(rough draft)
Visiting Simon the Pharisee
Simon was a prominent Pharisee in Jerusalem, but he wasn’t part of the Sanhedrin. He was a half-hearted believer in Jesus’s teachings, and much impressed by his personality. So even though he knew he might be criticized for doing so, he invited Jesus, Peter, James, and John to his house for dinner.
The wealthy Pharisees were intent on showing off to other people how they helped the poor. They were very public demonstrating their charity, and at times would even have someone blow a trumpet to let everyone know they were about to give money to a beggar. It was also their custom to leave the doors to their house open when they’d throw a banquet for a distinguished guest. This was so the street beggars could come into the room, stand or sit on the floor behind the people eating at the table, and get scraps of food tossed to them from time to time.
During the feast that Simon held for Jesus, Peter, James, and John at his house, a woman who had been the madam of one of Jerusalem’s better brothels arrived with the other street people.
She had become a believer in Jesus’s gospel, closed her whore-house, and convinced most of the hookers to find another line of work. Regardless of these changes she had made in her life, the Pharisees still looked down on her. Because of this, she was forced to wear her hair down, which was the sign of prostitute back in the day. This woman, whose name we don’t know, brought with her to the Pharisees banquet a large pitcher of expensive massage oil. While Jesus ate his meal, she massaged his feet with the oil that was mixing in with her tears of gratitude, wiping away the excess with her hair. After she was finished massaging Jesus’ feet, she continued kissing them as she quietly cried.
When Simon saw all this going on, he thought to himself, “If this man was a prophet, he’d know this woman was a hooker and a notorious sinner.”
Jesus knew what Simon was thinking, and then spoke up, saying, “Simon, I have something that I want to say to you.”
Simon said, “Teacher, go ahead.”
Then Jesus said, “A certain wealthy moneylender had two people who owed him money. One person owed him five hundred coins, and the other person owed him fifty. Now, when neither of them had nothing to pay their loan, he forgave them both. Which of them do you think, Simon, would love him most for what he did?”
Simon said, “The man, I suppose, whom he forgave the most.”
And Jesus said, “You are right,” and then pointing to the woman, he said, “Simon, take a good look at this woman. I entered your house as an invited guest, but you didn’t give me any water to wash my feet. This grateful woman has washed my feet with tears and dried them with her hair. You didn’t give me a friendly kiss when I arrived, but this woman, ever since she came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has massaged my feet with precious lotions. And what does all of this mean? Just that all of her sins have been forgiven, and this has led her to love much. But those of you who have received only a little forgiveness, sometimes love only love a little.”
And then turning around toward the woman, Jesus took her by the hand and, lifting her up, said, “You have indeed repented your sins, and they are forgiven. Don’t be discouraged by other people’s thoughtless and unkind attitudes; go forth in the joy and liberty of the kingdom of heaven.”
When Simon and his friends who were at dinner with him heard these words, they were more than astonished, and they began to whisper among themselves, “Who is this guy that dares to forgive even sins?”
And when Jesus heard them whispering among themselves, he turned and dismissed the woman, saying, “Woman, go in peace; your faith has saved you.”
As Jesus got up with his friends to leave, he turned to Simon and said, “I know your heart, Simon, how you are torn between faith and doubt, and how you are scared and troubled by pride; but I pray that you will yield to the light, and that you experience in your life the same tremendous transformation of mind and spirit that the gospel of the kingdom has already brought about in your unasked and unwelcome guest. And I state to all of you that the Father has opened the doors of the heavenly kingdom to all who have the faith to enter, and no man or group of men can close those doors even to the most humble soul or supposedly the worse sinner on Earth if they are sincere in seeking an entrance.”
Then Jesus, Peter, James, and John said their goodbyes, and went to join the rest of the apostles at the camp in the Gethsemane garden.
Later that night, Jesus taught the apostles about a person’s relationship with God in the eternal journey to Paradise. He said, “My children, if there really is a true living connection between the child and the Father, the child is sure to continually move toward the Father’s ideals. True, the child may make slow progress at first, but progress is assured. The important thing is not how fast you progress, but rather the fact that you are progressing. Your actual progress is not as important as the direction of your progress. What you are becoming day-by-day, is infinitely more important than what you are today.
“The woman who was transformed at Simon’s house today is, at this time, living on a material level well below that of Simon and his well-meaning friends. But while these Pharisees are spending their time focused on meaningless ceremonies, this woman has, in full sincerity, started out on the long and eventful search for God, and her path toward heaven is not blocked by spiritual pride and moral self-satisfaction.
