Andy James

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Presbyterian minister in Atlanta.
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Responding to Grace

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a sermon on Luke 7:36-8:3
preached on June 12, 2016, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

We don’t know her story, but everyone there certainly did. The woman who showed up at the Pharisee’s house almost certainly had a history. People knew her story well enough for the gospel writer to describe her as “a sinner,” making her something of an unwanted presence in the home of one of the staunch religious officials of the day. But that day she set aside her past, her shame, her fear to take a chance on a new path. Even someone with a history like hers could hear about this teacher Jesus, and when she did, she put everything on the line to be thankful for his words, his actions, his presence. When she heard that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she gathered up all the courage she could muster, bought a jar of alabaster ointment, and joined the guests of honor at dinner. Upon her arrival, she bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Once his feet were clean, she kissed them and anointed them with her ointment, showing incredible honor to this teacher even from her position of low estate.

This woman’s actions stood in sharp contrast to those of Jesus’ host. Just as we don’t know the woman’s whole story, we also don’t know why this Pharisee invited Jesus over for dinner in the first place. Didn’t the Pharisees realize that they would not look very good when they got involved with Jesus? When the Pharisee saw what was going on between his guest of honor and the uninvited guest, he got a little frustrated. Luke tells us that the Pharisee started saying something to himself, noting that if Jesus were really everything he said he was, he would know this woman’s whole story and would want nothing whatsoever to do with her.

Somehow Jesus got wind of all this. Maybe he was able to read the Pharisee’s mind and know things the Pharisee assumed he could not. Maybe the Pharisee had mumbled it under his breath just loud enough for Jesus to hear. Maybe the Pharisee was just showing his disgust at the situation in his body language or on his face. However Jesus figured out what his host felt, he immediately confronted him about it. First, Jesus asked his host who would be more grateful, a debtor who had had a five hundred denarii debt canceled or a debtor who had had a fifty denarii debt canceled. Once the Pharisee agreed that the one with the greater original debt would be more grateful when it was canceled, Jesus pointed out the strange situation that had greeted him upon his arrival at the Pharisee’s house. While Pharisee had offered basic hospitality to his guest, Jesus pointed out that the woman—an unwanted guest—had offered far more than the host himself. The host had left Jesus with dirty feet and treated him with little or no special honor. The woman, however, even with her dubious reputation, had shown Jesus great honor, washing his feet, honoring him with her care and concern, and even anointing his feet with ointment.

He closed his rebuke of his Pharisee host by indicating that her sin—the thing that had made her so unsuitable to the the Pharisee in the first place—had been forgiven, and that her gratitude for this had been the source of the great love that she had shown to Jesus along the way. Finally, Jesus addressed the woman directly and affirmed and confirmed what she seemed to already know in offering her extravagant gifts to him—her sins were forgiven, her faith had made things different for her, and she could finally go in peace.

The other guests responded with outrage. “Who is this who even forgives sins?” they asked. This is not how any reputable teacher was to behave! Inviting people to drop their nets and follow, interpreting the law and the prophets, even healing the sick and dealing kindly with a stranger—all that was expected of a teacher, but forgiveness of sins was something for God alone! They may have started out on the fence with this Jesus, figuring that he just didn’t know the woman’s history when he didn’t stop her from caring for his feet, giving him a little grace about showing his frustration with his less-than-perfect host, even accepting his words that showed deeper gratitude for the woman’s generosity than the Pharisee’s invitation to dine, but once Jesus began intervening to forgive sins as only God could, he had gone too far.

In this story as in so much of life, the thing that really matters is how we respond. The woman, the Pharisee, the other guests—all these characters in the story responded to the events before them in very different ways. Those responses were certainly informed by their experiences and the particular way of life that they had enjoyed, but their responses spoke even more to how they understood the grace of God at work in their lives and their world. Ultimately, the question that matters from this story for them—and for us—is, how do we respond to the grace of God revealed in our lives?

The Pharisee was pretty stingy in his response to God’s grace. He had everything that he needed, knew the way of God present in the law, and enjoyed wealth and status in the community enough to entertain Jesus in his home. And yet his response did not match the extravagance of grace that he himself enjoyed as one guest—the woman—was made to feel inferior and unwelcome and Jesus was left with dirty feet and nothing more than a meal.

