Today’s readings are about crime and punishment, repentance and forgiveness. We start with Ahab, king of Israel, who had a palace in Jezreel and wanted to buy Naboth’s vineyard to turn it into a vegetable garden. But Naboth refused to sell, and called upon God to help him. “The LORD forbid that I should give the king my ancestral inheritance!”

This made Ahab cross and grumpy and he went home and sulked in his bed. Queen Jezebel came and reminded him of his royal power. “Who’s governing Israel?” she asked “You or someone else?”. She then misused that power to rob Naboth of his vineyard and his life. She twisted Naboth’s words so she could accuse him of cursing God and the king, and Naboth was stoned to death. Ahab could then take possession of the vineyard. And that might have been the end of the story.

But the word of the LORD came to the Prophet Elijah. Ahab and Jezebel had deliberately misused their royal power, perverted the course of justice and committed murder and theft. They were quite unrepentant and Elijah told them that they would be killed as Naboth had been killed. And so it happened. Three years later Ahab was killed in battle with the king of Aram, and when they washed his blood out of his chariot, the dogs licked it up, just as Elijah had foretold. As for Jezebel, she continued to live in Jezreel. Elijah was followed by the prophet Elisha and he anointed Jehu to be king of Israel instead of Ahab’s sons. When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. She painted her face, dressed in all her finery and looked out of the window. Jehu saw her and ordered her to be thrown down, and as it says in the bible, “some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, which trampled her.” And the dogs ate her up, except for her skull, her feet and the palms of her hands. So the word of the LORD spoken by the prophet Elijah was fulfilled. Naboth had been avenged and the wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel punished.

Now the gospel tells another story. There was a woman who was a sinner, someone who was, for some reason, looked down on and avoided by respectable people. Whoever put the readings together wants us to contrast her to Jezebel. That’s easy to do. Jezebel was arrogant, cruel and hard-hearted, right to the very end. The woman in the gospel, whose name we are not told, is humble, loving and generous. Jezebel was punished for her crimes; the woman’s sins are forgiven.

The woman’s story is that she learned that Jesus was eating in the house of Simon the Pharisee. So she took a jar of ointment and anointed Jesus’ feet, bathing them with her tears and drying them with her hair. It is a very intimate and loving action, it reminds me of Maundy Thursday when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. There is something sacramental about it, showing that God is at work in the action.

Simon the Pharisee was horrified and disgusted, Jesus should not have allowed the woman to touch him. Jesus should have treated her as Jehu treated Jezebel. Jezebel was thrown out of the window, so this woman who deserved to be thrown out of the house.

But there are two huge differences between the story of Jezebel and the story of the woman who was a sinner. The first is that Jezebel never repented, she stayed hard-hearted to the moment of her death. The woman who was a sinner did have a change of heart, she turned away from whatever it was that led to her being a sinner and came to Jesus, knowing that he would forgive her and restore her. The ointment was a gift she brought to say thank you to Jesus, and she gave it to him even before he had spoken the words of forgiveness. Jesus knew and she knew that even before she entered the house that she was no longer a sinner, no longer rejected. She came to say thank you because she knew that Jesus would see her change of heart and forgive her. Without a change of heart there can be no forgiveness, but the change of heart and forgiveness go hand in hand. Again and again through the prophets the Lord pleads with God’s people to allow their hearts of stone to be changed to hearts of flesh so that they may return to God and be loved.

The second great difference is this; Jezebel was condemned under the Law of Moses, but the woman who was a sinner received new life in Jesus Christ. Disobedience to the law is disobedience to God and requires punishment; each crime has its own punishment. However, the law punishes wickedness but does not make us good. It is the love of God that makes us good. St Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, a person is justified not by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul was given a new heart on the road to Damascus, for he says, it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. So the woman, anointing Jesus’ feet, did so because she saw in Jesus the beginning of a new life. She stopped being a sinner not because she suddenly decided to obey the law, she stopped being a sinner because she knew that God loved her. God’s love changed her completely so that from that moment she could only do what was loving to others. Jezebel died because she was trapped by the law, the woman lived because she was set free by love.

Like Jezebel and the woman who was a sinner, we live in a world of law and love, working side by side. It would be great if they worked in harmony, but they don’t. Love and forgiveness does not always bring about a change of heart and the law does not always reward true repentance. For example, the church has far too often forgiven those who sexually abuse others, children and adults. The victims have been expected to forgive while the perpetrators have not experienced a change of life which stops them re-offending. At the same time there are those who allow no forgiveness and demand that offenders remain outcasts and sinners, regardless of any changes that may have taken place in their lives. There can be no black and white decisions, no absolute certainties, except that we who are Christians are called to listen, to understand, to accept and to be compassionate. We are called to examine our own hearts and our own actions, and we are called to be agents of God’s love in the world as well as upholders of justice. Let us pray that we may be faithful to our calling.