God’s Style Of Nearness, Compassion And Tenderness

The Repentant Magdalen by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1648 [Museum of Fine Arts, Houston]

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n February 14, 2021, Pope Francis delivered an Angelus reflection about Jesus touching a leper. The pope said,

“To touch with love means to establish a relationship, to enter into communion, to become involved in the life of another person… even to the point of sharing their wounds... With that gesture, Jesus reveals that God… who is not indifferent, does not keep himself at a ‘safe distance.’ Rather, he draws near out of compassion and touches our life to heal it with tenderness. It is God’s style: nearness, compassion, and tenderness. God’s transgression. He is a great transgressor in this sense.”

In this light I would like to talk about three styles of Jesus’s nearness, compassion and tenderness to us. Of all the four Gospel accounts Luke highlights stories of Jesus’s nearness to sinners: the Prodigal Son, the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector at Prayer, and Zacchaeus. Among them the woman with a bad name in town stands out in today's Gospel. She gate crashed into the dinner-party of Simon the Pharisee. This is the first aspect of Jesus’s nearness. Like many Pharisees Simon is a stickler for observance of the Law, and nit-picks almost all the time of what he sees in others. However, Jesus is very delicate towards Simon, by not being a nit-picker himself. Jesus’s style is to make himself near the wrong-doer to gain his trust. No wonder, one of the transgressions that people hurled against Jesus is that he eats in the house of sinners and tax-collectors. Jesus however is not in the house of a tax-collector but of a Pharisee. Simon does not hide who he is to Jesus, most especially, while inside his own house. Jesus does not rebuke Simon and tell to his face how judgmental he is towards others. No. If he did that then his effort to win over the transgressor to his side could easily had been jeopardized. Jesus is true to his own sayings about loving especially those who do not love back. Jesus says, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you… Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven” (Lk 6:27-38). There was another Pharisee like Simon whom Jesus did not judge. He is Nicodemus, who was also a member of the Sanhedrin. In John's Gospel he goes to or does things for Jesus by night out of fear. After the crucifixion of Jesus, it was Nicodemus who gave a dignified burial for him.

Second, Jesus is near to those who are wounded like the unnamed woman in the Gospel. Jesus does not rebuke or interrogate her. Jesus does not keep a safe distance unlike his fellow men. The details of her sin or woundedness are unimportant to Jesus because all that matters is to have a share of the person’s woundedness. Such is the basic stance of being near a person. The powerful gesture of just being there to listen could already speak a thousand words that come straight from the heart. That kind of language is the language of the heart. It is the most caring language which Jesus used during his life on earth. Precisely if you would like to give care to someone, this is the language to use which is wrought with tenderness. Using words of judgement towards the woman could create unmanageable emotional pressure and stress. Many times the wounded person is not anymore at war with another person but at war with one’s own self. Henry Nouwen says, "Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the 'Beloved.' Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence." The woman was on the verge of rejecting herself perhaps because she cannot face her own guilt. In turn the person will begin rejecting every good thing that he or she has been given. Worst the person rejects God. Jesus's style is to get nearer to ourselves more than we are even near to our own as St Augustine once said.

Third and last kind of nearness is Jesus’s nearness to his circle of friends, the Twelve. We are not saying that Jesus is an elitist by picking only a handful of men. No. The Twelve are as wounded as the woman and as imperfect as Simon the Pharisee. In short the Twelve are all of us. And what did Jesus do to show his nearness to them? The last teaching of Jesus to his disciples before his passion and death was the washing of the feet. The same story of the sinful woman is found also in chapter 14 of Mark’s Gospel and this story happens immediately before the last supper. I would like to believe that the unknown woman with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil became a role model for Jesus. The unnamed woman poured costly perfumed oil to anoint his head to the indignation of the men who were reclining at table with the Lord. Jesus highly praised her actions by saying, “Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (Mk 14:9). Jesus saw himself in the shoes of the woman who bathed his feet with her tears and revered them with her endless kisses. “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little” (Lk 7:47). Jesus did a similar gesture of washing the feet of his beloved disciples not out of being forgiven but out of deep love towards his disciples who will desert and betray him. But the lavish giving on the part of the woman who was forgiven for her many sins made Jesus realize what he would do to pour out all the tender love he could give. He would simply forgive and the highest payment would be on Jesus—bailing all of us out with his own precious blood. Benedict XVI says in his Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, “It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice" (DC 10). St Ignatius said in the Spiritual Exercises: For “love ought to manifest itself more in deeds than in words.” William Shakespeare also used the same quotation: “they do not love who do not show their love” (Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 1, sc. 2, line 31, William Shakespeare). But let us not forget that, first, there has to be love which flows and translates into acts of nearness. Those who keep themselves at a safe distance simply mean there is no love in the first place. Amen. Fr JM Manzano SJ