Hospitality is a term we are all familiar with and one that is used often in our culture. We have a whole hospitality industry that cares for people who are travelling or otherwise away from home; and generally we go to great pains to extend hospitality to anyone who comes to visit our homes. Hospitality I think means to make someone comfortable in an unfamiliar setting. And we all have that need from time to time.
    Hospitality is the underlying theme in today’s gospel reading. We have the story of Jesus being invite to the Pharisees home for dinner. But the Pharisee offers no gestures of hospitality that were the custom of their times: water to bathe the feel, a warm greeting with a kiss, and anointing with oil. Instead a sinful woman, as St. Luke describes her, who is present performs those rituals of hospitality, in a somewhat unorthodox manner. She bathes his feet with tears of repentance; he wipes them with her long hair; she kisses them incessantly and anoints them with oil.
       The real significant hospitality that takes place comes from Jesus. Although He is aware that she is sinful, he accepts her gestures of repentance and welcomes her into the forgiveness of His love.
    If we look at the life of Jesus we see that type of hospitality time and again. Jesus accepts and welcomes people who come to Him, no matter what state their lives may be in: the woman at the well, the rich young man, the many sick and informed whom He encounters, and even the hesitant apostles. Each one He takes into His heart and offers them transformation and love and a new way of life.  He recognizes faith in the hearts of even sin filled people.
    We are reminded this weekend that Jesus offers each of us that same kind of unconditional love and welcome into His heart. That whatever state we find out lives in right now, Jesus is there to bring us that acceptance and the transformation we may need. Let us turn to Him and be healed!