At the dinner the focus of Simon and the others was on what was wrong with this woman who had come into the room uninvited and had made such a scene at Jesus' feet. Jesus' focus was on what was right about her. In the eyes of the others, what was wrong with her had to do with her past . But in the eyes of Jesus, what was right about her had to do with what forgiveness would enable her to be in the future . This raises a question about the life of the church in our own time.
Parish decline is attributed to the controlling, addictive and sick behavior of parishioners.
When the priest is therapist and the congregation is patient, the focus is always upon what's wrong. Even celebrations of what's right have a tentative and suspicious air about them. I believe that Father James makes an important point. The dinner table in today's gospel was filled with religious people who were more concerned with what was wrong with an uninvited woman letting her hair down and weeping at Jesus' feet than they were with what forgiveness might empower her and them to become. So also today there are people in the church who are more interested in pointing out sin than in proclaiming and celebrating forgiveness.