![An eraser labeled \"cancel culture\" is erasing one human figure among many.](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/980\/2021\/12\/Cancel-Culture-300x156.jpg\")
\u201cJesus was not about social justice.\u201d \u201cThe Gospel of Luke is a social justice Gospel, but the Gospel of Mark not so much.\u201d But I have written 23 posts in a series<\/a> on social justice in Mark\u2019s Gospel! So much for \u201cJesus is not about social justice.\u201d But now Luke beckons, and I have been wondering where to start. I guess, start where I am, and just now I\u2019m with a New York Times article<\/a> on cancel culture. Cancel culture and restorative justice. Cancel culture is about the opposite of forgiveness, and forgiveness and reconciliation are the essence of restorative justice.<\/p>\n Forgiveness and restorative justice versus cancel culture is the theme of this first post on social justice in the Gospel of Luke. It\u2019s also the theme of one of Jesus\u2019 parables that Luke records. The Parable of the Two Debtors and the situation that occasions Jesus telling it make a profound statement. It comes into the Times article, \u201cWhere Is the Forgiveness and Grace in Cancel Culture?\u201d Later in this post I will suggest that we have to stop calling a certain class of sinners \u201cKarens.\u201d<\/p>\n Kenneth E. Bailey in Through Peasant Eyes<\/em> analyzes many of Jesus\u2019 parables. That book and its companion Poet and Peasant<\/em>, published in a single volume<\/a> will be sources I will use in several posts on social justice in Luke. Another source, more directly aiming at social justice in the Gospel of Luke, is John Howard Yoder\u2019s The Politics of Jesus<\/em>. (But see the cautionary note on Yoder at the end of this post.)<\/p>\n Yoder doesn\u2019t deal with the Two Debtors parable, but Bailey has a thorough analysis. It makes an interesting story about Jesus, a Pharisee, and a woman. The interactions among these three may be a bit too subtle for modern minds. Not so for a participant in the culture of Luke\u2019s time and place, as Bailey\u2019s analysis shows.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the story in a nutshell:<\/p>\n A Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus over for dinner. He doesn\u2019t give Jesus the customary welcome to an honored guest\u00a0 \u2013 a kiss, a foot washing, and an anointing. But a woman, a known sinner, does all of these things, to Jesus\u2019 feet, with tears, her hair for a towel, and some expensive perfume. Simon thinks Jesus must not be much of a prophet if he doesn\u2019t know what kind of woman this is. Then Jesus tells the following parable:<\/p>\n A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?<\/p>\n The Pharisee concedes that it would be the one who was forgiven more. Jesus proceeds to point out how the woman makes up for Simon\u2019s negligence. Jesus assures the woman (and the indignant Pharisee) that her sins are forgiven. \u201cYour faith has saved you; go in peace.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a lesson on forgiveness for one who repents. Without help, that\u2019s about all I get out of reading the parable. Bailey shows me more.<\/p>\n Bailey points out, to my surprise, that Jesus didn\u2019t forgive the woman\u2019s sin. He says her sins \u201care forgiven.\u201d That may have happened before the drama in Simon\u2019s house took place. With some imagination Bailey reconstructs a likely scenario to explain how Jesus, the Pharisee, and the woman managed to get together: Jesus has been preaching on the topic of a forgiving, loving God. There\u2019s a woman in the crowd who is probably a prostitute. We can make this guess because the town knows her as a sinner and she happens to have an alabaster jar of ointment. This perfumed oil would be a necessary tool in a prostitute\u2019s trade.<\/p>\n In the course of hearing Jesus\u2019 preaching, the women is struck to the heart. She understands God is actually forgiving her! She decides to give up her trade. (Incidentally, that may be harder than it sounds. I\u2019ve written about another prostitute here<\/a>.) But that can\u2019t be all. She is moved to do something to show her gratitude to God through God\u2019s agent, Jesus. Some hasty inquiries give her the information that a certain Pharisee has invited Jesus over to his house. Having decided what to do, she runs home or to her place of business and grabs the jar of ointment, probably the most expensive thing she owns. She hurries over to Simon\u2019s house, and that\u2019s where Luke picks up the story.<\/p>\n That a woman could find a place at Jesus\u2019 feet in a Pharisee\u2019s house isn\u2019t as improbable as it sounds. Having researched cultures that have changed little over the centuries and may still be close to that of first-century Palestine, Bailey explains: \u201cIn an Oriental banquet, the door of the house is open and there is a great deal of coming and going.\u201d (Through Peasant eyes<\/em>, p. 7)\u00a0There is a long, low table and, perhaps, couches or cushions on which guests lie on their left sides with knees bent, feet behind. Onlookers and servers would be standing behind all these feet.<\/p>\n Protocol for the host of such a banquet calls, first, for greeting guests with a kiss. For guests of equal status, it\u2019s a kiss on both cheeks. Simon address Jesus as Rabbi, or teacher. Whether in sarcasm or seriously, this address implies that Jesus is of superior rank. In that case the kiss should be on the hands. The formerly sinful woman can\u2019t imagine performing either of these acts. She can only kiss Jesus\u2019 feet.