Sermon for September 2, 2007

When I was growing up in northern Maine I spent part of my summers with my grandmother. Our summer rituals revolved around what fruits or vegetables were in season. This is the time of year when we would pray for a sunny, windy day – it was horseradish time. This meant digging up the root of the plant, washing and scraping it before grinding it in a non-electric meat grinder!! My grandmother would select a day and that was the day, rain or shine – since there was never a dry eye anywhere around on horseradish day (even outside), we prayed for sunshine and wind. Another summer ritual happened in late June or early July – field strawberry picking. Now, if you don't know, good size field strawberries are about the size of a big pea. Once they were picked we would come back to the house and spend hours around the table hulling them. As we hulled them they were immediately taken from us and made into jam. When we got the courage to ask, "Why do we go through all of this when you can buy good strawberry jam at the grocery store?" My grandmother would simply reply, "Because your grandfather likes them." For her this was an "act of love."

Our Scripture text this morning tells of a dinner party Jesus is a guest at, maybe an unwanted guest. Perhaps this is Simon's turn to host the visiting rabbi. He was hoping for someone more important, someone with name recognition. Certainly not a young upstart rabbi with radical views. He is not a gracious host. There would be certain cultural courtesies that would be extended to any guest. Feet would be washed upon arrival. The host would greet you with a kiss. Oil would be anointed on your head to refresh you from the dust of roads. These would be expected and should be extended to any guest. Even to a guest lower on the social status, common manners would be extended. Not to extend these would be an insult to the guest.

It is important we get an image of what is happening. The guests are not seated at a table as the text may indicate (when I used to read this I tried to imagine the woman crawling under the table to get to Jesus' feet!). In Middle Eastern tradition the guests are reclining around the courtyard. They are leaning on one elbow facing inward and their feet are pointing out away from the food, other invited guests, etc. We understand also that dinner parties would not be private. The doors would be open and people would be coming and going throughout the dinner. Community people who had not been invited would come and stand behind the guests, listening to the conversation, checking on the food served and how the party was going. Thus it was not unusual or difficult for this "woman" to come and be a part of the crowd. The crowd would have observed how Simon had insulted his guest and maybe word would have gotten out and the people would come to see how Jesus would respond. There would always be community people watching and listening.

The woman comes and begins to wash Jesus' feet with her tears, wipe them with her hair and anoint them with the precious ointment of her former life (she knows he will be there—maybe even arrived with him). The indication here is that she has already been forgiven. She is not forgiven at the dinner party, forgiveness has already been granted, and as she begins to understand the depth of change in her life she comes and in thanksgiving pours out all that she has at the rabbi's feet. She will no longer need the ointment, her life and occupation have been forever changed. (The Talmud states that a woman can be divorced for letting her hair down in public or for letting another man see her hair!) What she does is interpreted as a sexual act. AND, Jesus does nothing to stop her.

Simon, aware of all of this, makes a judgment of his own, "If this man were a prophet he would know what type of woman this is." For Simon this settles the question of who this rabbi is. Knowing his thoughts Jesus enters into a dialogue with Simon, telling him a simple parable about debts and forgiveness. "If two men owe the bank money, one $100 and the other $10,000 and both men are forgiven, who is the most thankful?" Do you notice how Simon hedges his answer? "I suppose…"

After Simon answers Jesus does what a guest is not supposed to do. He criticizes the hospitality of Simon. Simon has not given to Jesus the common courtesies that one would expect, being the guest in a home. He has not offered a servant to wash Jesus' feet (a servant would have done this, not Simon), he has not given a welcome kiss nor has he provided the oil to anoint his head. However, this woman has done what Simon has neglected. Did you notice how this happens? "Then turning to the woman, he said to Simon." He is looking at the woman as he addresses Simon and his lack of good manners as a host. Can you imagine how mad this must have made Simon? He is being criticized for his lack of hospitality and Jesus is looking at the woman who gave what Simon was unwilling to give. Then comes the reaffirmation of her forgiveness. "Your sins HAVE BEEN forgiven." Simon and his guest feel no need for forgiveness.

Do we fully understand forgiveness and how great our forgiveness is? Most of us see ourselves as basically good. Better than most. Remember the two men praying in Luke 18:13ff? One is contrite in his prayers but the other stands and thanks God that he is not like other people, tax collectors, sinners, etc. We want to compare ourselves to those who act worse than we do (at least in our eyes). Maybe we could say that is human nature. Remember Adam, when God confronts him in the garden about eating of the forbidden fruit, "The woman YOU gave me gave it to me to eat" (Gen.3:23). Surely we are not as bad as the other guy/woman. We can usually find someone who is a worse sinner than we are.

In doing so we have missed the point of forgiveness and our need of it. Paul writes to the Church in Rome "…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We have all missed the target. It doesn't matter how far we have missed it, we all have missed it! If you are hunting and shoot at a deer and miss it by one inch or ten feet you have still missed and will go hungry! Isaiah, when confronted by the Living God, exclaims, "Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips and I have seen the Lord" (Is. 6:5). We are okay until we compare ourselves to that which is perfect and then our imperfections show up.

Have you ever tried to patch a spot of white paint? Look at the ceiling. I am sure all of us would say that it was a nice white ceiling. However, should we send someone up on a ladder with a paintbrush and some new white paint??? We would suddenly see what we thought of as white as a dull grey! We had a friend who was a painter and he had painted the sanctuary of the church for us. We had a bad leak and water damage to a section of the ceiling over the organ pipes. After we had located and repaired the leak he came in and repainted the damaged section. It was perfect. You could not tell where the old and new paint were. We congratulated him. He smiled and said we were just fortunate we had decided to paint this portion of the ceiling a color - color was easy to match. However, had it been white he would not have been able to patch it…he would have to have done the whole ceiling. "White," he said, "is almost impossible to match when patching."

There is no degree of sin in God's sight. We have all missed the mark. We have tried to give a grade to sin. Some sins are deemed worse than others, but this is not a Biblical perspective in my understanding. It is not how much or how bad we have sinned, it is that we have sinned. We have fallen short of the mark. All have missed the target. All stand in need of the grace and forgiveness of our God.

This woman understands what Simon could not grasp. She has been forgiven and as an expression of love she pours out that which was most precious to her at the feet of Jesus. She has discovered true and abiding love and in doing so gives back such love, exposing herself to more public ridicule in washing, wiping and anointing the feet of the one who has forgiven her.

Why such love? Because she understood the depth of her forgiveness. Simon is not willing to acknowledge that he stands in need of the same forgiveness. For him, and for too many today, his sins are not to the degree that forgiveness in needed. He is the, "I am as good if not better than my neighbor" person. He cannot understand he too has missed the mark. He/we could not keep the Law – we have to come to understand that we too stand in the need of God's forgiveness and grace.

This story is a reminder to me that I am here in this place not because of any work I have been able to accomplish. Not because of any thing that I have done other than come humbly before my God and admitted that I cannot do it alone – and accepted the gift given on an afternoon two thousand years ago when an innocent man went to his death on a Roman cross in an act of love that I/we might have life. In that moment Christ said to us, "your sins are forgiven." Are you willing to accept such love?


First Baptist Church 22800 56th Ave. W. Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043-3922	(425) 778-2046 firstbap@FirstBaptist-MtlkTerr.org	©2004-2007 Last Modified 5 September 2007	Home Page