The rest of the guests were a little less skeptical in their response to the grace shown here, at least at first. They certainly knew the woman who invited herself to this meal, yet they did not insist that she be sent away. They seemed to understand why Jesus would speak to their host the way he did because he had been a little less than welcoming of all of them. And yet, when Jesus offered the full extravagance of grace to the woman by forgiving her sins, they turned on him, afraid of the depth and breadth of grace that he offered, uncertain that anyone could grant such broad strokes of forgiveness and hope.

In stark contrast to the Pharisee and the other guests, the woman’s response to the grace shown here began long before she ever even saw any evidence of it. She came to wash and anoint Jesus’ feet not in hopes that her sins would be forgiven but because she had already received something from Jesus. She already knew that God was up to something new in his words and actions, and she wanted to respond. Her gracious and generous actions were not an attempt to buy her way into Jesus’ favor but rather an offering of thanks for the message that he had brought, coming long before he uttered any words of forgiveness in her hearing. She knew from everything that she had heard that Jesus’ message was one of generous hope for people like her, and so she had no choice but to respond with the same kind of generosity.

She was not alone in her generosity. Jesus had the things that he needed for his life and ministry because of the gifts of people like this woman. Luke recognizes a number of them, many themselves women, at the conclusion of our reading this morning. They too had encountered the wonder of God in Jesus, and they knew that they had to respond with the same kind of generous grace out of their lives to make a way for others to experience these things for themselves.

If we see in this story that the response is all that really matters, how then do we respond to God’s grace?

Are we like the Pharisee, meting out grace in stingy, small doses to those who deserve it, insisting that sin sticks indelibly to people who act badly even when they experience the fullness of God’s grace, only making room at the table for those who deserve it, showing no more care and concern than the basics of what is required to look good enough along the way?

Are we like the other guests at the meal with Jesus, excited to experience the grace for ourselves but pulling back out of fear when that grace starts to change how our world is ordered and organized?

Or are we like the woman, very well aware of where and how we fall short of God’s intentions, yet ready and willing to respond with extravagant gifts because we have experienced the extravagance of God’s grace?

May God open us to respond to all the gifts of God’s love, mercy, peace, and grace with the abundant hope and generous love of this woman and all who followed Jesus so that the world might know the depth and breadth of God’s love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Reputation

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a sermon on Luke 7:36-8:3 for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
preached on June 16, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Jesus had a bit of a reputation. He had started out as just another teacher wandering around Galilee to offer an interpretation of the scriptures, following in the footsteps of his cousin John the Baptist and proclaiming a new way of life for the people of Israel, but he had quickly moved on to start healing people from seemingly incurable illness and had even revived a man whom everyone else thought was dead.

As his reputation grew, one of the religious leaders decided to invite him over for dinner—even they had to take notice of him. As this Pharisee, a man named Simon, saw it, he was doing Jesus a favor, giving him a nice meal in a nice house, surrounding him with the right kind of people, offering him the audience he needed to get his words into the right ears. Of course, it didn’t hurt Simon to be seen with Jesus, either—the people had warmed to Jesus’ message and clamored for him to come into their villages to tell a parable or heal the sick, so anyone who could be seen as offering him hospitality would get an extra benefit! But when Jesus arrived at Simon’s house, he was ushered right into the dining room to sit down for dinner, almost as if the host was as anxious to have Jesus leave as he seemed to have him come. His reputation preceded him, after all.

As they settled in for dinner, an unexpected guest wandered into the house. Like Jesus, she had a bit of a reputation, too, but hers was very clear. Everyone in town knew that she was a sinner, though Luke does not tell us exactly what sin she was known for. As dinner went on, she made her way to the table where Jesus was and began to weep as she stood behind him. She collected her tears and began to wash his feet, then she dried them with her hair and anointed them with the ointment that she had brought along with her.

It was a scandalous moment. The most notorious woman in town, known as a sinner to seemingly everyone, was washing the feet of this special guest who claimed to be a teacher and a prophet. Simon the Pharisee and host was astounded, although he did not utter a word. Still, he was not happy that his house would be scandalized in this way, and he just wanted Jesus to see her for what she was, condemn her, and send her away.

