When you look in the mirror do you absolutely love what you see? Are you satisfied with every aspect of who you are? Have you finally reached perfection?

Of course not.

We all spend the majority of our time and resources trying to improve ourselves. Many of us want to live healthier, get smarter, look better, make more money, and push ourselves into newness - discovering and fulfilling our deepest beings.

One of the things that compels us is our dissatisfaction with what we see in the mirror. It can drive us to do devastating things (as illustrated in the above photo, courtesy of a bulimia foundation). The theological pothole this can create is it can alter our understanding of God’s love. Since we are not satisfied with who we are, we can think that God isn’t either. We forget that God loves us just as we are, not as we should be.

We see this in Sunday’s Gospel when Jesus is having dinner at a Pharisee’s house and a ‘sinner’ comes to the door. She is obviously enamored with Jesus. She washes his feet with tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints him with perfume. Jesus’ host objects. He doesn’t understand what’s motivated her – that it’s the miraculous revelation that God loves her just as she is. Despite her sins and shortcomings God is willing to forgive and accept her for who she is.

The Pharisee, who is the one I most resemble, is stuck in the erroneous thinking that God somehow favors him because he does religious things – dressing, talking, socializing, praying and behaving in certain ways. We do well to remember a former Archbishop of Canterbury’s wise words, ‘It is a great mistake to believe that God is chiefly interested in religion.’

What God is chiefly interested in is love. In loving you, me and all of creation relentlessly, completely, and unceasingly. God is chiefly interested in healing, restoring and reconciling. This is what Jesus did and who Jesus is. Faced with this reality, what would we do if Jesus suddenly appeared before us? And what do we do knowing that Christ is present - especially in the needy and marginalized around us?

Reading
Can Your Church Live? – Alice Mann
Miracles of Kathryn Kuhlman – Harold Castroph
In Memoriam: A Guide to Modern Funeral and Memorial Services – Edward Searl