The
Lenten-Musings 42
Thursday,
March 7
Read:
Luke 7: 36-50
There would be number of people who
would have missed flights because they were late to the airport or they would
have missed a connecting flight, because of some delay in their onward flight
journey. Airlines normally stick to flight timings and have a no nonsense
attitude about their services. But recently, an airline deliberately broke rules to bring
out the humane element in their flight services. Katia Hetter of CNN reported
yesterday a poignant incident that happened on a United Airlines flight. On
January 24th, a San Francisco resident, Kerry
Drakes had to rush to Lubbock, Texas to be at the bed side of his mother who was
dying. He was travelling on a United Airlines flight to Houston, from where he
had only about 40 minutes to catch the connecting flight to Lubbock. But unfortunately his onward flight to
Houston got delayed and he became frantic that we would not be able to see his
mother before she breathed her last. This
thought brought anguish in him and he started sobbing bitterly in the flight.
The flight attendants tried to comfort him and told him that they would try to
help him in any way they can. Soon he landed in Houston and began running to
the gate to board the connecting flight, knowing well that he was late and in a
faint hope that the flight would not have left. But to his surprise as he ran
to a gate, a flight agent called out to
Drakes and told him that they were waiting for him to board the flight. That is
when Drakes realized that flight had not yet left. On enquiring Drakes realized,
that the captain of his previous flight radioed ahead about his situation, and
the crew at Houston decided to deliberately delay the flight so that Drakes
could make it to the flight to Lubbock. Drakes could make it to the hospital in
time to see his mother breathing her last. Overcome with emotions he was so
grateful to United Airlines for going that extra mile, for deliberately flexing
the rules so that he could be the bed side of his mother. Breaking rules, or
flouting norms are the order of the day
and this is normally done to gain financial favours or material benefits. Rules
flouted for achieving ones selfish desires and needs, but here is a case of an
airline who flouts norms and rules to be sensitive to the person in need. A
wonderful example of being sensitive to the need of a person in pain.
One of the strange
and unique ways that Jesus did his ministry was to flout the norms of the day
or flexing some rules and laws. Laws that seemed or understood as something
that cannot be flouted under any circumstances. But why did Jesus break rules
or flout certain norms of the day?. Every time Jesus flouted rules and laws,
there was a genuine intention of empathy and being sensitive to the needs of
others. In Luke 7: 36-50 we find an incident that happened as Jesus dined at
the house of Simon the Pharisee. As he was eating and enjoying the fellowship
at the home of Simon, a woman comes and wets his feet with tears and pours the perfume that
she had bought, on the feet of Jesus.
The woman was considered a woman of bad reputation and this action brought
about an outright indignation in the mind of Simon the Pharisee. The
indignation came about because in the first place she was not invited to his
house and thus she has gate crashed into
a fellowship which he considered as a fellowship of so called holy
people, who kept the religious laws very strictly. Not only had she gate
crashed, she also has the audacity to express her emotions and feeling by
wiping his feet with her perfume and tears. The woman had flouted social and religious
rules of the day to be with Jesus. But Jesus does not condemn her and on the
contrary justifies her action by telling Simon the difference between the
welcome he gave and the kind of gesture that this woman did. What Simon saw was
the reputation of the woman, a woman who is a sinner, condemning her without
getting inside her world. But what Jesus did was to enter into the world of the
woman, and thus he could see her true emotions, feelings, and the genuiness of her
actions in expressing her remorse and the kind of life she lived. It is this
genuiness of her actions that made Jesus Christ to consciously break rules and
moral norms so as to publicly acknowledge the worth of a so called sinful woman
and condemn the action of his host. What is needed today in our life is that we
need to enter into the world of others, to genuinely understand people and their
needs, and only then can we be sensitive and be empathetic to others.. Here in
this context, Jesus broke the law not to satisfy his selfish desires on the contrary
to uplift a woman who was condemned by the world. United Airlines deliberately
flouted rules so as to help a person who was in need. What is needed in lent is
an effort by all of us to enter into the world of others who are in need, ready
to walk the extra mile, ready to flout the rule and laws of the world so that
through that action, so that we could truly be sensitive to the needs of others
and lend a helping hand to others.
