The Sánchez Archives ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Year C

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

The Joy of Being Forgiven

2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13
Galatians 2:16, 19-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

If salvation were a strictly juridical system of justice then no one would escape the deserved sentence of death (2 Samuel). But even the greatest sinner can hope for happiness because God has introduced the merciful loophole of loving forgiveness into an otherwise unfeeling network of legal prescriptions (Galatians). Above and beyond the law, the saving power of Jesus’ death assures every believing and repentant sinner of the joy of reconciliation and redemption (Luke).

2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13

Each of the three selections for today’s liturgy represents a veritable celebration of the fact of God’s forgiveness. In the first reading, David’s sincere repentance for his sins of murder, adultery and deceit is met by God’s gracious and loving pardon.

Excerpted from one of the most masterful pieces of literature in the Bible, the pericope from 2 Samuel picks up the story of David and Bathsheba near its conclusion. Although he had inherited Saul’s house and possessions, which would have included his harem (v. 8), David had become enamored of the beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of one of his lieutenants. Determined to have her for his own, David plotted against his loyal soldier Uriah and sent him into battle during Israel’s second campaign against the Ammonites. His plan against Uriah successful, David took the dead man’s widow for his own and soon the child of their illicit union was born.

At this point in the narrative Nathan, acting like an external conscience, confronted David with his guilt. Nathan told his king the touching story of the poor man with one ewe lamb who was the victim of a rich man’s greed. Instead of killing one of the many lambs in his own flock in order to entertain a guest, the rich man took the poor man’s pet lamb and slaughtered it (2 Samuel 12:1-4).

When David reacted in righteous fury at such a heartless and unjust deed (“This man deserves to die”), the prophet used the occasion to hurl the burden of his message and the point of his story at his king, “You are the man!” Confronted with the truth of his actions, David did not act defensively. Nor did he deny Nathan’s accusation or use his power to silence the prophet.

According to the law, David’s sin was punishable by the death penalty (Exodus 21:37). But, as is clear in the narrative, God’s forgiveness superseded the law and David was granted the gift of continued life. Nevertheless, his sins did not go unpunished. The death of his and Bathsheba’s son was interpreted according to the Jewish concept that the father’s sins would be punished in his offspring. Later in the chronicles of David, his sons Amnon (2 Samuel 13:29), Absalom (2 Samuel 18:14-15) and Adonias (I Kings 2:25) would also perish by the sword.

Traditionally Psalm 51 has been regarded as David’s prayer of repentance on this occasion. In both the psalm and in today’s reading, there is an acknowledgment that the injustice done against another is a sin against God himself (Psalm 51: “having sinned against none other than you”; 2 Samuel 12:13: “1 have sinned against the Lord”). The story of David’s sin and the forgiveness of God that saved him from the law’s sentence of death prepare the way for the deeper understanding and experience of forgiveness made available to all sinners through the saving cross of Jesus.

Galatians 2:16, 19-21

An emotional piece of literature alternating between stem, angry condemnation and warm, affectionate pleading, the letter to the churches of Galatia is Paul’s impassioned defense of his gospel and his apostleship. Today’s pericope is from the first major section of the letter (1:10-2:21) in which Paul stated the thesis which he would later develop in detail in his longer letter to the Romans, viz., a person is not justified by the law but by faith in the crucified savior, Jesus.

As a Jew and as a member of the Pharisaic party, Paul could speak firsthand about his experience of the law. Strict observance, even perfect attention to the minutest prescription of the law, could not achieve what Jesus had achieved for all believers through the sacrifice of his saving death. Freedom from sin and death, and justification or “being in the right with God” are the gracious gifts of God. The law with its concentration on external observance is not capable of changing the heart or preventing death. Nor could the law achieve perfect reconciliation with God through the remission of sins. Only the free gifts of God’s grace, made available through Jesus’ death, are capable of pronouncing a person just (v. 18: dikaioo).

Greek verbs ending in oo are usually causative, producing the quality expressed by their root. Therefore, Paul’s usage of dikaioo would seem to demand a deeper sense, not of merely being pronounced just (or upright) but of being made just. The only response appropriate to such an unmerited and gracious gift, taught Paul, is faith. Faith is the attitude that conditions the believer for receiving God’s gifts. By faith, the person opens him/herself to accept God’s love revealed in Jesus and to respond to that love by a life conformed to the good news.

Because of grace and faith, Paul was able to state, “Christ lives in me” (v. 20). As J. Fitzmeyer has observed, “The perfection of the Christian life is expressed here, since it is not merely an existence dominated by a new psychological motivation. Faith in Christ doesn’t substitute a new norm or goal of action. Rather, it reshapes man anew internally, supplying him with a new principle of activity on the ontological level of his very being.” Fitzmeyer goes on to explain that faith in Christ and the act of Christ living in the Christian result in a symbiosis of the human person with the glorified Christ. Because of the resurrection, Christ has become a “vivifying spirit” and the vital principle of all Christian activity.

