Epiphany #11: Mary Magdalene

Do you see

   this woman? (Luke 7:44)

Last night, Linda and I watched Man of La Mancha. We were watching because my professor of Spanish Linguistics friend asked me to comment on the relationship between Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho. I had to owe up that it is another one of those books I was supposed to read, but never did. So, I settled for the movie.  Although, as my granddaughter has written across her t-shirt, “The Book is Better;” nevertheless, we found the musical a surprising delight—Linda cried; me too, a little.

Don Quixote, on his quest, arrives at a wayfarer’s inn where the maid and prostitute sings, “Do not talk to me of love, just put your money in my hand… I am Aldonza and I do not like the life I live.” But, the virtuous knight, Don Quixote, sees her as a noble maiden calling her by another name: “Dulcinea.”

That is what woke me up too early this morning. I thought of Aldonza and the Gospel story about Jesus and the woman who “washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair” (Lk 7:38). It caused a scene at Simon the Pharisees house where Jesus had been invited for dinner. At such meals, men lay on their sides with their heads towards a low dinner table with their feet sticking out like spokes in a wheel. You should try it. That’s how the uninvited woman found herself at the feet of Jesus:

A woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She 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.

        Now when the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and sort of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner." Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you."  "Teacher," he replied, "speak."

Jesus said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” Of course he saw her. Everyone saw the woman. They just didn’t see her as Jesus saw her. Simon and his guests saw the woman as men saw Aldonza. Jesus saw the woman as Don Quixote saw “Dulcinea.” Simon makes a negative judgement about Jesus, because he figures Jesus should know “what sort of woman is touching him.” Pharisees—religious types, sort people out into categories of righteous and unrighteous. That is their expertize. Jesus sees her different: “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she loves much.” To see others as Jesus sees, is to see others within the sphere of God’s love—as a child of God redeemed by grace.

The story concludes: “Afterwards …the twelve were with Jesus, as well as some women …Mary from Magdala…” (Lk 8:1-2). Tradition has it that the town where Simon threw the dinner party was Magdala; and, the woman who “loved much” was Mary Magdalene.