(This is a story I’ve been working on, not my usual, if there is such a thing, post. Thinking about doing a series with the same narrator, under a working title of “Me and Jesus”)

The invitation to Simon’s table was a surprise. At least it was for me. Simon was a Pharisee and Jesus, well, Jesus wasn’t. Simon was very careful about doing things the right way, very concerned about who was in right standing with God. For Simon, some people were in and a lot of people definitely were not. Jesus wasn’t particularly careful about the correct way to do things and I am not sure he considered anyone out.

I’m not saying that Jesus wasn’t religious. He was very religious just in a way that I had never seen before. He was the most prayerful person I have ever known and he taught us to pray in a way that completely changed the way we thought about praying. In fact, it changed our lives. Jesus went to the synagogue every Sabbath and knew the Holy Scriptures better than the oldest and most studious of teachers. It’s just that he seemed to ignore a sizable amount of it. For many, especially folks like Simon, he was a little too forgiving and way too inclusive. Some of the religious leaders had openly wondered where the lines were for Jesus. They wondered if there were any lines at all. Simon and his friends liked lines.

On top of this, Jesus’ lifestyle was disturbingly simple. Most people see money and possessions as a way to keep score, signs of God’s favor. Jesus, even though he was a skilled carpenter, didn’t care to keep a steady job. He had one robe. It was a nice one, well made and sturdy but it was the only thing he owned.

We were staying at Matthew’s house at the time and when one of Simon’s servants delivered the invitation Matthew immediately declared that he wasn’t going. “Simon hates me! I’ve known him all my life and I don’t think he liked me even before I was a tax collector. There is no way I am spending an evening listening to him find ways to put down people who have worked for the Romans.”

“Nobody has to go,” said Jesus. “I am going though. I’ve been invited.”

“Well, I am certainly going,” said Judas. “This is just the kind of connection that we have been waiting for. It’s a great opportunity. If we could count Simon as a member of our movement it would give us all kinds of credibility with the Pharisees, even the Sadducees. I know this is hard for most of you to see but we need leaders like this on our side.”

That said, everyone else, except me, decided that if Matthew didn’t have to go, they didn’t either. So it was just Jesus, Judas, and me that went to break bread at Simon’s table. I wasn’t trying to make connections and I wasn’t being polite, I just figured that listening to Jesus and Simon go at it over how to interpret Moses was a pretty good way to spend an evening. Besides, the idea of another night of Peter’s specialty, biscuits and fish, wasn’t very appealing.

Even though Simon and Matthew lived in separate worlds, their houses were fairly close. It was a short walk up the hill, through a crowded street to our host’s home. As we walked some of the neighboring children ran up to get a head rub or a quick tickle from Jesus. This always irritated Judas but Jesus loved it.

I used to feel like Jesus and Judas were perplexed, to say the least, by one another. It seemed like they wanted to be close but could never quite pull it off.

Simon was standing just outside the door, his arms folded, waiting for us when we arrived. “Good, you’re here,” he said to Jesus without much warmth. When he looked at Judas and me he seemed to be wondering what to do about us. It occurred to me that the invitation was only meant for Jesus but he let us in.

He waved off the servants that came from the back of the house to welcome us and ushered Jesus to his assigned place. It was the one to the right of the seat of honor. He took that place for himself, leaving Judas and me to recline wherever we found an open spot.

Judas didn’t seem to mind. He was beaming and telling Simon what a nice home he had. He told him that he had always admired him and had been so looking forward to the evening. I was admiring the delicious looking food on the table.
Jesus was quietly taking it all in, smiling slightly.

He was the same everywhere he went. It didn’t matter if he was at Simon’s or sharing a simple meal with the poorest family in town. No, that’s not entirely true. The atmosphere was lighter with the poorer folks. There was more laughter. I guess that was because that’s the kind of home he grew up in.