In its context, Paul’s argument for grace and faith over and above the law was an expansion of his criticism of Peter at Antioch (2:11-21). Paul claimed that Peter was scandalizing the Antiochene community because he had withdrawn from the practice of eating with gentile converts. As illustrated in Acts 10, Peter had made great strides in accepting gentile Christians as equals at the table of the Lord but he had later succumbed to the pressure of the Judaizers. Their insistence upon the law as a necessary factor in the process of salvation was tantamount to negating the work and saving death of Jesus. Paul regarded this as a fatal step backward and a threat to the gospel of freedom he preached. As a champion of that freedom, he remained firm in his efforts to preserve the integrity of the good news for all Christians.

Luke 7:36-8:3

Dinner scenes were a distinctly favorite context for the author of the third gospel. Some have regarded those narratives which portrayed Jesus as the invited guest at a meal as belonging to a special literary form called the symposium genre. In the course of narrating the events at the dinner, Luke adeptly drew together material from the oral tradition known to him and from his written sources. He also used these occasions to feature some unchronicled parables, unique to his gospel and especially illustrative of his major theological themes.

In the particular scene that comprises today’s gospel, the evangelist has reworked his sources to create an episode, the dinner at Simon’s house. During the dinner Jesus is presented as teaching a lesson through the vehicle of a parable; the parable in turn serves to interpret and explain the episode within which it appears. The lesson of the entire narrative (parable and context) is the fact of Jesus’ power to participate in the divine prerogative of forgiving sin. Forgiveness of sin, or justification as Paul chose to call it, was due to the free and grace-filled love of God. With her sins remitted, i.e., once justified by God’s gracious act, the woman responded with a great and sincere outpouring of love, an example for all believing and forgiven sinners.

Simon the Pharisee had invited Jesus to his home. His rather rude and inhospitable behavior toward Jesus stands out in blatant contrast to the attitude of the forgiven woman. As one who prided himself on his strict observance of the law, Simon was appalled not only by the woman’s actions but by Jesus’ reaction to her. It may seem strange that the woman was able to enter the house at all. However, according to social customs of the ancient Near Eastern world, dining rooms, especially those of the rich and famous, were left open to the public. Uninvited guests and curious onlookers could pass in and out of the room at will. Those who wished could take a seat near the wall and listen to the repartee between the host and his invited guests.

Having gained entry to Simon’s house in this way, the woman overstepped the bonds of social acceptability and made her way to Jesus. That Jesus permitted her extravagant show of love without condition prompted Simon to criticize, albeit silently, the authenticity of Jesus as a prophet. In excellent style, Luke has shown Jesus as the true prophet, par excellence, able to read even Simon’s unspoken thoughts.

The interchange between Jesus and Simon has been called a Socratic interrogation since it follows that form of Hellenistic rhetoric used by both Jewish and Christian teachers to organize their material (C. Talbert). According to the structure of the interrogation, (1) a question is asked by the opponent (“If this man were a prophet, he would know,” v. 39); (2) this is followed by a counter question (“Which of them was more grateful,” v. 42); (3) which forces an answer from the opponent (“He, I presume, to whom he remitted the larger sum,” v. 43); (4) and concludes with a refutation of opponent’s ideas on the basis of his own forced answer “I tell you that is why her many sins are forgiven,” v. 47).

By means of his interrogation and the parable of the two debtors, Jesus led Simon to understand, at least logically and intellectually, the woman’s actions and Jesus’ attitude toward her. Indeed, the woman who was outside the law had been given what Simon, for all his scrupulous

adherence to the law, had not been able to achieve, i.e., forgiveness and the joy of being justified or “being right” with God. As in the first and second readings, today’s gospel juxtaposes the correct understanding of forgiveness or justification by God over and against the law’s ineffectiveness and limitations.

Because of the ambiguity of the statement, “that is why her many sins are forgiven--because of her great love” (v. 47), it may seem that the woman’s love precipitated God’s forgiveness. Rather, it should be understood that her ability to love, and to love greatly, was due to the fact of her having been forgiven. The word hoti in Greek should be understood in a special causal sense which gives not the reason why a fact is so but whereby it is known to be so. The New English Bible averts the ambiguity by translating v. 47, “1 tell you, her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven; where little has been forgiven, little love is shown.”

Jesus’ pronouncement, “Your sins are forgiven; your faith has been your salvation” (v. 48), is a confirmation of what had occurred, i.e., the divine initiative, reaching out to bestow forgiveness or justification, meeting with the open human response of faith. This further implication was also meant to impress Simon and others who relied on the law that their refusal to respond in faith to Jesus (and therefore to God) would someday find them on the outside, looking in, at the great banquet of the messianic kingdom.

In the final verses of the gospel (8:1-3), Luke has reemphasized Jesus’ special predilection for those who understood their need for justification and for the disadvantaged members of society. Those who had been healed physically, spiritually and psychologically, women and the poor, had a special place with Jesus in the kingdom he had come to bring upon the earth. The law that had raised objections to such people and placed barriers against them was no longer operative. Because of Jesus, the free gift of God’s justification welcomed all believers to salvation.

1. Holiness does not consist in never having sinned but in the ability to recognize one’s failures and to seek reconciliation (2 Samuel).

2. Forgiveness is not a judicial procedure dependent on the law but part of a personal relationship with a loving God (Galatians).

3. The joy of being forgiven expands the heart’s capacity for greater loving (Luke).

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