Come As You Are

COME AS YOU ARE

a prayer to open

Open my eyes and help me to see you.

Open my heart and help me to know you.

Jesus, my Lord and my God.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him. . . . When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”

Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, . . . “When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”

And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

What a scene this is: a woman cast out, known to the whole town as a sinner, fallen to her knees and weeping in devotion to Jesus Christ. The Pharisee’s discomfort is palpable. Indeed, to have dinner with a Pharisee, you had to meet certain standards of cleanliness. Sinners were not welcome, so it was scandalous for the sinful woman to even step foot into Simon’s home. But Jesus’ standards are different. He doesn’t say to seek him out only once we’ve gotten it all together; his invitation is to come to him as we are and he will make us clean.

• Think of a time when you felt exposed and unworthy. What caused those feelings? How did Jesus respond?
• Who can you extend Jesus’ invitation to this week? Is there someone you know who’s trying to clean up to become worthy? Who believes they’re too far gone, unredeemable? Ask God to give you an opportunity to share the good news that they are invited now, as is.
• What does today’s passage reveal to you about Jesus?

Father, thank you for your forgiveness and mercy. I am just like the woman in this passage: sinful, unworthy, and desperate for healing. You know every dark thought and secret sin, but you have taken me in and called me your beloved child anyway. Help me see with your eyes of love every person you place in my path so I am able to extend a caring word or touch to the outcasts, the sin-filled, and the unworthy. Amen.