The woman is, humanly speaking, much farther away from God than Simon, but her soul is in progressive motion; she is on the way toward an eternal goal. This woman has in herself tremendous spiritual possibilities for the future. Some of you may not stand high in actual levels of soul and spirit, but you are making daily progress on the living way I’ve opened up, through faith, to God. There are tremendous possibilities in each of you for the future. Better by far to have a small but living and growing faith, than to have a great intellect with its dead stores of worldly wisdom and spiritual unbelief.”
But then Jesus warned his apostles against the foolishness of taking the Father’s love for granted.
He told them that the heavenly Father is not a lax and foolish parent who indulges his children by condoning sin and forgiving recklessness, actions that contribute to the delinquency and early demoralization of their own kids. Jesus said, “My Father does not indulge those actions that are self-destructive to moral growth and spiritual progress. Such sin is a horror in the sight of God.”
Jesus attended a lot of other semi-private meetings and banquets with the rich and the poor of Jerusalem before he and his apostles left for Capernaum. And a lot of these people became believers in the gospel of the kingdom, and were later baptized by Abner and his associates, who remained behind in Jerusalem to keep building the kingdom in that area.
Returning to Capernaum
The last week of April, Jesus and the twelve left the Bethany headquarters near Jerusalem and started back to Capernaum by way of Jericho and the Jordan.
The Jewish religious leaders held many secret meetings trying to decide what to do with Jesus. They all agreed that something should be done to stop his teaching, but they could not agree on how to do that. They had hoped that the civil authorities would get rid of him like Herod had put an end to John, but they realized that Jesus was working in such a way that the Romans were not alarmed by his preaching. So, when they met the day before Jesus left for Capernaum, they decided that he would have to be arrested on religious charges and then tried by the Sanhedrin. To pull this off, they appointed six secret spies to follow Jesus and collect enough evidence of blasphemy and law-breaking to convict him before they reported back to Jerusalem. When these six spies caught up with Jesus, the apostles, and almost two dozen other people that were following along with them, they told everyone they wanted to be disciples and they were allowed to join the group. Later, at the beginning of the second preaching tour of Galilee, three of them returned to Jerusalem with their report.
That night, Peter preached at the Jordan crossing, and the next morning they all moved up river toward Amathus. They had wanted to keep going straight on to Capernaum, but there were so many people waiting for them that they stayed where they were for three days teaching, preaching, and baptizing. They didn’t head home until early Saturday morning, May 1.
And so, the spies were sure that they had their first crime with which to charge Jesus: breaking the sabbath by starting out for Capernaum on Saturday morning. But they were soon disappointed. Right before they all headed out, Jesus called Andrew over and told him to only take the crew one thousand yards down the road before setting up camp, which was the Jewish limit for traveling on the sabbath.
But even though that idea did not work, the spies didn’t have to wait long for another opportunity to accuse Jesus or the apostles of breaking their religious laws. The wheat growing along both sides of the road was just then getting ripe, and as our crew was walking their allotted kilometer down the road, some of the apostles who were hungry were picking the wheat, rubbing the chaff off with their hands, and eating the kernels of grain. This was a normal thing for people to do when traveling from one place to another back then, so no one gave it a second thought. Except, of course, the spies, who saw it as a chance to charge Jesus with something. So, when they saw Andrew rubbing the grain in his hands, they went to him and said, “Don’t you know that it’s against the law to pick and rub the grain on the sabbath?”
And Andrew said, “But we are hungry and rub only what we need; since when did it become sinful to eat grain on the sabbath?”
But the Pharisees came back and said, “You are not wrong eating the grain, but you do break the law by picking and rubbing out the grain between your hands. Surely your Master would not approve of this.”
Then Andrew said, “But if it is not wrong to eat the grain, then rubbing it out between our hands is hardly more work than chewing the grain, which you allow. Why do you quibble over such trifles?”
When Andrew intimated that they were quibblers, they got mad and rushed back to where Jesus was walking along talking to Matthew. They protested to him, saying, “Behold, Teacher, your apostles break the law on the sabbath day: they pick, rub, and eat the grain. We are sure you will order them to quit doing that.”
And then said Jesus to the spies, “You are indeed passionate for the law, and it’s good to remember to keep the sabbath day holy. But haven’t you read in the scriptures about the day when David was hungry and he and his friends went into God’s house and ate the holy bread, which is against the law for anyone to eat except the priests? And have you not read in our law that it’s okay to do many things on the sabbath day? And won’t I, before the day is over, see you eat what you have brought along for today? My good men, you do well to be serious about the sabbath, but you would do better to guard the health and well-being of your fellows. I’m telling you that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. And if you are here to spy on what I say, then I openly tell you that the Son of Man is lord of even the sabbath.”
