them tenderly with our willingness to restore peace,
especially in situations where to do otherwise would cause or perpetuate harm. Because they had experienced the merciful
heart of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Herod’s steward Chuza and Suzanna, and many
others chose to follow Jesus. How have
we experienced the mercy of God? Let us
give thanks today for men and women of faith who have been examples of
compassion and forgiveness for us, and having known Christ’s forgiveness, let
us also choose to follow in his footsteps.
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