on attachment and social referencing

 

Lectionary readings set for Holy Communion today: Luke 7.36-50

We have a need to experience security. Two things we do, as infants, to create that sense: attachment, to our primary care-giver; and social referencing.

Social referencing is when we look to others for a cue, is it safe for me to do this? Infants look to their care-giver: I have not come across this thing in the world before; is it safe for me to touch it, hold it, taste it? Is it safe for me to approach this grown up, this dog/cat/gerbil? When a small child falls over in a play park, they look to their care-giver: if the adult looks panicked, the child concludes they are in greater danger than they actually are; if the adult calmly comforts them, they will soon return to play.

We continue to look to social referencing throughout our lives. (Autistic people find it hard to recognise and interpret these social cues, experiencing disorientation as a result.) In the Gospel passage set for today, the Pharisee concludes that Jesus doesn’t know how to read the room.

The Pharisee considers the woman who is ‘touching’ Jesus to be a sinner. The Greek, translated touching, is actually ‘attaching [herself] to.’

We all form attachments with our primary care-givers as infants. Where they were able to give us love, consistently, we form a secure attachment that enables us to explore the world without fear.

Where our care-giver was inconsistent towards us—sometimes caring, sometimes angry, often without warning—we form anxious attachment, and come up with strategies to ensure, as much as possible, that it is the caring care-giver who turns up.

Where our care-giver was unable to show love—for example, a mother who had postnatal depression—we form avoidant attachment, having learnt that we cannot depend on anyone else to meet our needs but must be self-sufficient.

Sadly, for some, the person who should have been their care-giver was what we would consider monstrous, and we form fearful attachment, recognising that we are dependent on someone who is cruel, and seeking to mitigate that by placating them.

Our attachment ‘style’ goes on to shape how we see other people, and also our view of God, as loving, inconsistent—prone to outbursts of anger if we step out of line—or even a cruel monster.

The Pharisee appears to be avoidant. God is distant, but if he follows an elaborate framework of behaviour then he will be self-sufficient in the world. He invites Jesus as one wishes to observe something, cooly, from the outside, and fails to offer him a warm welcome.

The woman appears to have a secure attachment. She does not care what others think of her. Her security enables her to explore the world and encounter the Other without fear—and this freedom is scandalous to those of avoidant, anxious or fearful attachment, who label her a sinner.

She is weeping—and our assumption about ‘why?’ is significant. Are these tears of shame, or bitter regret, an overwhelming awareness of her sinfulness? Or are they tears of joy, at knowing how greatly she is loved by God? Or does she weep for Jesus, possessing an awareness of what scared men will do to him, that he will be tortured and murdered?

Jesus does not say that those who love much will be forgiven, but, rather, those who know that they are forgiven—who are so secure in love that they know that whenever our relationships, with God, with others, may be breached, they can also be repaired—love much.

When Jesus says to the woman, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ he is not giving her new information, but putting on public record what she already knows.

The woman’s actions should not be read as inappropriate—as the Pharisee reads them—but as the intimacy that a secure infant knows with her care-giver; that a secure adult knows with a friend.

As adults, we need to learn that the strategies we came up with, as children, to keep ourselves safe—good and necessary strategies—are not coterminous with who we are. We may not have been in a position to create secure attachment as an infant, and our ‘starting position’ in relation to God may be the belief that God is too busy to attend to us unless we force his attention by exceptionally good or bad behaviour, or perhaps we just need to get on with life without bothering him at all. Or that God is unpredictable, and we must keep him on side. Or even that God is a monster, a narcissist. But the desire of God—and the reason Jesus came into the world—is that we should be secure in Love, and so be able to participate in love towards God, ourselves, our neighbour, even our enemy.

And the strategy of God is to love us and love us and love us—to respond, consistently, with grace—until we find ourselves safe, until we feel secure. Until we take our place within that love.

Luke 7.36-50

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table.
37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment.
38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.
39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him-that she is a sinner.’
40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’
41 ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’
43 Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’
44 Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.
46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’
48 Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’
49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’
50 And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’