Who's sorry now?

For those of us old enough to remember, the phrase, "Love means never having to say you're sorry" produces a wry smile. It takes but a moment of reflection to realize the profound untruth of this statement. Life without "I'm sorry" would be hell indeed. The biblical tradition is filled with stories, sayings, and images that point to the human experience of sorrow for sin, repentance, and forgiveness. "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy" (Ps. 126:5). And "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt. 5:4).

In our time, the experience of mourning for sin seems particularly elusive. For example, societies around the world can be characterized in part by what sociologists call "tribalism." People band together around common interests or values, ethnic or racial heritage, religious or political convictions, sexual orientation, economic status, and so on. The goal of such groupings is to demand rights that are perceived to have been denied or to take revenge for past offenses. This orientation leaves little room for reflection on personal and corporate sin, much less for the feelings of pain and sorrow that inevitably accompany such awareness.

There are other reasons why sorrow for sin is elusive in our culture. A basic orientation of American society can be summed up in the phrase, "When in doubt, sue!" It is taboo to admit mistakes. Accusations of culpability and legal threats force such admissions underground. Professional etiquette in business, medicine, and even among neighbors dictates that one never admit to mistakes or oversights - much less to incompetence or negligence. In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a book with the prescient title Whatever Became of Sin?

One of the more vivid biblical images of sorrow for sin appears in the seventh chapter of Luke in the story of an unknown woman who bathes Jesus' feet with her tears. Preceded by two healing stories in which Luke highlights cherished relationships - a master who asks Jesus to heal his slave and a widow who has lost her only son - Luke tells the story of a dinner Jesus attended at the home of Simon the Pharisee. Luke changes the story (also told in Matt. 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9) to fit his own agenda and the needs of his audience.

Over the centuries this nameless female figure has been conflated with other women in the gospels. As a result, both art and tradition associate the woman named Mary Magdalen with this sinner, when in fact, the gospels do not. Mary Magdalen has been robbed of her illustrious role in the story of redemption as the first disciple to whom the victorious, resurrected Christ reveals himself. This injustice is part of a larger, more harmful association between women and sin. Today, one must question a tradition that places the burden of sin so heavily on Eve's shoulders. To reflect on this story with integrity, we need to free ourselves from the impulse to see sin, sorrow for sin, and repentance as "women's work."

Let us substitute for the woman in the story a nameless man, known to be a sinner, who approaches Jesus, weeps, and bathes and anoints his feet because he has been loved, touched, and forgiven by this strange and wondrous person, Jesus. Or let us revisit the story of Peter who, when he realized he had denied Christ, "broke down and wept" (Mark 14:72). Isn't it unfortunate that in the tradition, Peter does not function as Mary Magdalen's equal - as an image of the sinner who loved much, wept, and repented? At the least, it would provide a balance to Peter's role as the image of authority and power - the keeper of the keys. But let us return to Luke's story.

A woman of the city, who was a sinner, arrives at a dinner party given by Simon the Pharisee. In what must have been a provocative gesture, the woman wets Jesus' feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with ointment. Jesus perceives the snide thoughts in Simon's head and uses the opportunity to tell a story and compare Simon's gestures with those of the woman. The gist of the story is that love provides the context, foundation, beginning, middle, and end of sorrow for sin, repentance, and forgiveness. Employing a reversal, Jesus portrays the woman as a hero and Simon as a hypocrite and a boor.

Luke interprets Jesus' life and mission as the fulfillment of the Promised One of the scriptures and of John the Baptist. He emphasizes the healing and reconciling aspects of the mission and downplays or eliminates its judgmental or vengeful dimensions. Jesus later rebukes his own disciples who want to condemn those who did not receive him (9:53-55). This Jesus, then, does not threaten us in our sin but rather invites us to behave like the woman who came to weep and anoint him because she was forgiven much and loved much.

The story invites us to wonder about what happened at Simon's house. Jesus was no doubt seen as a celebrity in the communities he visited. His words and amazing deeds were reported across the land, and crowds often accompanied him on his travels. It would not have been unusual for someone like Simon to invite such a figure to share his table, nor for the crowds to hang around on the fringes of the house and the dining table to catch glimpses of the guests and listen in on the conversation. If one envisions a table surrounded by couches on which the guests lay to eat, one can see how one would have easy access to the guests' feet pointed outward toward the milling crowd.

