But
here's the problem with the ways that we continue to learn how to say
sorry in our culture. There is a group of people who are conditioned
and told over and over that they need to apologize for the actions
that someone has done to them. Women are both culturally and
statistically known for saying sorry more often than men; a
psychological study that asked participants to record when they heard
sorry reports that 75% of the apologies were spoken by women (Holmes,
1989). If we were to set ourselves back into the preschool context,
it seems absurd for the person who was pushed down to say sorry to
the person who pushed them. This is the reality of living in a
culture that continues to place blame on women for actions of
violence and immorality. Don't agree? Don't believe that women are
type-casted as the ones in need of forgiveness? Let's take a look at
our Gospel text chosen to center God's word for us this week.
We hear
about a woman who comes to be with Jesus while he is in the middle of
having dinner with an esteemed Jewish person who strictly holds
purity laws, or a Pharisee. This woman is described in the version
we read today as a woman who is a sinner.
This
isn't a clear description for me, so I read through many translations
of this text and found other ways that people have described this
unnamed woman: someone who is known as a sinner, an especially wicked
woman, a sinful woman, an immoral woman, someone who lived a sinful
life, a bad woman, the town harlot, a notorious woman of ill repute,
one with a reputation, a woman of the streets, a prostitute. Sigh.
This exhaustive list varies from speaking about how this
woman is known and spoken of alongside a reputation, to her entire
being shrouded in sinfulness, to this woman being called a
prostitute. We don't know what these sins look like or even if she
committed them; what we hear is that this woman was known for sins.
Saying these many words already makes me feel that heavy weight of
shame and sin that must have been burdening this woman; the story of
sin was the identity that was placed on her shoulders.
There
are many scholars who focus in on this woman being covered in
sinfulness and speak of this woman as a prostitute in deep need of
the heavy sins weighing her down being forgiven by God. This is a
story that we have heard over and over again, because it's the one
that our culture tells us is truth. Women are given the reputation
and the label of sinner because women are placed at fault for the
culture of violence that says that women's bodies are objects. There
is no evidence that this unnamed woman is a prostitute. The only
evidence that we are given is this weeping woman who comes to Jesus
and lovingly washes and dries his feet, anointing him with ointment.
I've
heard this story before; the one where we ask women to say sorry for
immoral actions without even mentioning that sex is an act that takes
two people and prostitution is possible because men are buying a
woman's body as a commodity. This is the story that I cannot and
will not proclaim. Because that description of the unnamed woman as
a sinner? We don't need to buy into this story because there is no
biblical evidence for this unnamed woman to be an immoral person who
is a prostitute. I refuse to
continue to tell a story that asks for the person who got pushed down
for ask forgiveness. Us as hearers of this Gospel do not need that
story; we are hungry for the grace of God that loves us for who we
are and points to the ways our perspective on world and Scripture can
be distorted. Today we see that we must tell our own
stories or they will be written for us.
Today I
hear a story of a woman who shows gratitude for the love that Jesus
displays to all people, especially those that society would not
touch. I see a woman weeping; her tears could be ones of pain, or
joy, or gratefulness. I see a person whose tears are welcomed; I see
a person who spreads ointment on her Teacher with care. I see a
person who goes out of her way to provide hospitality for someone who
sees her for who she is: a beloved child of God. I see a woman whose
heavy burden of stories told about her are lifted off her weary
shoulders by Jesus' forgiving words. Do you see this woman? This
woman is part of us.
This
unnamed woman labeled sinner lingers with us as our media has been
consumed this past week with the news of a male college freshman who
assaulted an unconscious unnamed woman behind a dumpster at Stanford
University and was convicted of three felonies, yet sentenced to only
6 months in jail.
This
unnamed woman who was assaulted wrote a statement about the
irreversible pain of her experience. Like the ways that our Gospel's
woman is described as immoral, this woman who was assaulted shared
the ways that her actions and sense of morality were called into
question during the trial of her rapist. This woman had to answer
questions like: “How
old are you? How much do you weigh? What did you eat that day? How
much did you drink? What were you wearing?”
Blame
is placed on this woman of the Stanford assault case, interrogating
her about past for why she put herself in a vulnerable position to be
taken advantage of INSTEAD of interrogating the rapist about why he
would drag an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and sexually abuse
her.
In
her statement, this woman writes: “I am no stranger to suffering.
