Sermon #5

This will be my last sermon before David and Shannon return. (I'll preach once in July and maybe occasionally through the fall - I have an idea for a sermon series I would like to write) so I should be able to get back to more regular blog posts soon.

In English we have many polite euphemisms for "sinful woman." I didn't use any of them. The adjectives I used are somewhat harsh and that is intentional. Too often we speak as though Christians are afraid of sinful people - I don't believe we should be. As followers of Jesus we should be more than capable of addressing sin head on, without the use of euphemism.

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner."
Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."
"Tell me, teacher," he said.
"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"
Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"
Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Our story picks up not too far from where we ended last week. Jesus entered the city of Nain and quickly made a name for himself by raising a young man back to life. A religious leader, a Pharisee, wants to dig deeper. He wants more facts before he makes his judgement call. Like Simon Cowell on American Idol - he just wants to hear a few more notes to decide if this person is the real deal or a sham.

You have to admit, it's all pretty fantastic. Jesus shows up out of nowhere and before he even says hello he stops a funeral parade to give a widow-woman her life back. So this Pharisee invites Jesus to his home so that he can get the rest of the story. He's not overly concerned with showing Jesus hospitality - he'll ask questions first and figure out if Jesus deserves to be treated like an honored guest.

Now last week we talked about a woman for whom everything had been taken. Today we look to a woman who gave it all up willingly. The widow woman didn't choose for her son to die. She didn't choose to lose everything. The woman today, arguably, made such a choice. She was known primarily by the sins she chose to commit. She chose to make her living on her back, and while most of the world would find sympathy for the widow - who cares about a prostitute?

Jesus shows up at the home of the Pharisee and is treated a little poorly. Jesus was a radical person, more or less homeless who entered cities and began teaching things that people had never heard before. He was probably used to being treated as less than the honored guest. Jesus was full of humility and took everything in stride. His own teaching was to sit at the place of least honor and wait to be brought to the seat of honor.

Jesus was probably sitting at a place of little honor, far from the host. If his hands had been washed at all, he was probably last after the water was already dirtied by several other more honored guests.

And then this woman enters through the open door. She is in all things, a contrast to the Pharisee hosting the dinner.

He is educated and respected. She is known to the whole community as the whore she is. He's righteous and faithful. She's slept with more people than she can remember.

The Pharisee is calm, cool, and collected. The woman is emotional and overwhelmingly forward. As a child he received an excellent education in the scriptures and old women would speak of the bright future he surely had. As a child she had been passed between male relatives or friends of her brothers.

These two would never be seen in public together.

She enters through the open door and immediately sees the One who can heal her heart and forgive her of her sins. Jesus was reclining at the table. In middle eastern cultures, you always sit with the flats of your feet facing out.

Feet are dirty and disgusting things. In some countries, showing the flats of your feet to someone is extremely rude. This was why it was shocking when Jesus had begun washing the feet of his disciples. Only the lowliest slave would wash feet - and apparently our Pharisee host thought that none of his slaves were lowely enough to bother to wash Jesus' feet, because by the time the woman entered Jesus' feet were still unwashed.

This emotional basket case of a woman rushes in and falls on the floor behind Jesus. She isn't even worthy for Jesus to see her face. She was a bad person. Where do you think she got the money for the expensive ointment in the alabaster jar? She earned her money pulling tricks and apparently she was quite good at her profession.

As she tries desperately to open the alabaster jar to anoint his feet , she realizes that his feet are already wet with her tears. Embarrassed she looks futily for a towel. Seeing none she takes down her long hair and begins to dry Jesus' feet with her hair. Of course, in their culture women always wore their hair up. Only a whore would take down her hair in the presence of men other than her husband. Knowing that she had tried her best and had failed miserably, she brought her head down and rested her face against his feet in utter failure. She kissed his feet, over and over again, until mercifully she managed to open the expensive bottle of ointment and began spreading it on his feet.

As she sat in a puddle of her own tears and saliva, with oil on her hands and throughout her mop of hair - she probably felt like the biggest failure in the whole world. Her panicked expression gave voice to her innermost thoughts – “why did I just do what I have done.”

We're completely unrealistic in how we map out our social interactions. We swear that we won't lose our temper. We plan a cautious dialogue and remind ourselves to keep a stiff upper lip. In the heat of the moment the gloves come off and we begin yelling. We say hurtful things we wish we could take back and we leave with tears in our eyes and acid in our throats.

For all of this woman's efforts to plan a casual, collected anointing of Jesus she failed miserably. She came off looking like a basket case whore - and as the room grew silent with the Pharisees' outrage she realized that that … was … exactly who she was.

Now the Pharisee had secretly hoped that Jesus was all he was cracked up to be. He had hoped that Jesus would prove to be a prophet after all. But as the disgusting, disease ridden prostitute but her lips on Jesus, the Pharisee decided that clearly Jesus was no prophet.

A prophet would know who this woman was. A prophet would know her despicable past and would respond accordingly.

But Jesus is so much more than a prophet. Not only did Jesus know the despicable past of the woman touching his feet, but he knew her beautiful future.

He knew the righteous woman of God she would become. He knew her present anguish in the face of her accusers and He knew the joy she would possess as she shared the good news with others.

[[Jesus breaks the silence by sharing a story of two men whose debt had been forgiven. The Pharisee must admit that the one whose debt had been larger would be more thankful for its relief.]] - - - I'm going to have someone read this parable out loud - or bring two people up to act it out.

Because this woman had been forgiven much, she will love much.

Jesus stands this woman up and assures her that her sins - her numerous, incalculable sins - have been forgiven.

And perhaps, after all that has transpired in this little dinner, this is the most shocking event for those gathered together. In these simple words Jesus claims his full divinity. Only God can forgive sins - and in this story we see God forgiving sins. The men gathered around the table that day witnessed God forgive sins.

I don't really know all of you. I don't know where you've been or how far you've gone. I'll never stand at a podium and decry others for their moral or sexual failures.

I won't go into details of my own sins, but I will say that I love much because I have been forgiven much.

When we look at ourselves we tend to dwell on the past. Our dark pasts seem to overshadow any hint of a future that lies on our horizon. We are not God. For God sees our hope and our future. God sees the promise of redemption in our sinful past.
Henri Nouwen shares the story (which I can’t find and might very well be butchering) of a woman who claimed to be able to speak with Jesus while she slept. A priest at her church wanted at least a shred of proof. He told her to ask Jesus, the next time she “talked with him” what he had confessed during his last confession.

Clearly this woman wouldn’t know the deepest darkest sins of the priest and she would be caught in her lie. The next day she came back with the answer she had received from Jesus. “I don’t remember.”

We truly believe that when our sins have been forgiven by Jesus Christ that He keeps no record of our wrongs. There is no secret list of dirty deeds that God keeps to remind us of our failures. We keep that list (and the devil keeps one for us as well ) and Jesus wishes that we didn’t.

Satan would love to keep you paralyzed by the reality of your past sins. Jesus wants to set you free – that you could live out your future and hope.

As Jesus said to the sinful woman anointing his feet – I know say the same to you.

Your faith has saved you. Go in Peace.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.