If righteousness could be gained through the law,
Christ died for nothing. Galatians 2:21
I remember reading the popular children’s book The Little Engine That Could to my two boys many years ago. Great illustrations, great supporter of our American theory about will power as the key to success. The little engine is required to pull a long line of cars up and over a mountain while repeating the mantra: I-think-I-can. Nearly exhausted close to the top, it still keeps huffing and puffing: I – think – I – can, I – think – I – can until it reaches the crest, after which it proudly says, I thought I could, I thought I could.
As such the story supports the scribal opponents of St. Paul in the New Testament who laid out the Law for their people, from the ten commandments down to all the minor do’s and don’ts and made their salvation dependent on their keeping all those do’s and don’ts to raise them beyond the gravitational pull of the greed, suspicion, deceit, animosity, envy we all conceal behind the innocent face we show in public. What was it Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke: You Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil . . . Woe also to you scholars of the Law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.
St. Paul was a Pharisee, a legalist, a strict advocate of adherence to the Law of his tradition as the correct way to please God and merit reward. He even persecuted Jewish Christians who dared follow the teachings and example of that renegade Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, who hung out with sinners, lax Jews, sick people whose illness was viewed as punishment for past sins. But luckily for us, Paul underwent a crisis. However it was he learned about Jesus and the mission of Jesus, he did a flip flop. His own conscience told him that much as he laid down the law to others, he fell short himself – indeed it’s as if keeping the law perfectly was like trying to climb a greased pole: no matter how high you labored to get, you were bound to slip right down to the bottom. Will power alone wouldn’t do it. And that’s when the face of God changed to the face of the merciful Jesus, when the face of God as judge, as menacing motivator, gave way to the gracious countenance that absolutely loves us, failures though we think ourselves to be; loves us as the Father of the prodigal son loves his wayward son, as I love in the most radical way my own sons.
And was it not that experience of God as pure grace, as invincible personal love, thanks to the influence of Jesus, that drove the woman in today’s Gospel to rise from being depressed and put upon and accepting her fate, to burst into Simon’s dining hall, throw herself at the feet of Jesus, cover them with a precious ointment, kiss them, dry them with her hair – in a word, behave extravagantly, full of grace herself now that she had found God to be gracious and not a lawyer? Indeed, whatever the Law might require of her henceforth, she would treat it as elementary school from which she had now graduated to be a master of arts in the deepest sense of the word.
That’s what’s behind the quote at the top of this essay. In effect Paul is saying: if I could have saved myself by keeping the Law of Moses, what need had I for Christ to die for me? But that’s exactly what I needed: someone to love me to that degree, willing to die for me. And that’s the way God works: he’s not cheap like Simon. He pours himself out as exemplified by the ‘sinful” woman in today’s Gospel.