Kelsi Vanada

Dear Friends,

Each of the Gospels has a version of the story of a woman anointing Jesus’ head or feet with ointment and/or their tears. Most of them focus on this anointing as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and burial. All symbolize deep humility, devotion, and recognition of Christ’s identity (and they are moments when—to my mind—the women following Jesus seem to have just a little more understanding than the men). Today’s version in Luke 7:36-50 has a slightly different focus.

What strikes me is Jesus’ explanation that the woman’s great act of love stems from the forgiveness she has been shown for what he calls her “many sins.” Now, I’m not interested in speculating about the nature of the woman’s sins. But I am interested in how we think and talk about sin.

In Barbara Brown Taylor’s little 2001 book Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation, she writes that the words ‘sin’ and ‘salvation’ have fallen out of fashion, and that much is lost when we discard them.

Taylor says that the problem is either when churches approach sin as doctors or judges, leading to either no-fault theology or full-fault theology. “The basic human problem,” she writes, “is not sickness or lawlessness but sin…However we run into it, we run into it as wrecked relationship: with God, with one another, with the whole created order. Sometimes we cause the wreckage and sometimes we are simply trapped in it, but either way we are not doomed.”

From the minimal detail in the story, it certainly seems to me that it is the relationship between the Pharisees and Jesus that is more wrecked than that of the woman and Jesus!

Taylor also writes that “The proper response to sin is not punishment but penance.” Penance is “a way back into relationship.” And maybe penance is precisely what the action of anointing Jesus’ feet is for this woman.

“Sin,” Taylor says, “is our only hope, because the recognition that something is wrong is the first step toward setting it right again.”

In Christ,

—Kelsi