Becoming Simon the Pharasee

Reference Luke 7:36-50

I have everything to be proud of really. Brought up in a prominent family who could afford me the privilege to attend school so that I might become a master of the law, and really, I am one of the greatest in our town. I am the leader of Torah in our little community and I am always curious to discovering more about the God of my forefathers.

Lately a new name has come up in religious circles. A man who gives teaching unlike I have ever heard, not that I have heard him personally, of course, but I have heard his talk from the people and the other scholars and I have discussed what we have heard. We've also heard that he can heal. I've never seen it, but a man who causes this much interest is at least worth a dinner, right?

I invited him to my table last night. It caused quite a stir in my house. I approached him in the midst of the crowd that was following him and asked if he had eaten and if not if he would consider joining me at my house. His stare was piercing. He said nothing at first and just stared me in the eye, I think it was due to his soul piercing stare that I said the crowd that was following him was welcome as well. Normally I wouldn't invite some of the people he seemed to have around him, but I was intrigued and a little frightened by his look. I wanted to see what this man had to say, and more, none of the other pharisees had had him for dinner yet. He nodded, which I took as acceptance and led him and his followers up to my house.

I invited him in and gave him the seat of guest of honor. He sat and I had him immediately served. He was quite thin and poor looking. He ate without saying a word to me, only occasionally looking up at me with that stare. I could barely stand to continue eye contact, but I couldn't bare to look away. I was in awe. I felt as he looked at me that he saw more than my eyes staring back, I can't quite put it into words, but more importantly I needed to look back at him, he was a common teacher and I.... I am a scholar. I should not be stared down by a thin, uneducated man. But occasionally after his penetrating stare he would smile out of the corner of his mouth, but before I could ask him what humored him he had eaten another bite, and it is rude to ask a question while guests are eating.

A woman came in in the middle of the meal. It was a woman I have seen quite often, a common prostitute of the region. Her husband, a beloved member of our community passed away sometime ago and she has been prostituting herself ever since. She is pretty, I suppose, but she has shamed herself and the memory of her husband. It has been said that perhaps her husband died when he found her with another man, perhaps she was just a horrible wife, those are just what the other women of town say about her, but one cannot go by them, many of their husbands have been seduced by the who came into my house in the middle of dinner. If it had not been for my guest I would never had allowed her presence in my house. I am a pharisee.

She came in and stood at the back of the room. She did nothing but stand there for a long time, i think. Then at the end of the meal when the man went to leave she walked toward him. He had said nothing to me the whole meal, and now he was leaving. She approached him and stared right into his face. She had the look of a woman in love in her eyes, but she was crying quite intensely as well. He looked back at her as if he knew her, but why would this man know a common prostitute? She seemed to be trying to wipe her tears off her face with her hair and suddenly she realized they were getting on him. She gasped and bent down to wipe off tears that had landed on his feet with her hair. I sat up to continue to watch the ordeal. I couldn't believe he was allowing her to touch him! And it continued to progress! She began kissing his feet. They were filthy and dirty, I had not offered him to wash them before dining. He was dirty all over, why should I wash his feet when all the rest of him was a mess? But the situation in front of me became more disturbing. Who was this "teacher" who allowed any woman to come up and touch him, much less this woman? Then she took a flask of perfume from around her neck and poured it on his feet. Expensive perfume by the look and smell of it too. This man could not be a prophet. The people in the town must be wrong. A prophet would never let a woman such as her to touch him, Elijah would never have allowed a prostitute to touch him, and a prophet would know that she was a prostitute, in case he couldn't tell by the look of her.

Then he looked back at me. That piercing stare. And I stared back with a face of total calm, I did not want him to know how much I disapproved of his behavior. Murmurs had broken out around the hall about the ongoing situation. Then he spoke and the house fell completely silent. "Simon, I have something to say to you."
"Rabbi, say it." Finally, he spoke, by this time I had lost much respect for this man, but he was still looking into my eyes. No, he was looking beyond my eyes, i think. And that woman was still wiping his feet.
"There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One who owed five hundred denarii and another who owed fifty. And when they had nothing to repay him with he freely forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him more?"
What was this? A riddle? Was this man quizzing me? But I had heard that he taught like this, I heard he taught in riddles. "The one whom he forgave more, I suppose."
He stared at me for a while. I felt as though more than my answer was being examined in the silence. "You have rightly judged". Then he finally broke eye contact with me and looked down on the woman at his feet.
"Do you see this woman?" He paused. Of course I saw the woman. The woman causing a great disturbance in my house. Of course I saw that woman who was making a fool of herself at this man's feet. "You gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil but this woman has anointed my feet with perfume." I could do nothing but stare. Was this really happening? Was I, one of the greatest scholars in the region, being compared to a common whore and being compared as the lesser?
"Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." And he looked up at me again. As if he had proven his point.
He then picked up her head with his hand and said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
I was not the only one in shock at these words. Everyone in the hall gasped. Who is this man who believes he has the authority to forgive sins against YHWH? Still gazing into her eyes he said to her, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
He got up, nodded at me and left. All I could do was sit there puzzled. I mean who is this man that ate in my house?

Reviewing Old Mistakes

So today I was looking at a friend's old postings on an old joke site from high school. This stuff was posted almost three years ago. And it just made me remember so much about high school. So much that I don't really think of anymore. I think I forgot a lot about what my high school experience was really like. The awkwardness of being young and having these unexplainable emotions and ideas that no one would really confirm or deny. Wanting to be an adult, having the emotions of an adult without having the patience or wisdom to really be able to make good decisions. And having no one to lean on but others my own age with similar experiences. It was painful.... really.
There was so much going on in high school! People were constantly fighting and we were all questioning our worth and importance in this world. How do you answer those overwhelming concepts with no one to turn to but your peers? I am starting to become amazed that anyone really survives past high school.
Anyways, he was ranting and raving a bit about how he hated my decisions at the time. I never knew he had felt that way about my actions. He never said anything about it to me, so reading it today came as somewhat of a shock as to his anger over what had happened. To his defense, I did do the things he had said, to my defense I never knew I had made an error. So who is at fault? Well, I am feeling pretty badly over being a jerk and not knowing it, but the situation stops there. I am not the person I was at the time, I am not in the situation I was at the time and the world has drastically changed since then.
I think I will begin to post the situations in my life on this blog in hopes that through this I will see my mistakes clearly in hopes of not repeating the same mistake twice.
I am fallible. I will always mess up somewhere. I am not perfect, nor will I ever be. But I am called to follow hard after Christ. Jesus Christ. And while I am going to screw up along the way hopefully I can go to that person, ask their forgiveness and try again. I just wish I could have made right my actions against this man that I knew. Well, I suppose he and I are friends now, or at least he is not someone that hates me anymore, so I guess that he forgave me somewhere along the line.

I feel God laying Matthew 5:21-24 on my heart to end this post. His words are way more applicable and worthwhile than mine.
"21You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' 22But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."