My Confession

I shared this with our church on Sunday, as part of my reflection on the record of Jesus' conversation with the immoral woman and Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7:36-50.

It has been called by some the world’s oldest profession; an acknowledgement that as long as we can remember there have been people who sell their bodies for the use of others. So there at the feet of Jesus is a woman of a hundred titles, none of them wholesome, none of them flattering.

Her box of perfume broken, tears streaming from the careworn corners of her tired eyes, she sits hunched over his feet with her hair covering their dust. Habit has taught her to avoid looking men in the eye, and so she pays no attention to the gaping mouths and wide eyed stares of men whose contempt for her is exceeded only by their despite for Jesus.

I can watch the scene unfold; see him turn to the dinner’s host and gently inquire of his soul. I can see the breath of the men leave their lungs when he says her sins are forgiven. The corners of their mouths turned slightly upwards in an indignant gaze pierce my sight and soul.

And yet I’m drawn to the scene unfolding not by their contempt for her, nor their calumnies against him. Riveting my attention in magnetic fashion is the woman who sits unmoving save for the heaving of her chest in stifled weeping.

You see, I see myself in her. I hear in her soft, sobbing cry the echoes of my own voice. The tears so salting her cheeks remind me of moments in which my practiced façade crumbles and a light of truth shines in between the cracks.

How often have I sold myself, borrowing from an unknown future the capital for my present comfort? How often have I sold the dreams of God for my life short of their realization? How long has it been since my soul was touched with the gentleness of a loving God, and not used as a commodity in a barter for service?

I confess (do you hear me?) I have prostituted my heart for the praise of a few, and practiced my trade with a calculated desire for success. I have allowed my thoughts to be massaged into something less beautiful, less pure than the creator’s intent. I have believed the insidious lie that the approval, favor, and dare I say flattery, of another would somehow substitute for the gracious forgiveness of God.

And so I find myself sitting here now at the same dusty feet. My eyes spilling unknown tears, splashing the dust from the toes of my teacher. My ears waiting for the words to come; the words that in their being can somehow make me whole.

“Go in peace, “ he says.