Great Remorse Obtains Great Forgiveness

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR

Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Gerard Majella Church

Baton Rouge, LA

Sunday, June 16, 2013

King David was a man of contrasts. He was devotedly committed to God. He was a great king who loved the Lord. Yet, like every human person, he was not perfect. He was a great military conqueror, but he could not conquer himself. He conquered nations but could not conquer his emotions. He allowed the beauty of Bathsheba to conquer him. Just one night of lust over Bathsheba, the great King David was conquered and brought to his kneels. Bathsheba became pregnant! By this time, Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba was away fighting and defending King David and his kingdom. King David recalled Uriah, and tried to set him up with his own wife Bathsheba. After all his tricks failed, he sent Uriah back to the war with a letter to the General asking him to send Uriah to the fiercest front of the war, and that he should retreat after doing that. This resulted in the death of Uriah. King David killed Uriah in order to cover his wrongdoing. But God was watching! Nathan, God’s prophet at the time, was given the mission of confronting David. On learning about his wrongdoing, David fell to his kneels and declared: “I have sinned against the Lord.” 

In today’s Gospel (Luke 7: 36-50) St. Luke tells us that Jesus was a guest at the house of Simon, a Pharisee, at the instance of Simon himself. It was a dinner party. In Israel, it was the custom that when a Rabbi was at a special meal, all kinds of people would come in to listen to his words of wisdom. In this case, the Rabbi was no other person but Jesus Christ, the Lord of life. As soon as Jesus settled down to eat, something noteworthy happened. A woman commonly known in town as a bad and notorious woman came in, and sat at the foot of the Jesus. She had a sense of sin. Realizing how greatly she had sinned against herself, against her parents and siblings, against her community, against humanity, against God, she broke down in tears. She cried with intensity that her tears were enough to wash the feet of Jesus: “Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment (An alabaster flask of ointment).” Her action stunned Simon who said: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.”

Simon’s unspoken opinion was not only a judgment of condemnation on the sinful woman, it was also a serious question mark and doubt on the character of Jesus. The unspoken thought of his mind highlights also his own self-righteousness. As far as he is concerned, he is sinless. The sinful one is the woman, and Jesus too must be a fake prophet. He wrote her off, concluded that she wasn’t the right kind of person to be seen around him or around Jesus. For him, she was a hopeless woman incapable of repentance, incapable of changing her ways, and changing her lifestyle. He judged her cruelly and concluded she is finished in every sense of the word. He also wondered why Jesus, the so called prophet would not dissociate himself from such a sinful woman: Why can’t he send her away? Why is he letting her touch him? Why is he not furious that a prostitute is interfering with his dinner meal? He must have said to himself.

In order to expose Simon to his own error, Jesus told him a parable: There was a banker who loaned money to two of his customers. To one, he loaned $50, 000 and the other $5, 000. When it was time to pay back, they were unable to do so. The banker, out of his magnanimity forgave both loans: “Don’t bother to pay me back again. I have written off the debt.” Then Jesus asked Simon “Which of them will love the banker more?” Simon answered “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” “You have answered rightly” responded Jesus. Then Jesus reminded Simon of his failure to provide him with water to wash his feet, a practice so common in Israel then. Because the roads were dusty and rough, when a guest visits, his feet were usually washed and soothed by a servant who stands on the doorpost. This was a sign of warm welcome. What Simon failed to do for Jesus is now done by the sinful woman. Jesus also reminded Simon that when he entered his house, he Simon did not give him a kiss of peace which was also a common practice in Israel that showed hospitality; again what he failed to do is done by the sinful woman. Simon also did not anoint the feet of Jesus, but the sinful woman has done that with a costly ointment. Because she has done all those, Jesus offered her total forgiveness “Your sins are forgiven.” 

 This gospel story reveals an amazing truth. The level of a person’s devotion to God usually corresponds to the level of forgiveness one has received. The more a person experiences forgiveness, the more his or her devotion. This gospel story shows why some people experience forgiveness and why others don’t. The woman in the Gospel story had a deep sense of sin. She was conscious of her many sins. She convicted herself a sinner. She went to the One who can forgive sins and her many sins were forgiven. The greatest sin is to be conscious of no sin. What opens the door of God’s forgiveness is having a sense of sin and a sense of need for mercy and forgiveness. One thing that is capable of shutting a person off from God is self-sufficiency, but a sense of need will open the door to the forgiveness of God, because God is love.

In the parable of the debtors that Jesus narrated to Simon, where are you? Are you the one that was forgiven a great deal of debt or the one that was forgiven little? Some people including Christians think they have been forgiven little. You hear them say: “I am not really such a sinner.” “I’ve never killed anyone.” “I’ve never stolen anything.” “I have never cheated on my tax or my spouse.” “I don’t take advantage of others.” “I don’t indulge in immoral behaviors.” “I am actually a good person and an obedient servant of the Church.” “I don’t drink too much or eat too much.” “I am not as bad as others.”

But no matter what you may think of yourself, we are all great debtors. When it comes to our relationship with God, there is no one who owes little. We all are great debtors in God’s books. We owe God more than we can ever pay. We can only be forgiven if we like the King David would say: “I have sinned against the Lord.” God will completely wipe out our sins if we like the sinful woman in the Gospel would go to the feet of Jesus and say: “Be merciful unto me O Lord for I have sinned.”