Thepfulhouvi Solo
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ometime at the early period of his Ministry, one day Jesus was at the Gate of the Town in Nain, Galilee when a crowd of people was taking out the dead body of a Widow’s Son to be buried. Jesus caught hold of the Coffin and called out:
“Young Man, I say to you, get up”.
The dead man sat up and began to talk to him and Jesus gave him back to his mother. The crowd was filled with awe and said:
“a great prophet has appeared among us”.
Jesus must have been very popular at the initial period of his Ministry mostly of Healings and a few cardinal points of his Gospel. He was hailed as a great Prophet and the Jews perhaps even expected him to stand for their national cause against the much disliked foreign Rulers. Thus, the Pharisees must have initially welcomed Jesus in their Circle. Jesus must have been well acquainted with quite a few of the ‘prominent’ Pharisees for one of them, well meaning Simon, to invite Jesus to Dinner one day. Foes do not invite each other to dinner and the host Simon was very polite when Jesus came to the Dinner.
There were other Pharisee colleagues too in the House for the Dinner. Most surprisingly, a woman also came unexpectedly to the House. In those days, as it is in our days today, it was odd for an unknown not very reputable woman to gate-crash into a Party of selected elite Citizens.
The woman had heard Jesus would be at Simon’s that day for Dinner and had brought costly ointment for him. When the Guests sat down -perhaps Japanese Style- on the floor round a low table, she stood at the back of Jesus.
Oddly, the woman was weeping and her tears dropped down on the feet of Jesus. She bent down, wiped her tears from the Feet with her Hair and kissed the feet of Jesus. She then smeared the perfume and on the feet of Jesus’.
The embarrassed host Simon and the other Guests ignored the happenings in surprised silence. Host Simon silently questioned in his own heart:
“If this man were a Prophet, he would know
who is touching him and what kind of woman
she is, that she is a sinner”.
The Gospel Writer Luke, wrote: (Lk. 7:37…)
“Jesus ‘answered him’ and said:
Simon, I have something to tell you”.
“Tell me Teacher”, Simon said courteously.
And what Jesus said to Simon, were words not commonly heard in the ears of the religious Invitees -the Pharisees.
Jesus told Simon, not in the words of etiquette a friendly Guest is normally expected to tell his Host:
Jesus told Simon:
“You did not give me any water for my feet, but this woman
gave her tears and wiped them with her Hair.
You did not give me a Kiss, but this woman has not
stopped kissing my feet since I entered your house,
Therefore I tell you her many sins have been forgiven,
-For she loved much”.
These Shockingly hard arrogant human words hardly suited or were expected from a Guest for a Person who has invited him (the Guest) to a Dinner in his house.
The words did not fare well in the ears of the other Guests. It forebode ill for Jesus.
The other Pharisee Guests took Jesus simply a common human being and unknowingly thought within themselves:
“Who is this man who can forgive sins”.
The Gospel Writers had Jesus, like John the Baptist, some of the harshest words for the Pharisees.
Luke records the Pharisees invited Jesus to Dinner surprisingly the most often than others!
Luke records Jesus’ hardest words in Lk. 11: 37 for the host. It was on a Sabbath day; Jesus was invited to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee. Then Jesus began lecturing the Host not to invite Friends, Brothers or rich neighbors but to invite the Poor, the Crippled, the Lame and the Blind to lunch.
Jesus did not wash when he entered the house of Simon for the Dinner and said:
“You Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and dish,
But inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
You foolish people! Woe to you Pharisees,
you give Tenths of mint and garden herbs
but forget Justice and love of God.
He also had very harsh words for the expert Guests present; he said to the Experts:
You load people down with burdens
but you yourself will not lift one finger to help them.
Woe to you Experts, your fathers killed the Prophets
you build Tombs over them
Woe to you experts in the law
because you have taken away the Key to Knowledge
you yourself have not entered and
You have hindered those who were entering.
Perhaps unable to bear the insult any longer, one of the Experts said:
“Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also”
Jesus had been kind to Prostitutes; tender to the violent and to the mentally disturbed; inviting to humble Army Officers; friendly to untouchable Samaritans and Strangers; considerate to the appeals of the needy, but hard to the proud high; unsentimental to relatives and other Persons; harshly corrective to wrong religious Teachers, fearlessly humble to the highly placed: Jesus is indescribable in human Terms exactly!
The Kingdom of God is not about petty language of etiquette or about pleasantries of gossip; it is Hard Talk about life and death and about the hard Truth of Light deadly against Darkness.
Luke recorded the Pharisees invited Jesus to Dinner three times [(i). Lk.7:36; (ii). Lk. 11:37; and (iii). Lk. 14:1] and on all the occasions Jesus had very hard words for the Pharisee Host and the other elite Guests also.
Then Jesus left the place and “the Pharisees and teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely”
Perhaps it was in the friendly House of the Pharisee Host that the gathered Guests first began to hatch the Idea to kill Jesus.
