Where do you look if you want to see someone’s theology? Is it on their bookshelves? No, that’s other people’s theology. (Or to be more exact, that’s other people’s descriptions and interpretations of what theology is. Real theology, like the Word-Made-Flesh, also has to become flesh in your life. So you have to look at people’s lives to see their theology. Don’t forget to notice how they see and treat other people. Your way of seeing others and your way of seeing God are both cut from the same bolt of cloth.
The Pharisees were a devout and God-fearing group. They had a simple theology: God loves devout, God-fearing people and he hates those who aren’t, namely, sinners. If this is how God is, then—the Pharisees concluded—so should we be. The Pharisees dis-agreed among themselves about who Jesus was, so Simon wanted a closer look.
There were three points of courtesy to observe when you invited a rabbi to your home: 1. You placed your hand on his shoulder and gave him the kiss of peace; 2. You washed his feet; and 3. You burned a grain of incense, or put a drop of aromatic oil on his head. Simon did none of these things when Jesus came to his house. The message was clear: Simon was not about to call Jesus rabbi, and these blatant omissions of proper etiquette did not go unnoticed by Jesus.
Everything was going just fine until the woman arrived. No doubt Simon’s theology had taken flesh in him: his flesh began to creep at the sight of a sinful woman touching Jesus. Here was proof that his assumptions about Jesus were justified. “He said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.’” Jesus had been gaining a reputation for keeping company with people of disrepute; here he was at it again, in the very house of a devout, God-fearing man.
The most annoying thing about Jesus, from the Pharisees’ point of view, was that he not only associated with disreputable people and took liberties with the Law, but that he was clever as well. He was able to defeat them in debates, though he’d never been to rabbi school. He was even able to show that the sinful woman had observed all the courtesies that Simon had omitted. And by means of the story he told, Jesus tricked Simon into praising the woman.
But the worst was still to come. Totally ignoring the Temple rituals and protocols for cleansing from sin, Jesus declared that the woman’s sins had been forgiven. He was refusing to work within the proper channels! He disregarded the proper channels because mercy was not flowing through them. For Jesus, every channel was a channel of mercy. He was, as St. Leo the Great said, “The hand of God’s mercy stretched out to us.”
From Simon’s house he went on his way to other cities and villages, accompanied by the Twelve and a group of women who, through him, had experienced the mercy of God. Let’s take a careful look at the procession. Most of the group would have earned nothing but contempt from the devout, God- fearing people who thought they had God on their side. This reality forces each of us to ask the question: What kind of theology has take flesh in your life? Is it that of the Pharisees, or that of the Word-Made-Flesh?