Sermon 4th Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon:

Text: Luke 7:36 – 8:3

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who forgives.

            Our Gospel for today is such a great story. Jesus is at a dinner with a Pharisee, who as we’ve talked about before are the upper class in Israel, on par with Senators and Representatives of today, they are the ones who decide the laws and how to interpret them. So, here they are eating with Jesus, probably discussing those very laws, when this woman walks into their midst. That alone is rather shocking, she just walks into another persons house, but who she is adds another element, and then what she does adds a further one. She is described as a sinner, traditionally she has been interpreted as a prostitute, but nowhere is this said, and it’s rather sexist to think that the only sin 1^st century women are capable of is prostitution. But, her sin is known by the Pharisees. So, not only is she just walking into another person’s house during dinner, but she is known as a sinner. She then gets down on the floor by Jesus and begins to wash his feet with her hair, tears, and anoints them with an ointment. In the midst of her joyful crying Jesus senses the Pharisee’s thought about why he should allow her to touch him as a sinner and tells him a parable.

            Two men are forgiven their debts, one for five hundred denarii, one for fifty. At a point where a normal worker would earn a denarii a day, 500, well over a years wage, is a huge amount. Jesus asks him, who loves the person who forgives him more? The Pharisee says, well, I suppose the one with the greater debt. I suppose? Of course it’s the one forgiven so much more.

            Jesus connects this person forgiven 500 denarii with the woman who washes his feet.  “Do you see this woman here? It’s kind of funny. I entered your home, and you didn’t provide a basin of water so I could wash the road dust from My feet. You didn’t give Me a customary kiss of greeting and welcome. You didn’t offer Me the common courtesy of providing oil to brighten My face. But this woman has wet My feet with her own tears and washed them with her own hair. She hasn’t stopped kissing My feet since I came in. And she has applied perfumed oil to My feet. This woman has been forgiven much, and she is showing much love.”

            Why does she do all this for Jesus? Because she has been forgiven.

            Forgiveness is explained in a lot of ways, but the way I like best is restoration of relationship. Relationship with God, and with others. Sin breaks the relationship, forgiveness restores it.

             David Lose puts it well.

“Forgiveness at heart is the restoration of relationship. It is releasing any claim on someone else for some past injury or offense. That’s why the analogy to a debt works so well. Forgiveness cancels relational debt and opens up the future. Which is why it’s so important, so valuable.

But it’s also something more. Forgiveness also gives you back yourself. You see, after a while, being indebted, owing others, knowing yourself first and foremost as a sinner – these realities come to dominate and define you. You are no more and no less than what you’ve done, the mistakes you’ve made, the debt you owe. When you are forgiven, all those limitations disappear and you are restored, renewed, set free.

So, yes, forgiveness is everything.”

           

It’s pretty easy to see why this woman is here washing Jesus’ feet. The text suggests that Jesus has met her before and forgiven her and she is so overcome by her forgiveness that she needs to show her love for Jesus. In that moment, Jesus again reminds her of that forgiveness.

But, this display of complete love upon the reception of forgiveness is just part of this text.

Jesus ends with the comment, “But, the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” It is important to note that love is not conditional to receive forgiveness, but is in response. Jesus does not say, those who love little are forgiven little, but says, those who are forgiven little, love little.

But, it asks why? Why don’t we love hugely? Why do we not break down in tears of joy upon our own forgiveness?

I think because we are like Simon, this Pharisee who interprets all the laws, and of course follows them, and so we assume that we follow them all correctly, that we of course never sin, we don’t step out of bounds, and so we think we don’t need forgiveness all that much. The Pharisee’s are under the assumption that they do not sin, and therefore the mention of forgiveness is not the extreme blessing that it is for this woman. To them it’s addressing the fact that there is a chance that they may have sinned. And therefore, bringing up forgiveness is not only shocking, but offensive. How dare you even slightly address that we may have strayed from our laws! We are the Pharisees we do NOT fall away from our laws. To ask about forgiveness is essentially an accusation of sin, and that does not sit well with the Pharisees.

So, in this story we have two very different reactions not just to sin, but to forgiveness. The woman who embraces that she is sinful and rejoices at her forgiveness, and the Pharisees who resent the implication that they are less than perfect and reject their need for forgiveness.

For us when we address the problem of our sin, and thereby our forgiveness, Do we rejoice? Or Resent?

Do we embrace our identity as sinners and as those beloved by God and forgiven all things, or do we reject our failings and with it God’s tender embrace.

This week as you go from here, consider all that we have done and not done in thought, word, and deed. All the sin that encapsulates our lives, all the brokenness that separates us from one another and from God. And then consider that it is for those very reasons that God became Immanuel, God with Us, and died for us, forgiving us all of those imperfections we fight against so much. Go and know that you are sinner, and that God forgives.

Let us pray,

God of Forgiveness, we struggle to tell you our sin, we attempt to withhold even from you our fears and faults. But, you know everything, like Adam in the Garden you see us, help us to tell you our wrongs, so we may put them away, help us to ask forgiveness, knowing you will forgive, so that we may be free. Help us to understand the joy that comes in that moment of burdens being lifted.

Amen.