FIRST READING: 2 Samuel 12: 7-10; 13. Nathan said to David, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king of Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’“ David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin, you shall not die.”
SECOND READING: Galatians 2:16; 19-21. We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.
GOSPEL: Luke 7:36-50. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was sitting at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “What is it, Teacher?” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you, go in peace.”
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In order to cover up the adultery he committed with the wife of Uriah the Hittite, David had the poor, young man killed in battle. The prophet Nathan confronts him with this grave abuse of power. By becoming king, he who was a mere herdsman, David adopted a mind-set proper to most powerful people, thinking that it gave him the right to treat others as dispensable subjects. This was one of the main reasons why God, through his prophets, from the start opposed the establishment of the kingdom, for it violated the principles of equality, the freedom of the individual, and the rule of fraternity. Though David shows true repentance and is pardoned, he is nonetheless not purged of his absolutist concept of power. Actually, there is nothing that can bring about this cleansing except faith. That is, a belief in the one true God who is the Father of us all, we who are all equal before his eyes.
Paul is untiring in his proclamation of this faith, over and above what he calls the “works of the law”. This is nothing else but the social and political dispensation revealed through the patriarchs and Moses, interrupted by the establishment of the sacrilegious Israelite kingdom, and reinstated by Jesus. “By works of the law,” he declares, “shall no one be justified.”
The ‘women of the city’ was no prostitute, as some Christian commentators made her out to be. She was one of the innumerable people who the Pharisees called ‘hamartolos’ (sinners) because, unlike them, they did not have the economic luxury of strictly observing the Mosaic law to the letter. They were powerless to do otherwise. Being a good woman of faith, she was deemed a ‘sinner’ and an outcast not because of her actual wrongdoing but merely because she observed her religion in a way she could manage and pay for. Jesus declares her state as justified before God. Indirectly, he denounces and condemns the religion of power, its oppressive demands and its chastisements. At the same time he announces the justification of the new community of the ‘sinful’ powerless.
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