Jesus said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet… I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Luke 7:44-47
Jesus, what a story… nothing is more daily than relationships. Nothing is more astonishing than the way you forgive and love us. Nothing is uglier than self-righteousness. Nothing is more important than the way we love you, and others. I see myself everywhere in this story, Lord.
I’m like Simon, the self-righteous Pharisee. It’s easy for me to see people through the lens of quick criticism and hasty judgment, especially if they look different than me, and sin and struggle in ways that I don’t. That’s not who I want to be, Jesus. Keep freeing and changing me.
I’m also like this broken woman at your feet, whose name I will only learn in heaven. My sins are just as ugly and numerous as hers—just not as public or notorious. Like her, you have forgiven all my sins—past, present, and future. Hallelujah and thank you! But I so want my first heart-impulse, first reactions, and first words to reveal the Gospel much quicker and deeper. I want to be as free as this woman was before you, Jesus; and I want to be as disaffected as she was by this graceless, shaming Pharisee.
Jesus, the bottom line is, I want to love you and others much more spontaneously and generously than I easily do. I want to forgive others as you have forgiven me. One Day I will love perfectly, but I want to love better well before that Day. So Very Amen.