How did the woman learn that Jesus would be there? Why did she decide to go? And what was the source of her weeping and her decision to anoint Jesus' feet? Perhaps the woman had heard about Jesus' miracles. Perhaps she had heard him preaching in the synagogue. Perhaps she witnessed the way in which Simon slighted and insulted Jesus by not washing or kissing or anointing him. But somehow the woman had been touched in the depths of her soul by the person and message of Jesus - a healing touch that caused her to experience forgiveness and new life; an embracing touch that caused immense love to well up in her and moved her, in return, to touch Jesus as he lay on a couch at Simon's table.

It is possible that the woman was a prostitute and that the ointment she carried was one of the "tools of her trade"? (In Mark's gospel, she breaks the flask containing the ointment and pours it over Jesus' head.) Her gracious gestures signal a transformation in the way in which she relates to others. Somehow her encounter with Jesus released her, freed her, forgave her, filled her with love, gave her a new sense of herself, emboldened her to step forward in such a public way to anoint the person who was the source of her being made new.

In the midst of a world that finds sorrow for sin, repentance, and forgiveness a tall order, what can this story teach us? To begin, the story encourages us to encounter a God who does not sadistically watch over our shoulders to catch us in some misstep, but a God who ultimately embraces us with overwhelming tenderness and love. Perhaps by dwelling imaginatively in the woman's encounter with Jesus, we can allow ourselves to be touched, forgiven, and made whole as she was. This unnamed woman invites us to trust this God of love and forgiveness, to believe that somehow "all will be well." The closer we are drawn to the ever-loving and ever-forgiving God, the more likely it is that we will experience the horror of sin and weep.

Most of us recognize our penchant to trivialize sin. The laundry list of peccadilloes from childhood clings tenaciously. It is a good way to avoid the whole issue. But sin belongs to the world of big things in our lives - God and love, the moon and the stars, suffering and death. Betrayals come in all sizes, but when we meet the God that the woman in our story encountered, we meet an embracing love that makes any betrayal an enormous failure all the more so because we know that it will be forgiven 70 times 7 times.

This story also challenges us to turn our attention away from the mote in our neighbor's eye toward the two-by-four in our own. How can we deal honestly and creatively with the wounds we inflict on others and abandon our tendency to focus on the wounds others inflict on us? Only when we begin to see the world's ills mirrored in our own attitudes and behaviors can we be freed of the need to judge others in arrogant and condescending ways. To deny our sin is simply a lie. To experience our daily betrayals as devastating because we are so deeply loved and forgiven is to have access to a power that can transform the world. Acknowledging our sinfulness can result in various responses - silence, a stony apology, or a genuine, heartfelt, but always risky, "I'm sorry, please forgive me."

Above all, sorrow for sin is a community affair. Our very survival in the 21st century may depend on our ability to be sorry and to forgive to release one another from the ravages of our most hateful behavior, to change our minds and to begin again. It is an awesome power that we have, either to refuse to be sorry or to refuse forgiveness. We need to be sorry, to forgive and be forgiven in all the communities to which we belong - family, friendship, church, society, and globe.

From our most intimate companions to the people in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, or Somalia, our world cries out, pleading, demanding that we admit our fault against each other and feel sorrow, repent, and forgive. The woman in the story can prompt us to a deeper love of the world. As we look at ourselves and at our hungry, poor, abused, and war-torn world, do we weep? Are we appalled at the evil around us and at the evil lodged in our own hearts? Do we pray and lament for ourselves and for the world because we love, because the Son of God came in love to be with us and for us, and because daily we deny him?

The woman in the story also invites us into a world of feeling. Psychology has taught us much about our emotions. Slowly, tentatively, we have begun to notice and recover a world that was for too long ignored or condemned. Culture can teach us to fear and repress feelings rather than to accept and appreciate them. Knowing and expressing feelings makes us vulnerable, but it also opens us to solidarity and friendship. Of course, it is one thing to nurture, notice, and value feelings of love and joy and quite another to nurture and value feelings of sorrow for sin. It can be even more threatening to pray for these feelings, to allow them to come forward, and to witness to their presence in our behaviors.

Throughout the tradition, the term compunction has been used to point to the experience of sorrow for sin. This interior disposition was often symbolized visibly and physically by what has come to be known as the "gift of tears." The desert fathers and mothers of the fourth century are known in a special way as teachers of, and witnesses to, this gift. Tears do not get good press in our culture. Men who weep are wimps. Women who weep are manipulators. But we cannot allow the fear and misuse of tears to prevent us from praying for this gift. The fathers and mothers of the desert remind us that those who weep are the happy ones. The unhappy are those with dry eyes and a cold heart.

Elizabeth A. Dreyer, professor of ecclesiastical history at Washington Theological Union in Maryland.