It was a wonderful meal. It had everything one would expect; good wine, fish and bread so tasty it made me wonder what Peter was doing wrong when he cooked. There was lamb, fat olives, cucumbers, melons, onions, pomegranates, figs, and frankly a couple of things that I didn’t know what they were, something Egyptian according to Simon, but they were exquisite. Simon assured us that everything had been washed and prepared properly, according to tradition. I don’t think any of us really cared but we thanked him for letting us know.

We had just started eating; Simon had just asked Jesus how he normally observed the Sabbath, when Rachel burst in off the street. I was very sure that she had not been invited.

I only knew Rachel by reputation and it wasn’t good. She was single and that usually meant hard times for women. But she could somehow afford a nice house, lots of jewelry, and lots of parties. Lots of parties. I had seen her many times dancing and laughing in the street outside her house.

“Teacher, they told me that you were here and I just had to see you tonight. I couldn’t wait. I, I just had to see you, to thank you.” Her words and voice were timid but her stance was one of resolve. She knew she wasn’t welcome. It was pretty easy to tell that she was more than not welcome if you looked at Simon’s scowl but she wasn’t going anywhere. I was surprised when I saw the tears welling up in her eyes.

Soon she was crying, then she began to weep and sob, then her legs wouldn’t hold her any longer and she fell at Jesus’ feet. Between sobs she kept saying “Thank you, thank you for spending so much time talking to me, for helping me see. I’m sorry to be making a scene. I just got it. I was sitting home praying like you taught me and thinking about what you said and I just got it, really got it. God truly loves me.”

She took a bottle of very expensive balm from her bag and rubbed all of it on Jesus’ feet. She then began to kiss his feet as if he were a king or something, and when she noticed that her tears were wetting him, she wiped his feet with her hair.

Jesus gently took her face into his hands and tilted her head up until they were looking into each other’s eyes. It was what we called “the look.” We had seen it before.

Jesus had dark brown eyes, very dark. When he was serious, you hoped he wouldn’t look at you. You knew the gaze would be too intense. You were certain that he would see through every mask and know all your secrets; every sin, every shameful act or thought. But then, when he did look at you it wasn’t like that at all. Yes, he saw right through you but it wasn’t with harshness or judgement. It was happy surprise, joy, and love, even delight, all mixed together. When Jesus gave you the look, you were stunned to realize that he thought you were, well, just wonderful. He looked at Rachel this way. It just made her cry even more. Now the tears were falling on his hands.

Judas was aghast. His plans for the evening were exploding. But aghast doesn’t even touch what Simon was. He was furious, beyond furious, “I cannot believe you let that woman touch you! I cannot believe you let her in my house!”

Things were getting intense, fast. Even so, I couldn’t help but chuckle a little on the inside. I was thinking that Rachel being in Simon’s house would give his neighbors something to talk about for quite a while. I think he may have been thinking the same thing but failing to find it humorous.

“I invited you here to learn more about your teaching but I guess I know all I need to know now! If you let people like that touch you, if you touch people like that, you are certainly no teacher that I want to listen to! Woman, get away from my table! Now!”

Jesus put his hand up, “Simon, wait.” Everything seemed to deescalate when he spoke. Simon was beside himself but Jesus somehow took control the room. His calm was simply stronger than Simon’s fury. But I had a feeling it wouldn’t last.

“Simon, I would very much like to share something with you. Something I had to learn myself and frankly it may help you see things more clearly.”

Simon almost snorted but he said, “Please do.”

“Simon, I am not sure why you really invited me here this evening, perhaps to discuss the law as equals, perhaps to try and catch me in some error. Either way, I think Rachel’s presence gives us an opportunity to see a truth of God’s kingdom. Her presence at your table can be a gift if you will truly see her, not as what you seem to be thinking about her but as a child of God, just like you.

“Growing in God’s ways almost always involves seeing that the Father’s love is greater and wider than we once believed. You might not believe it but I used to be very strict. I was very careful about who I associated with and how I did things. I spent many years separated from society, living with the people by the Dead Sea. In fact, until a few months ago, I was convinced that God only wanted me to be a teacher for the people of Israel. Then I met a woman in Tyre.” He looked at Judas and me and said, “I bet you both remember her.”

