Caressing the Divine (Luke 7:36-50)

Join Rev. Jim Keat as he talks with Rev. Dr. John J. Thatamanil about the sermon he will be preaching this Sunday at The Riverside Church, focusing on Luke 7:36-50. The passage recounts Jesus dining at Simon the Pharisee’s house when a woman, labeled a sinner by Simon, anoints Jesus' feet with perfume and tears. Reverend Dr. John Thatamanil, guest preacher and professor at Union Theological Seminary, discusses how Jesus continually disrupts social expectations by associating with those deemed “the wrong sorts.” He challenges the notion of accepting Jesus while rejecting the company he keeps, emphasizing that the only one calling the woman a sinner is Simon, not Jesus himself. This raises questions about how society labels and marginalizes people, and whether those judgments align with Jesus' perspective.Dr. Thatamanil and the host explore the deeply intimate and scandalous nature of the woman’s actions, highlighting the physicality and radical love expressed in the passage. They discuss how Jesus not only accepts but welcomes such an extravagant display of love, suggesting that Christianity often sanitizes or ignores the bodily and emotional depth of faith. The conversation touches on how this passage confronts traditional notions of orderly love, contrasting it with a love that is boundary-breaking, embodied, and passionate. The discussion also critiques how some theologians and political figures, like JD Vance, attempt to impose a rigid, hierarchical order on love, in contrast to the radical inclusivity demonstrated by Jesus.As the conversation concludes, Dr. Thatamanil reflects on how encountering infinite love in human form would shatter our categories and expectations, pushing us toward a more radical and transformative way of loving. He draws attention to the woman’s act of pouring out costly perfume—symbolizing an extravagant, self-giving love that challenges societal norms. The episode invites listeners to consider what it truly means to love God with all one’s strength, including the embodied, passionate, and scandalous dimensions of love that Jesus himself embraces. The upcoming sermon at Riverside promises to explore these themes in depth, offering a provocative and deeply theological reflection on this striking New Testament passage.