You made me a victim. In newspapers my name was “unconscious
intoxicated woman”, ten syllables, and nothing more than that. For
a while, I believed that that was all I was. I had to force myself to
relearn my real name, my identity.” Do you see this woman?
I see this woman as someone who has come out of the ashes of hurt and
emerges with an immense strength of character.
Today
we hold two unnamed women whose stories are written for them. Two
complex people whose lives are whittled down to a few words: bad,
vulnerable, intoxicated, immoral, sinner.
In the
midst of this immense hurt and blame placed on women's bodies, who is
in need of repentance? Who needs to be forgiven in these stories?
This is so much bigger than one woman who is known as as sinner who
washes Jesus' feet with her tears and anoints him with perfume. This
is much deeper than one woman who was sexually assaulted behind a
dumpster last January.
1
out of 4 women will be assaulted in their lifetime. Behind each of
these assaulted women is person who committed an act of violence that
shatters both of their lives forever.
This story of a victim and a perpetrator is too common and one that
lingers underneath all of our communities. Our whole world needs
repentance for these stories.
We are still learning the business of saying sorry and asking
forgiveness when it comes to the culture of violence.
In our
Gospel text, this highly esteemed religious person that Jesus is
eating dinner with witnesses this woman wash Jesus' feet and
exclaims, “Don't you know this woman's reputation? You are letting
her touch you? You can't be prophet if you don't know of her
sinfulness!” Jesus calls out Simon the Pharisee for placing her
into the space of the blamed and unclean. The one who is in need of
repentance here is not the woman who displays loving care by
anointing Jesus with perfume; Jesus speaks to Simon about how all of
us are debtors when it comes to being in communion with God. It is
not just any one person who is in need of forgiveness. When we speak
about one individual's need for forgiveness from God, or we focus in
on one woman's sinfulness and debt to God, we are forgetting that
the community of Christ does not function as one individual. Our
culture does not function out of one individual; the system of
oppression that makes it possible for countless cases of rape to go
unheard, unseen, and untouched is what we need repentance for.
In
the face of violence and shame, we stand together as a community that
is in deep need for forgiveness that includes new life for both the
victims and the perpetrators.
Jesus
looks at Simon, who renounces this unnamed woman, and says, “Do
you see this woman?” Do you see this pain? Do you see the
systems that are in place that make it unsafe to be a woman walking
alone at night? Do you see the ways that we teach boys that violence
is the way to get what they want? Do you see?
We
are called to see this unnamed woman of this Gospel. We do not know
her name, we do not know her past or her future, but we know that she
is seen and loved by God.
We
are called to see this unnamed woman that was assaulted. We do not
know her name but we do know her story. We cannot forget her story.
We must tell her story to our children, to our friends, to our
families, to ourselves. Today the Gospel calls us to see the people
in our world who are suffering and to pay attention. Do you see this
woman? God sees this woman. We see this woman. This woman is part
of us. Her story is us.
Jesus
walks with this woman and lightens the burden of the stories that
people use to identify her. We are given the words of forgiveness
and love: “Your faith has saved you; Go in peace.”
In
order for the unnamed women to go in peace, we must stay alert to the
culture of violence in our world. That peace is not an easy peace;
we go in that challenging peace together. We do not do this work
perfectly but we are learning. Together we learn the business of
asking forgiveness; when someone is pushes another person down, we do
not let it be forgotten. We stay here, seeing the pain of being
pushed down, and head towards the path of peace that makes room for
every single one of us to be forgiven. We are all together sinners,
alongside this woman, asking for forgiveness from a God who readily
accepts us with open arms.
When it
comes to what God has taught us about grace, we know that God sees
all of us; the messy parts, the pieces that we are shameful about,
and the actions that we need to hold ourselves accountable for and
ask forgiveness for. God sees that for us, staying awake to the pain
of sexual abuse is uncomfortable, difficult work. The Gospel of
Jesus is not one that is easy to stomach; the peace of God calls us
to be active against the suffering of this world. Today we stand in
the same grace that Jesus shared with that unnamed woman when we go
in the peace that passes all understanding.
Go in the peace that
receives the gifts of hospitality offered up by a weeping woman.
Go in the peace that asks
us to see the people who are suffering.
Go in the peace that
challenges us to call each other out.
Go in the peace that burns
for us to tell the stories of unnamed women.
Go in the peace that asks
us to see.
Go in the peace that gives
us grace.
Go in the peace that
forgives.
Go in the peace that
loves.
Go in peace.
