CHAPTER FOUR
THE HARLOT
If there’s one thing I despise, it’s hypocrisy. Men come to me with their needs and wants, their desires to be pleasured in the dark of the night, but of course discreetly, as they don’t want to be shamed. It’s the married men who are the worst. They sneak around, they enjoy themselves, and then in public they condemn harlotry! Simon the Pharisee was one of those sorts of men. Oh yes, he knew me alright, knew what kind of person I was, by personal experience. While he never visited me, he knew his brother did and he said not a word. Nothing!
Yeshua, on the other hand, was a very different sort of man. He never came to me wanting something like that. He came to me because I was broken, ashamed, needing help and healing. And he even offered forgiveness. I was so very grateful. I broke into tears when he told me I could be forgiven. I wanted to do something, an act of gratitude, the next time he passed through town. And I did. This is how a later storyteller told my tale . . .
“When one of the Pharisees invited Yeshua to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Yeshua was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
“When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
“Yeshua answered him, ‘Simon, I have something to tell you.’
‘Tell me, teacher,’ he said.
‘Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?’
Simon replied, ‘I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.’
‘You have judged correctly,’ Yeshua said.
“Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.’
“Then Yeshua said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’
“The other guests began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’
“Yeshua said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’” [Luke 7]
It was summer time. The heat was extreme, and when someone comes off those hot dusty roads, the normal custom is to have a servant or a member of the household not merely welcome a guest, but have their feet washed, and their scalp anointed to prevent cracking and pain. Simon apparently had done neither of these things when Yeshua arrived at his house. If you are wondering how I gained entrance, in the summer the houses are wide open during the day to allow for ventilation. You can see in, you can hear, you can walk right in because none of the doors are shut. And so I did. I walked right into the house. The dining area was in the big family living area that was in the front of the house, so as to get the breeze. Yeshua and Simon were deep in conversation, reclining on couches and at first Simon did not see me. I stooped down at the end of the couch where Yeshua was and began anointing his feet with my best perfume. I also began to cry. I had been so moved, so grateful, so relieved after my previous conversation with Yeshua. In fact, I had been so strongly motivated, I had become determined to give up my lucrative profession, and start afresh in life. I had enough resources to move to another town where my reputation would not have preceded me. But I waited until this day to make the move, because I was afraid I would miss Yeshua’s coming, since he passed through this seaside village regularly.
I am still amazed at the way Yeshua handled the critique of Simon. He didn’t rebut Simon’s mutterings about Yeshua being spiritually obtuse and not knowing what kind of person I was. Instead, as was his habit, he told a story, a story about debt and forgiveness. And he is right. A person who has been forgiven more, is more grateful, is likely to show more love. Yeshua implied I had indeed been forgiven more, and therefore was responding to the grace with more gratitude than Simon had. But I did notice that Yeshua was implying Simon had a need for forgiveness as well. Oh yes, he was a community leader, and yet he was prepared to be silent and overlook the sins of his brother with me while condemning me. That’s just sheer hypocrisy and Yeshua didn’t like it any better than I did.
“G-d is no respecter of persons,” he once said. G-d couldn’t care less about a person’s honor or status in a community. He does not dole out justice or mercy on the basis of such all too human considerations. I freely granted I needed a lot of forgiveness, but then, so does everyone. We all sin and fall short. Instead of pointing a finger at me, Yeshua held out a hand and said, “Daughter, you can do better, receive the forgiveness of sins and go and sin no more.” And on this occasion he added—“Your faith has set you free. Go with the shalom of G-d—the wholeness, the well-being, the peace of G-d.” I am determined to do so, starting today.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MAN BORN BLIND
It is impossible to tell you what total darkness is like unless you have spent a long time deep in one of those caves in the cliffs of Arbel near the sea of Galilee. Your mind still has ideas about shapes of things since you can pick them up and feel them, but even the sense of touch can be deceptive. You remember the old story about three blind men who approached an elephant and were asked what he was like. One touched the elephant’s ear and said an elephant is like a large palm leaf. Another felt the elephant’s tusk and said the elephant was like a shophar, a ram’s horn which we hollow out and use as a horn to blow at festival time. Still another one felt the elephant’s tail and said an elephant was like a rope. Of course they were all basically wrong. The elephant as a whole was not really very much like any of these things.
But there are other problems with being blind besides not being able to figure out the outside world. If you are a devout person and you keep hearing the stories in Torah about G-d’s light which he created, G-d’s revelation which is sometimes called light, you feel left out because you have never seen the light, nor can you read about it. You can only listen to others tell about it. It makes you feel like you have been left out of G-d’s plans. The Scriptures may say, “The people who dwell in darkness have seen a great light,” but I could never say that before Yeshua came along and put mud on my eyes. And even then few would know my story if Yeshua had not come to me again after I was expelled from the synagogue so I could see him finally face to face, and honor him for what he had done. Even then, few would know my tale if it had not been for Yeshua’s Beloved Disciple, Eleazar, who lived near me, in Bethany, and asked me, some years after Yeshua had gone to be with G-d, about what had happened. Here is how he told my story . . .
“As Yeshua