June 13, 2010 ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE CHURCH YEAR
13 JUNE 2010, 5:15, 8:00, 10:00
READINGS: 2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13; Galatians 2:16, 19-21; Luke 7:36-8:3
SAINT MARY PARISH, VIROQUA
Introduction: Luke’s gospel has so many stories of forgiveness, of mercy. It might well be called the Gospel of Mercy. We hear such a gospel reading today.
1. Two people figure as big as life in this story: Simon and an unnamed woman who has received mercy from Jesus and wishes now to show her appreciation, her love, her joy. Besides being a story of forgiveness, this is a story of seeing. You don’t have to be as old as I am to remember the Oscar-winning musical, My Fair Lady. Professor Henry Higgins takes from the streets in London a very uncouth flower girl, Eliza Doolittle. He transforms her, as an experiment into a lady, a real British Lady. They go to a ball, and she pulls it off, speaking and acting like a lady. Higgins is satisfied that he has performed a successful experiment. That’s all he thinks it is. His friend, on the other hand, chides Professor Higgins and insists that Eliza has feelings and should be treated as a human being. Higgins dismisses the idea…for the time being. The musical echoes this gospel in a way. Simon is blind to the woman. He sees her simply as an unworthy person, a sinner. He is the kind of person who puts people in categories. And, he saw Jesus as a fraud because he did respect her; Jesus saw her repentance; he saw her tears. He recognized love. This is a story about forgiveness; it is also a story about seeing! It teaches us to see potential beyond categories.
2. Imagine the joy and the relief of the unnamed woman. I think all of us know something about the relief of forgiveness. There’s a short story about a boy who had run away from home. Now, he writes a letter home to his mother. He expresses the hope that his old-fashioned father will forgive him and accept him again as his son. The boy writes: “In a few days I’ll be passing our property on the train. If dad will take me back, ask him to tie a white cloth on the apple tree in the field next to our house.” Days later the boy is on that train approaching his house. Soon the tree will be visible. But the boy can’t bring himself to look at it. He’s afraid the white cloth won’t be there. Turning to the man sitting next to him, he asks, “Mister, will you do me a favor? Around the bend on the right, you’ll see a tree. See if there’s a white cloth tied to it.” As the train rumbles past the tree the boy stares straight ahead. Then, in a quaking voice he asks, “Mister is a white cloth tied to one of the branches of the tree?” The man answers, “Why, son, there’s a white cloth tied to every branch of that tree!” Who of us has not felt that kind of relief when mercy has been extended to us?
3. Yes, we have received mercy; we must also display it. Ronald Rolheiser, a great spiritual writer says, “The litmus test for being a Christian is not whether one can say the creed and mean it, but whether one can forgive and love an enemy.” And, while receiving mercy is the lifting of a heavy burden, so also is giving mercy. An unknown author wrote, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free; and to discover that the prisoner is ME.”
Conclusion: Let us try to see one another as Jesus sees us; let us accept mercy when it is shown to us; let us offer forgiveness when necessary to one another.