<\/p>\n Proper for an especially honored guest is an anointing on the head with olive oil. The woman, not being quite proper can only anoint Jesus\u2019 feet, but she has a supply of perfumed oil, which she doesn\u2019t need anymore. It\u2019s about a hundred times more expensive than olive oil. I may be exaggerating a bit, but even so the shamed woman puts the party\u2019s host to shame.<\/p>\n Before the kissing and the anointing there needed to be the washing of feet. The woman was prepared with the right equipment for the anointing and, of course, for the kissing. But she wasn\u2019t ready for the washing. All she had for water was her grateful tears, which seemed to be plentiful enough. But what can she dry Jesus\u2019 feet with. She does the unthinkable around a bunch of men in public. Shocking Simon and all the guests but one, she lets down her hair.<\/p>\n What kind of person is Simon? He may have been ambivalent about Jesus. Listening to Jesus\u2019 speech earlier, he may have wanted to have a conversation in a more private setting. He could probably enlighten Jesus on a few points. He didn\u2019t do his customary duty as Jesus\u2019 host, but there may have been a reason for that. Jesus often mixed with the wrong sort, touching lepers, talking with women. One couldn\u2019t trust Jesus to be ritually pure. For a purity-obsessed Pharisee, touching Jesus wasn\u2019t safe.<\/p>\n Bailey\u2019s judgment is harsher. We could<\/em>, he says, imagine Simon as the debtor who owed little, i.e., the sinner who sinned little. So only a little of God\u2019s grace is needed \u201cto cover these \u2018debts.\u2019\u201d But more likely the message of Jesus\u2019 parable is, \u201cYou, Simon, have many sins\u2026. You have little awareness of them and have not repented. Thus you have been forgiven little and, naturally, loved little.\u201d Among Simon\u2019s many sins, Bailey lists: \u201cpride, arrogance, hard-heartedness, hostility, a judgmental spirit, slim understanding of what really defiles, a rejection of sinners, insensitivity, misunderstanding of the nature of God\u2019s forgiveness, and sexism.\u201d (p. 18)<\/p>\n Simon wasn\u2019t ready for Jesus\u2019 message about forgiveness. We wonder if Jesus\u2019 parable helped him changed his mind, but the story doesn\u2019t tell us. Other guests, though, seem unlikely candidates for conversion. They hear Jesus\u2019 assurance to the woman, \u201cYour sins are forgiven,\u201d and murmur, \u201cWho is this who even forgives sins?\u201d Maybe they deliberately misinterpret Jesus\u2019 statement. Or, as I think, they\u2019re committed to the division of roles in society that says only priests can declare a person free of leprosy, debt, and other \u201csins.\u201d (In that sense, the priests \u201cforgive\u201d sins.) They resent Jesus for sidelining the priest, disrupting the system \u2013 just like any social justice agitator.<\/p>\n Someone invented the name \u201cKaren\u201d for a certain type of sinner, creating a category from which it\u2019s nearly impossible to escape. A Philadelphia Magazine article<\/a> headlines: \u201cKarens are Dangerous. We Need to Cancel Karen Culture Now.\u201d The article gives a description of Karens \u2013 \u201cracist people who weaponize white supremacy against Black people.\u201d I agree with \u201ccanceling\u201d that element of our culture. But I fear the kind of canceling that becomes its own culture \u2013 cancel culture.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to say that I do not agree that cancel culture includes the movement to remove statues honoring Confederate figures. There are many historical figures whom we know primarily as upholding the supremacy of whites over people of color. They should not receive the honor of a statue displayed where people can\u2019t avoid seeing it. History books and museums are places that can tell these historical figures\u2019 stories, including their misdeeds, appropriately.<\/p>\n Cancel culture is the culture that treats individuals who have done bad things, including discriminatory and racist things, as irredeemable. It\u2019s the Pharisee Simon\u2019s attitude toward sinners. It\u2019s shunning people from polite society, denying them the chance to rethink, repent, start over. A sure sign that this attitude lives in society today is the use of the word \u201cKaren.\u201d We don\u2019t know the people that we, liberals mostly, give this name to; yet we put them in a box and label it. Forgiveness is out of mind, out of the realm of possible things, even out of order.<\/p>\n My thought: We should name the sin. In some cases we need to follow with consequences. We can do both while respecting persons and without labeling. Most important, forgiveness needs to be available and readily offered. As with the prostitute in Luke\u2019s story, that is where repentance and reconciliation starts. That\u2019s restorative justice.<\/p>\n The New York Times article that started this train of thought is titled \u201cWhere Is the Forgiveness and Grace in Cancel Culture?\u201d I will end with the memory of recent events that showed the reality, or in some cases only the possibility, of forgiveness and reconciliation.<\/p>\n On June 17, 2015 Dylann Roof killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, N.C. He admitted his motive was to ignite a race war. One of the slain was Myra Thompson, wife of Rev. Anthony Thompson, a pastor at the church. His words to Mr. Roof challenge the all-too-common kind of justice that is really only retribution:<\/p>\n I would just like him to know: I forgive you, and my family forgives you.