The sin and guilt in the readings this week have to do with guile: David’s cunning to get Uriah out of the way in order to have Bathsheba and Simon the Pharisee’s in-the-end-less-than-hospitable dinner invitation; but the forgiven person, the psalm says, has a spirit in which “there is no guile”—no dishonesty and hypocrisy and manipulation.

Two wonderful confrontations are juxtaposed for us this week. First we have Nathan the prophet, having it out for God's sake with David. With brutal honesty Nathan fills one side of the balance with God's goodness to the former obscure shepherd boy: I made you king.

One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet.

Like many people who lived through the Great Depression, my grandparents stockpiled food.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

In the midst of forgiving . . . we see the beauty of people who quite often are considered marginal by society. With forgiveness and celebration, community becomes the place where we call forth the gifts of other people . . . . —Henri J. M. Nouwen