Oh yes, I remembered her. I was the one who told Jesus to do something. I told him to send her away. I couldn’t figure out why she was bothering us in the first place. She wasn’t a Jew and Jesus was a Jewish teacher. We worship the God who is and she worships who knows what? All I know for sure about who she worshiped is that she had a necklace with a small image of Melqart, the protector god of Tyre around her neck. She did call Jesus, “Son of David” but I wasn’t buying it. I figured someone had told her to use that phrase because it might flatter Jesus into helping her.

She wanted help for her young daughter and I’ll admit the poor girl touched my heart. She was in a pit of despair, half in, half out of reality, cutting herself with rocks, and refusing to take any nourishment. But what were we supposed to do? What business did this foreign worshiper of Melqart have with us. Why didn’t she leave us alone?

The woman simply had no social graces. She had to know that it wasn’t proper for us to even talk to her but she just kept pushing, kept saying that she wasn’t leaving until she saw Jesus. Finally I went to Jesus and said, “You’ve got to do something. We need you help us out. Send her away, she won’t listen to us.”

So Jesus tried. “Woman, we are all Jews and my mission is to the people of Israel. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

“That’s just stupid!” (I told you she had no social graces.)

“It just wouldn’t be right to take children’s bread and give it to dogs.”

When he said this we all figured that would be an end to it. I don’t see how he could have been clearer, but she wasn’t deterred at all. Without missing a beat she said, “Even dogs get the crumbs that fall off the table.” When she said that, it changed the entire conversation. We looked at her and saw her for the first time.

Jesus was telling Simon all this and then he said something I hadn’t heard him say before. “Simon, when that woman said that, when she was literally willing to call herself a dog to help her daughter, it made me look at her like I’m asking you to look at Rachel.

“I saw her as God’s child. I saw her as one created as the book of David says, ‘fearfully and wonderfully.’”

“The scripture talks about how we are knit by God in our mother’s wombs and God knows our every thought. Do you think that those words are only meant for Jews? Do you think that only the people of Israel love their children? Are we the only ones that love our children enough to do anything we can to help them when they need us? Don’t you think that God who knows when a sparrow falls, knows when a woman of Trye weeps? When I saw her like this, of course I prayed for her daughter.”

Simon wasn’t buying it. “I think that’s worse than talking to this woman here tonight! There has to be some kind of boundary or else there is no reason for the Law and commandments. There have to be rules! If prostitutes and idol worshipers are welcome then why follow any of the commands? Jesus you are trying to destroy all that is good and right about our religion.”

“No Simon, you have dedicated your life to God and know many things but I am afraid you don’t understand the most important things. The Law was given to us to help us worship and to keep us for hurting one another. We are not to use it to exclude and hurt others. You should know this as well as I do. Everything comes under the great commands to love God and love our neighbors. Every religious practice is supposed to help us fulfill these two things.”

Simon still wasn’t having it. “You are trying to twist the words of scripture. I don’t know where you get these ideas but they are not true. We have hundreds of years of tradition to teach us the way. We honor God when we are willing to be different and separate ourselves from sinners like this woman.”

Simon said “this woman” like he was cursing and now Jesus was agitated. “Simon, you invited me to your table to talk about scripture but you are unwilling to live it. You barely gave us a welcome when we got here even though we came on your invitation. Here’s what you need to know: God is God for all. You cannot welcome me into your home without also welcoming Rachel. You and I don’t get to pick and choose those who are called God’s own.”

“Have it your way Jesus. If you and she are together then you both need to leave.” Simon’s face, voice, everything about him, showed that he had nothing but contempt for Jesus. Simon was certain that he was right and that Jesus was wrong. It was impossible for him to believe that what Jesus was saying was true.

Jesus nodded at Judas and me and we rose to leave. I could tell that Judas was devastated. He tried to say something to Simon but Simon just glared.

Jesus took Rachel by the hand and we began our walk back to Matthew’s.