Daily Lesson for October 11, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Luke 7 verses 36 through 47:

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus* to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39Now 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 kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’ 40Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ 41‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ 44Then turning towards 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 bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ 

There is an old saying in the Talmud: “Do not torture another with the bleach you drank.”

That’s not a crystal clear proverb; but I think it’s a warning against our human tendency to project onto others the vileness we try to mask and deny within ourselves.

Projection is a human phenomenon not really observed and named until the advent of modern psychology in the late-19th century. The things we hate about our own selves we “project” onto or magnify in others. 

Though it took almost another 2,000 years for this phenomenon to really begin to be observed and studied in psychology, Jesus observed it at this dinner party in today’s story. The Pharisee was up in arms about this lifestyle of this woman who had slipped into his house. But Jesus said the Pharisee’s anger wasn’t really at the woman. It was something in his own lifestyle — something shameful or unreconciled — that was the true source of his indignation.  Jesus told the Pharisee he wasn’t so much angered with the woman and her sin; he was angry with himself and his own sin. “He who is forgiven little, loves little,” Jesus said.

The next time we are unduly angered by another’s lifestyle or choices or “sin”, we would  do well to check ourselves, to see if our feelings might not actually be signs of our own inner-tensions and inconsistencies, and to see if we might not be able to come to a place of deeper confession and forgiveness for our own selves. For just as “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little,” so too does the one who is forgiven much love much. 

And that should mean that there’s the possibility of a lot more love and a lot less hate going around.