This Lent (February 18-April 4), we are following A Sanctified Art‘s “Tell Me Something Good,” in our worship and Church School. We’re looking at what was central to Jesus’ life and ministry: radical welcome, love for neighbors, care for the vulnerable, nourishment for the hungry, nonviolence in the face of injustice.Before divinity school, I lived for three years in an intentional Christian community. We bought groceries together and ran a community garden together and we distributed rent not equally, but according to what we each could manage. Sharing resources in community was joyful, but it also sometimes unsettled me. There’s a sensibility many of us carry that prizes independence, clean transactions, not owing anyone. Living entangled went against that grain.
This Sunday, we’ll hear the story of a woman who has given up on that kind of accounting. The woman—we’re not told her name, only that she’s known to be a sinner—crashes a dinner party, weeps at Jesus’ feet, and pours out expensive perfume on him. It’s extravagant, and more than a little scandalous! Jesus tells a parable that suggests why: when a big debt is forgiven, big love follows. The woman at the dinner party has been forgiven much, and we see her love expressed.
