The material is not how we judge [Luke 7]

Well, there is not many ways to deal with this one. The woman who was abased at Jesus feet was a prostitute. Her job, her way of live, was sinful, and she was shut out of usual society.

There is no part of this text that approves of sex work, or says that she is not responsible for her actions. What we see here is repentance. Abasement. She is taking precious cosmetics and applying them to callused feet. Her hair, which she is quite aware is part of her marketing and attractiveness, she is using as a rag. This whore gives a wonderful display of what it is to repent, what it is to deal with the shame in her life.

And she is the one who leaves the room forgiven.

It is far more interesting to think about the risks for the theologian. He is the one who was accounted righteous by society. He is the one who judged the woman: and he is reminded that, be, too, is a sinner. But do not be deceived. This man was aligning himself to Christ: he was not opposed to him; he was practicing hospitality. Writing a damnation of him is as foolish as writhing a paen to the whore.

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

“A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward 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 wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss 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 are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at 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.”
(Luke 7:36-50 ESV)

One of the troubles for the commentators is that you cannot reduce the people Jesus interacted with into cartoon people: the saints and the sinners, neatly aligned. Yes, I know that we will be judged. But at that judgment we will all be found wanting: it is not our works or devotions that lead to our justification, but the blood of CHrist. It is Christ alone who has the authority to tell the whore her faith has saved her: go in peace.

This authority Christ gave to the church, and that mercy is the job of the church to proclaim. It is greater than any social programme or engineering development (though these things are good and proper). If we lose this we lose the gospel, and place our roots and security not on the eternal but the ephemeral, to our peril. Mundabor (who is very much a Catholic of the old school) sees this anti-christian concentration on the material, not the eternal in his Bishop, in my view correctly.

Francis wants you to forget God, and to substitute Him with a purely earthly religion of social justice – with the thinnest varnish of spirituality for added effect – for the sake of being adored by the stupid masses as he avoids the duty of being, actually, a Pope.

The attack to the Catholic religion happens along three main lines: the environment, the social justice issues, and the “mercy” drive.

With the first he wants you to believe that men could, in fact, destroy the earth (a blasphemy, and typical of atheists) unless you put yourself in the hands of Big Government (a Socialist mainstay). With the second, he pushes the hatred of the poor against the rich (not his rich friends; the others) and again directs you to forget God and focus on Socialist ideals. With the third, he encourages you to think that the Church, and actually the entire Catholic religion, is wrong and in need of being remade according to… Castro.

We cannot forget our place before God and the mercy of Christ. We cannot. For that is our only hope and our only ability or authority to say to another that Christ has forgiven them: go in peace.

And let us not judge by the material. What the whore did cost money, that ointment was not cheap. At another time Judas said that it should have been sold and given to the poor. But the act of devotion has a beauty in it which meant that the gospel writers added it, and she is being discussed two thousand years after the act. I do not begrudge the Papist their art and their better sung Masses; I regret that some of last centuries composers could not compose such because of the socialist regime they lived under. I love evensong and vespers… and Hillsong. If it good music and art, enjoy. If it cost previous generations a lot, note the devotion of their works.

For all we have now will return to dust. This world will not survive: it will pass. But in Christ, live is without end.