The Pharisees were astonished and confused by Jesus’ wisdom and discrimination. For the rest of the day they kept by themselves, and didn’t dare to ask any more questions.
Jesus’ went against the slavish Jewish traditions by doing and affirming positive actions; he didn’t spend a lot of time telling people what not to do. He taught that the people who know God can enjoy the liberty of living without being tricked into sinning. Jesus told the apostles, “Men, if you are enlightened by the truth and really know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you don’t know the divine way, you are unfortunate and already breaking the law.”
Back in Capernaum
To get away from all of the people who were following them, Jesus and the twelve decided to take a boat from Tarichea (tə’rēkēə) to Bethsaida. They arrived about noon on Monday, May 3rd. But by the next day, everyone, including the spies from Jerusalem, had again found them.
That Tuesday evening, Jesus was holding one of his question and answer sessions when one of the six spies spoke up and said, “Today I was talking with one of John’s disciples who was at your lesson, and we were at a loss to understand why you never command your disciples to fast and pray like John’s followers and we do?”
And Jesus, referring to something that John had said, answered the spy, “Do the sons of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as the bridegroom remains with them, they can’t fast. But the time is coming when the bridegroom will be taken away, and during those times the children of the bridechamber will undoubtedly fast and pray. To pray is natural for the children of light, but fasting is not a part of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.
Remember that a wise tailor doesn’t sew a piece of new and unshrunk cloth on to old cloths, because when it is wet it’ll shrink and make the tear worse. Nor do men put new wine into old wine skins, because the new wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the skins would be lost. The wise man puts the new wine into fresh wine skins.
Because of this, my disciples are wise not to bring too much of the old order into the new teaching of the gospel of the kingdom. You who have lost your teacher may be justified in fasting for a time. Fasting may be an appropriate part of the law of Moses, but in the coming kingdom the sons of God will experience freedom from fear and joy in the divine spirit.”
When John’s disciples heard these words, they were comforted. The Pharisees, on the other hand, just ended up more confused.
Then Jesus continued, and warned those around him against believing that all of the old teaching should be replaced entirely by new ones. Jesus said, “That old and also true, you must keep.
Likewise, that new but false must be rejected. But that new and also true, you have to have the faith and courage to accept. Remember, it is written, ‘Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him. As new wine, so is a new friend; if it becomes old, you shall drink it with gladness.’”
The Feast of Spiritual Goodness
That night, long after the usual listeners had gone to bed, Jesus continued teaching his apostles. He began this special lesson by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah, “‘Why have you fasted?
For what reason do you upset your souls while you continue to find pleasure in oppression and take delight in injustice? See, you fast for the sake of conflict and to strike with a wicked fist.
But you will not fast like this to make your voices heard on high.
“‘Is this the fast that I have chosen: a day for a man to hurt his soul? To bow his head down like a bulrush, and to grovel in the ashes in rough cloths worn to cause him pain? Do you dare to call this a fast, and an acceptable day in the sight of the Lord?
This is the fast I chose: to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the knots of heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. It’s to share my bread with the hungry, and to bring those who are homeless and poor to my house. And when I see those who are naked, I will give them cloths.
“‘Then your light will shine forth like the morning, and your health will quickly improve. Your righteousness will go before you while the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then when you call on the Lord he will answer: you will cry out, and he will say, Here I am.
And all of this he’ll do if you drop your vanity and don’t oppress or condemn other people. Instead, the Father wants you to open your heart to the hungry, and minister to hurt souls. Then your light will shine so that even your darkness will be like the noonday. Then the Lord will continue to guide, satisfying your soul and renewing your strength. You will become like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never end.
And the people who do these things will restore the wasted glories; they will raise up the foundations of many generations; they shall be called the rebuilders of broken walls, the restorers of safe paths in which to dwell.’”
All night long Jesus urged his apostles to understand that it is their faith that makes them secure in the kingdom, now and in the future, and not them causing their soul pain or hurting the body by fasting. He urged the apostles to at least live up to the ideas of the prophets of old, and expressed hope that they would progress far beyond even the ideals of Isaiah and the older prophets. Jesus’ final words that night were, “Grow in grace through living your faith that you are in fact the sons of God, while at the same recognizing every man your brother.”
It was after two o’clock in the morning when Jesus finished speaking, and then everyone went to bed for the night.
Bob