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michael Eric Dyson, the article\u2019s author, writes, \u201cThe unmerited forgiveness was a powerful gesture in a process known as restorative justice.\u201d This act seeks \u201caccountability from wrongdoers.\u201d It also raises \u201ctruth and understanding over punishment and vengeance.\u201d It allows victims to \u201cact as forces of morality by practicing acceptance, absolution and mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n In August a Federal appeals court upheld the death sentence for Dylann Roof. A further appeal was denied. Capital punishment denies any possibility of restorative justice.<\/p>\n Should Gov. Ralph Northam have resigned or been forced out of office because of a picture showing him in blackface make-up decades earlier? He didn\u2019t resign and managed to keep his office. That was a backhanded sort of restorative justice, but it worked. Dyson recounts the good things Northam did subsequently for Blacks:<\/p>\n He increased focus on racial justice, paying especially close attention to maternal mortality, equity in transportation and funding for historically Black colleges. He changed how schools teach the history of race, got a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond removed and restored the voting rights of tens of thousands of felons, a sizable share of them Black.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Amy Cooper, a white woman, falsely claimed to police that a black amateur bird-watcher, had threatened her. Public outcry got her fired from her job, but was that the best consequence?<\/p>\n Dyson suggests she might have kept her job with the stipulation that she study \u201crace, Black masculinity, white privilege and social injustice.\u201d Merely firing her, retributive justice, shamed her without encouraging transformation or reconciliation.<\/p>\n Kim Potter is the now-former police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright with her revolver, thinking that she was using a taser. She will undoubtedly serve several years in prison. For her and other officers who have used unwarranted force, often against Blacks, restorative justice could mean \u201cencouraging them to grapple with the inherent injustice of many of the killings of Black people\u2026. Such an education will not restore her to her job, but it can restore her to conscientious citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n South African Anglican cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu died last Sunday, December 30. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on restorative justice after the years of apartheid and oppression of Blacks in his native country. In his words restorative justice means \u201cthe healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships.\u201d It rehabilitates both victim and perpetrator. It gives the criminal a chance \u201cto be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense.\u201d<\/p>\n The American criminal justice system is based largely on retribution with feeble, but perhaps growing, efforts at rehabilitation. A new Minnesota law<\/a> allows women prisoners to apply for \u201cconditional release.\u201d If approved, they can serve sentences in alternative venues like Halfway houses or addiction rehabilitation facilities. They would have \u201ctime and space to bond with their children.\u201d<\/p>\n Many states and the federal government have kept the death penalty for, presumably, the most heinous crimes. In capital punishment all I see is a thirst for revenge. Our criminal justice system should be much more Bible-based and forgiveness-based. Restorative justice is a step in that direction.<\/p>\n I feel uneasy, but on the whole still justified, in using John Howard Yoder as a source in future posts. The New York Times calls Yoder \u201cAmerica\u2019s most influential pacifist theologian.\u201d In the same article<\/a> it details Yoder\u2019s egregious sins. He has admitted to inappropriate relations of a sexual nature (though not to intercourse) with several women. The true number may be 50 or more. Yoder died in late December 1997. He had just completed a four-year process of supervision and counseling and been welcomed back to worship at his Mennonite Church. Subsequently there was a recognition of not only Yoder\u2019s failures but also the failures of the institutions where he taught. These included Goshen Biblical Seminary and the University of Notre Dame.<\/p>\nA sinner kisses Jesus\u2019 feet and receives forgiveness (Luke 7: 36-50)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Digging deeper<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The woman at the house of the Pharisee<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Pharisee<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Cancel culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Restorative justice in action<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Charleston Baptist Church murders<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A politician in blackface<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Where justice could have been better<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A killing by tragic mistake<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\u00a0Remembering Desmond Tutu<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\u00a0(Cautionary note on Yoder)<\/strong><\/h4>\n