LITURGY
AND LIFE
Lucie
Leduc
11th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 13, 2010
2
Samuel 12:7-10,13
Psalm 32
Galatians 2:16, 19-21
Luke 7:36 — 8:3
We are God’s creation,
made in God’s image and likeness, each of us unique and beloved,
made for relationship with God in the whole of creation. Our failures,
sinfulness and selfishness do not inhibit or limit God’s giving
of self to us, which is exactly what the forgiveness of God is about
— the nature of God as constantly giving, always pouring out life,
love, mercy, forgiveness, goodness and blessing as gift. The readings
this Sunday name for us the forgiving nature of our God, and the key
that opens us to living likewise.
The first reading from Samuel
and the Gospel reading from Luke give the universal story of forgiveness.
David, chosen by God to be leader and king, given an abundance of blessings
by God for his enjoyment, has broken “faith” with God by
violently taking what does not belong to him. Beautiful how the Prophet
Nathan speaks God’s Word to David: “I anointed you, . .
. I rescued you . . . I gave you . . . I would have added as much more.”
This is Love speaking passionately to the beloved, in words that awaken
David to his true human self at one with the Divine.
We can hear God’s words
for ourselves today: “I anointed you a treasure of my creation;
I gave you everything you need to live fully and happily; a home, clothes,
food, a wife, a husband, children, blue skies, rain, sunshine, trees,
flowers, stars in the heavens, and if you think this had been too little,
had you asked, I would have added as much more!” How could we
but respond with David and the psalmist, “Lord, forgive the guilt
of my sin.”
A similar yet opposite scene
unfolds in the Gospel. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, joins the
religious leaders in their home for a meal. Being religious, the Pharisees
forget or are simply ignorant of the truth that they are nothing without
God’s gift of self to them. For them adherence to rules and regulations
is their justification before God. Being good and righteous for them
equals being deserving of God’s love and deserving of respect
in community. Separating those who do good from those who sin is their
notion of fidelity. Jesus reveals to them in his encounter with the
sinful woman how nothing could be further from the truth, and calls
them to a deeper self-awareness.
The woman, having broken
through the false intimacies of the gathering with her “anointing”
of Jesus’ feet with her tears and the ointment, shows humility,
“faith” in and receptivity of Jesus’ outpouring gift
of self and love for her. “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which
were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the
one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” In others words,
the measure of our self-awareness in and our complete dependence upon
God to live authentically, is equal to the measure of our love.
Jesus is not judging his
host Simon, he is inviting him to see the truth of the situation and
calling him to faith and to greatness of love! He is essentially saying,
“you are not aware of the forgiveness you need and utterly depend
on, Simon! You hesitate to give yourself to me. If following rules,
obligations and duties is your way to God, you miss the mark at understanding
the awesome enormity of God’s personal love freely given in relationship
to you, sitting next to you, indeed residing within you. You miss the
mark at understanding God’s love poured out in all things and
in all people, especially this woman here who shows it by giving herself
to me.”
We can only give to God what
God gives us first. Our true self diminishes inasmuch as we make our
happiness dependent on our false selves, our deeds and accomplishments,
however good they may be! Just as much for the one who believes that
breaking the rules and violently taking what’s not theirs will
fill their hunger for life. Neither of these approaches will satisfy
or give life. Both are sinful and ultimately destructive of self and
community.
We find the key to forgiveness
in the second reading, the letter to the Galatians. By faith we understand
what we cannot see with our eyes. We see into the heart of God and so
into the heart of others with a love beyond human love — a love
that is humanly divine. We are made well, whole, happy or, to use the
word of the author of the letter, “justified” by faith,
not by anything we do, however good, noble or even heroic. All that
we do is done to us first, given to us first, so we can claim no credit
or blame. Once we realize this, we are willing to sacrifice ourselves,
lay down our lives for the well-being, happiness, joy, forgiveness of
the human family and creation in the same way that God has given all
for us through Jesus and his Holy Spirit.
We have faith when we get
that God is the source of any good we do; God is the source of our being;
God is the pulse of the universe, dynamically, always giving and forgiving,
loving and creating, and that we are in God and God is in everything.
Once we get that, we live like God and look like God, the way we were
meant to from the beginning.
Leduc is the program co-ordinator at Queen’s House Retreat and Renewal Centre in Saskatoon.
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