But Jesus’ reputation was also very clear—he was just the kind of guy who would eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners. He could tell that his host did not want this sinner-woman crashing his party, but he would not be the one to send her away. So rather than confronting or engaging, Jesus asked his host the Pharisee about forgiving debts. If two men had both had their debts forgiven but one had debt ten times larger than the other, would both men show equal love for this generous act? Simon responded that the larger debt would inspire greater love, but then Jesus pointed out that this woman was just like that man. While Simon had offered Jesus nothing more than an invitation to dinner, this woman had made him feel welcome, washing his feet and showing him true hospitality. She was truly thankful for what Jesus was and offered him a deep and wondrous gift.

So Jesus lifted up this sinner-woman as a model of faithfulness to this pious religious-man, for she had shown Jesus great love and welcome in someone else’s house simply because he offered her a place to find the fullness of new life. Her sins were forgiven, and Jesus sent her on her way: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” She had a new reputation now.

Christians these days don’t have such a good reputation in dealing with those named as “sinners”—if anything, we usually are the ones calling the names, not the ones extending grace. In the world’s eyes, at least, we seem to be much more like Simon the Pharisee than Jesus: singling out groups for special hatred or lower status because of their gender, sexuality, life circumstance, or religious persuasion; complaining about our mistreatment as Christians mostly because we aren’t as dominant in society anymore or those of other faiths demand the treatment once reserved for us; claiming that God’s favor is upon us and us alone, to the exclusion of those who are different; and struggling to extend the grace that we have known to anyone other than ourselves. We seem to be far more about controlling our religion than about following Jesus.

But Jesus’ dinner at Simon’s house tells us that we should have a different kind of reputation—a reputation of welcome, generosity, and grace. As commentator Justo González puts it,

Even though Jesus is a religious teacher, his teaching is not about religion. It is not about how to be more religious. It is not about how to gain God’s acceptance. It is about a God whose acceptance of sinners the religious find jarring. It is about a God whose love cannot be bought even by great acts of praise or mighty deeds of justice. It is about sinners who rejoice at the great forgiveness they have received, [as opposed to] religious people who wish God were more religious [like them]—more amenable to being mollified by acts of worship, piety, and devotion… [Ultimately,] the sinful woman is able to receive and accept grace in a way that the religious Pharisee cannot. (Luke, p. 102)

So in this encounter with the woman, Jesus insists that our reputation needs to be different, that our life in the world must be marked with the amazing grace that we ourselves have come to know and love, that our actions toward others must demonstrate the same kind of welcome that Jesus himself offered to this woman and everyone he met, and that our generosity must be not about holding on to what we have or even perpetuating a faithful way of the past but rather about using our gifts to extend God’s welcome to anyone and everyone.This is ultimately our greatest call as people of faith: to show God’s love to those who seem all but unlovable, to extend God’s welcome even to those we would rather keep away, and to embody God’s priceless grace in a world where the focus is all too often on counting the cost. We should have a reputation for these things, for faith, hope, and love beyond measure, without cost, shared with anyone and everyone, a reputation for being like Jesus.

We don’t build this reputation by joining the church, putting a little extra in the offering plate, or even being honored or remembered in a gift made by others. Instead, this kind of reputation comes as we follow Jesus in our individual lives and in our common life. We can go with him to proclaim and bring the good news of the kingdom of God to people who are used to hearing nothing but bad news. We can tell others what we have seen, what we have heard, and what we have experienced as we have walked with Jesus along the way in hopes that they might join us on the journey too. We can offer strange and surprising acts of hospitality to those who come into our midst as this unnamed woman did with Jesus, setting aside our fears and trusting that God is somehow working among us beyond our understanding. And we can provide for the needs of this community and the whole witness of the household of God just as these faithful folks, named and unnamed here, did with Jesus. In these and countless other ways we can embody Jesus’ welcome of all people, show God’s love for all creation, and receive and pass on God’s amazing grace in the world.

So may we get a reputation of mercy, grace, and love because we offer God’s deep welcome to anyone and everyone in our life together, because we show our deepest care and concern for others, and because we join in God’s transformation of our world begun for all in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.