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The Woman Who Wore Red
By Laura Arico | August 27, 2008
She walked into town with the North wind, unwelcome there as the wind was.1 It was a sleepy town in the French countryside that she had moved to, one that valued decorum and tranquility above all else. The church was the center of town, and its steeple loomed over every home. But while the whole town was at Sunday worship, she was in her new shop, painting the walls blue. The women there all wore black, modest shoes. She wore red pumps, and everyone in the town knew that red heels implied sexual immorality. Lent began, and as the town settled into their rigorous Lenten fast, she opened her shop. A chocolate shop. With five long weeks to go until Easter. Immediately the congregation dubbed her “Satan’s helper,” a temptress from an exotic land who caused the pious to stray from righteous paths with her irresistible, melt-in-your-mouth, sinfully perfect chocolate. She had a daughter but she had never married. People whispered among themselves that she was an atheist, but nobody knew for sure. She fraternized with outcasts, people the town had all but declared irredeemable. She was strong, passionate, and outspoken. She didn’t belong.
And so the pious people of the town made certain to let her know how unwelcome she was. They boycotted her chocolate. They ignored her presence, although everyone stared and whispered when she turned her back. The Lenten sermons not-so-subtly decried those who would steer the people away from paths of righteousness with chocolate. So it was that the church became a place to gossip about the newcomer. As people faithfully kept the Lenten fast they whispered about this oddball who dared to wear red. While the congregation kept the fast faithfully, their hearts were becoming hateful.
Meanwhile, Vianne served those who had no one else to turn to. The woman whose relationship with an abusive husband was causing her to lose her mind. The elderly woman who was no longer considered useful. The boy who had no friends because he wasn’t like the other children. The gypsies who dared to park at the town’s docks. Vianne’s chocolate was made with love, and as her hot cocoa warmed cold, lonely souls, she was there at the counter to listen to their stories. She loved those who hated her. She forgave them, unselfishly, for their coldness toward her. She listened to the hearts of those who looked unlovable. Even as she unapologetically ignored the rules of the Lenten fast, eating what she liked and wearing what she pleased, her heart embodied the forgiveness, grace, and love that the congregation had all but forgotten to discuss in church.
It must have been no coincidence that I watched the movie Chocolat for the first time in years this week. It’s PG-13, so you parents might want to watch it first before you pop the popcorn for family movie night, but I was amazed at how relevant it was to the scripture this week. Here in this week’s Gospel text is the story of another woman who is an outsider among the pious, who challenges those who belong to see past her exterior and listen to her heart with the grace that they proclaim. Listen to her story:
She walked through the streets dressed like a Canaanite, folds of fabric billowing in the wind. She wore a red headscarf but her wavy hair flowed out from under it, framing eyes adorned with make-up. She wore so many anklets and bracelets and necklaces that the disciples heard her before they saw her, she jingled so much. They dutifully ignored her, because every good Jew knew that such adornment implied sexual immorality. Her long gold earrings swished back and forth as she walked. She spoke freely with the men on the streets. It was clear that she was a pagan, not one of the Children of Israel, and that she did not belong among the disciples. They dressed modestly with no ornaments. She wore red and her gold glittered in the sun. She was strong, passionate, and outspoken. She did not belong.
And so the disciples let her know how unwelcome she was. As they walked through the town proclaiming healing to the sick and sight to the blind, they ignored her even as she called out to them. And yet they spoke about her in whispers, begging Jesus to tell her to leave them alone. And he did. He wasn’t subtle about it. He called her a dog. Even as the disciples went about their Christian business, they allowed their hearts to become filled in that moment with prejudice and judgment.
Meanwhile, the woman referred to Jesus as “Lord, Son of David.” That term, Son of David, was a messianic term, something that, as yet, very few had thought to apply to Jesus. She called him Lord, and in doing so proclaimed her belief in him and what he had to say. Had they listened to her heart, instead of making assumptions based on her appearance and the company she kept, they might have understood that this woman believed wholeheartedly in Christ’s unconditional love. She may have jingled as she walked, but at that moment, she was more convinced in her heart of the depth and breadth of God’s love than Jesus’ own disciples were.
Jesus did finally stop, turn around, and listen to what this woman was really saying. As he listened to her heart, his own heart melted and he ultimately showed her the same love that he had shown his own neighbors. In overcoming the prejudices that he was no doubt raised with, prejudices that had existed between these two cultures for generations, Jesus’ decision to help this woman is a lesson for us. It’s the lesson that Jesus had just taught the Pharisees in the first part of the passage.
We must, first and foremost in our lives as Christians, practice a love that is all-inclusive. People who wear red will walk in and out of our lives, in and out of the doors of this church, and the measure of our faith will be how well we have prepared our hearts to receive them.
“It is not what goes into the mouth but what comes out that defiles.” Jesus saw that while the Pharisees busied themselves over food laws, people in the streets went hungry. So concerned about purity laws, the community ostracized lepers, the sick and the dying. In working so hard to look like good Jews, they forgot how to be good Jews. The same thing happened to Jesus’ disciples. They were so certain they knew what a good Christian looked like that they refused to stop and help this oddball of a woman.
In that sleepy French town, too, the people were so engrossed in the Lenten fast and in their own “Christian” rules of decorum that they forgot how to love the ones who couldn’t fit in the strict social boundaries they had laid. The ones who needed love the most were outcast because of their strangeness. They were so obsessed with looking like good Christians that they forgot to be good Christians. In calling chocolate a sin, they forgot to call their own intolerance and exclusivity what it was. A sin. And a much bigger sin than a chocolate truffle.
“It is not what goes into the mouth but what comes out that defiles.” It is not what we eat, but who we are willing to dine with that makes us Christian. It is all too easy to feel righteous. To give up cultivating love in our hearts for the sake of cultivating an image. To give up chocolate but not hatred or greed or prejudice. To spend so much time and energy trying to look like a good Christian that we forget how to be a good Christian. If we close ourselves off, if we don’t cultivate agape love in our hearts, if we don’t make ourselves vulnerable to having our lives fundamentally changed by the love of Christ, then it doesn’t much matter how faithful we appear on the outside. We’ve missed the whole point.
In this passage, Jesus implores us to cultivate love in our hearts. We must—we’ve got to—love one another. Not just those who look like us or live like us or like us back. We’ve got to open our hearts to loving the God in every single person.
Because God loves us in spite of the mistakes we’ve made in our own lives that we wish we could forget. God loves us when it seems like no one else does. God loves us in our most unlovable moments. There are times in all of our lives when we might as well be that Canaanite woman, when we are turned away, down and out, desperate and sad. And yet Christ sees us for who we are—children of God—and loves us anyway. That is the good news that we have been given, and we ought to be out there giving it to the ones who look the most lost, the most alone, the most unlovable.
This is a fundamental imperative. That we love the lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Everything else that we do as Christians hangs on this. Being Christian is about how we love. It is about our willingness to cultivate love in our hearts rather than self-righteousness. It is about opening our own hearts to listen to the hearts of others, to see people the way Christ sees them. To get beyond the red shoes and see God at work.
The woman who dared to debate Jesus truly believed that God’s love was available to everyone. She challenged the disciples to live that love. Her challenge stands for us. We are Jesus’ disciples. As Christians, we are called to embody the love that saved us. If we aren’t willing to embody the love of Christ in this world, I wonder who we’re expecting will do it?
1This story is from the movie Chocolat. Dir. Lasse Halstrom. Perf. Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. 2000.
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