ON BEING SEEN
Last night we had a helpful and moving sermon about the woman who anointed Jesus feet, a story told by Dr Luke in his record of Jesus life (Luke 7:36-50) It is one of my favourite stories of Jesus, and her story of bravery, with her present day equivalent, found its way into one of the chapters of the book I wrote last year.
She is known as the sinful woman, but to me she is so much more. Her meeting Jesus (we don’t know how or when) has transformed her. So much so, she risks ridicule, exposure and hostility because she wants to simply to lavish her love on Jesus. He has seen her – really seen her. Not just the outside she presented to the world, not just her behaviour, but the broken, needy child inside, and wrapped her in healing love and acceptance. He has forgiven all the past, the mess and muddle with its complex causes and shown her that however deep the pit you are in, he can bring hope and light.
We are so rarely seen, really. We bump into each other, looking at the outside and seldom taking the time to really look. When we do, it is not always with the love and acceptance we are called, if we seek to follow Jesus, to gift others. Sometimes that is because we fear to look inside ourselves for what we might see there. Yet even our brokenness can be enveloped in God’s love and become beautiful, as this remarkable woman discovered. His gaze is always tender.
I often wonder, between my admiration of her unfettered worship, what the others there made of it all, apart from the censorious Simon. There would have been serving girls at this feast, and this poem expresses what one of them might have thought, watching on from the sidelines…
As I entered,
Carrying the feast
I could not share
Fragrance greeted me;
Smell before sight
Gentle invasion
Of my senses
Pervading soul
As much as body.
And then I saw her
Come from the street –
In every sense –
Privilege of paupers
To share the leftovers.
But that was not
Why she had come.
Knelt at his feet
Tears streaming
Down her face
Etched with her suffering
Eyes reflecting pain
The men around her
Could never understand
But piercing my heart
With its intensity.
And then I saw
What she had brought
Every penny she owned -
And earned at such a price -
Future hopes and dreams
Poured out in love
To this mysterious stranger.
And so at first I marvelled
At such a risky step
Until at last
I saw the love reflected
In His gaze
And finally
I understood.
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