One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to
eat with him. After he entered the
Pharisee’s home, he took his place at the table.
Meanwhile, a woman from the city, a
sinner, discovered that Jesus was dining in the Pharisee’s house. She brought perfumed oil in a vase made of
alabaster. Standing behind him at his
feet and crying, she began to wipe his face with her tears. She wiped them with her hair, kissed them,
and poured the oil on them. When the
Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw what was happening, he said to himself, If this
man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. He would know that she is a sinner.
Jesus replied, “Simon, I have something
to say to you.”
“Teacher, speak,” he said.
“A certain lender had two debtors. One owed enough money to pay five hundred
people for a day’s work. The other owed
enough for fifty. When they couldn’t
pay, the lender forgave the debs of them both.
Which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who
had the largest debt canceled.”
Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.”
All the tax collectors and sinners were
gathering around Jesus to listen to him.
The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, “This man
welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
They say there are three things
you’re not supposed to talk about in polite company: religion, politics, and
sex. Next time you’re having a fancy
dinner party and want to keep the conversation polite, remember not to invite
Jesus, because if Jesus shows up, he’s likely to talk about all three. If you’re concerned about keeping things
polite, Jesus is the last person you want there.
Today we are concluding a message
series called, “Surprising Things They Never Told You About Jesus.” Over the last five weeks, we’ve looked at
episodes in Jesus’ life that often get overlooked in how good church folk like
us typically understand and experience Jesus.
The picture we often portray of Jesus is kinda boring, and the goal of
this series is to open up an understanding of Jesus that is both more faithful
to Scripture, and infinitely more interesting, in the hopes that all of us will
be renewed in our desire to get to know Jesus better.
The first week we learned this
surprising thing about Jesus: Jesus could party. In contrast to the dour and serious demeanor
of so many Christians, Jesus actually invites us to a joy-filled, abundant,
never-ending party in his presence, and is himself the life of the party.
Then we learned that Jesus got
ticked off. In particular, he gets
ticked off when people of faith insist on imposing laws on other people, but
are unable or unwilling to first love those people. What pleases Jesus is when relationship
precedes rule-following.
Then we learned that Jesus
destroyed buildings. Whereas our human
tendency is to build a sacred structure for God and come to revere what we have
built rather than the God for whom we built it, Jesus reminds us that the
truest temple of God is the human heart, and invites us to give the greatest of
our attention to what’s going on in here.
Last week’s surprising thing was
that Jesus taught teenagers. We looked
at his call of his first followers, and realized that they were young, and at
least a few of them were teenagers. We
took this understanding as a call for each of us, regardless of our age, to
have young hearts - hearts that are open and flexible, hearts that are both
able to hear to hear the call of Jesus, and willing to follow it.
Today we learn that Jesus had bad
manners - probably not what you wanted to hear if you already think polite
society is going to hell in a handbasket, but there are times where following
polite social norms are a barrier to faith, and thus a real and present danger
to our souls.
Imagine, if you will, that you
have received an invitation to dinner.
It’s being hosted by a respected and wealthy person in town and you know
that invitations have only gone out to folks on the A-list, and you got an
invitation! Doesn’t it feel good to be
one of the important people?
The evening of the dinner comes,
and you put on your tuxedo or cocktail dress and drive over to the wealthy side
of town. An army of valets is waiting to
park your car, and you enter the ornate front doors of the home, where just
inside a man confirms your identity with those listed on the guest list, and
invites you to enter, and says, “Welcome!
Have a good time.”
This is the scene for a dinner
party Jesus was invited to in the 7th chapter of Luke. A Pharisee named Simon - a person of some
prestige and influence in his city - is throwing a dinner party. Jesus is invited, as are all of Simon’s
social circle, people of prominence and good-standing, for a pleasant and
polite evening.
The party is interrupted when “a
woman of the city” bursts in. “Woman of
the city” is a rather polite way of saying that this was a woman with a
reputation. She was no stranger to the
invited guests, indeed, she was no stranger to practically anybody, and she was
unwelcome in this polite company. She
doesn’t belong here, she is the wrong kind of person, she is a sinner.
But then, it gets even worse. Shocking, even. She falls at the feet of Jesus and sobs so
uncontrollably that her tears are streaking through the dust on his calloused
feet, and she realizes the mess she’s making and wipes his feet dry with the
closest thing she can think of - her own hair.
This dinner party is social catastrophe. This woman - this sinful woman - knows how
out-of-place she is. She knows her place
is out there with the rest of the trash, not in here with good, respectable
folks like us. One of these things is
not like the other; everyone knows that this woman - this sinful woman -
doesn’t belong here; everyone, except Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t seem to know that
he’s supposed to be embarrassed by such intimate contact with this woman. He doesn’t seem to know that his reputation
is threatened. Any proper man of good
social standing would have been horrified and angry, but Jesus just lets her
touch him, which causes his host to think, “This guy is a fraud. If he were really the prophet he claims to
be, he would know who this woman is who is touching him, and what a big sinner
she is.”
But maybe Jesus isn’t as clueless
as the polite and well-mannered dinner guests want to believe. Jesus tells a story to make plain that he
does indeed know what sort of woman she is, and more than that, Jesus knows more
about his host and the other guests than they realized. Ouch.
“A certain lender had two
debtors. One owed enough money to pay
five hundred people for a day’s work.
The other owed enough for fifty.
When they couldn’t pay, the lender forgave the debs of them both. Which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one
who had the largest debt canceled.”
Jesus said, “You have judged
correctly.”
It is tempting to paint Simon, the
host, and the other guests as so heavenly-bound they’re no earthly good. I think that goes too far. Simon is much like many genuine religious
people we meet today who have perhaps grown up in church, never lived all that
wild or crazy, and were, for the most part, good people.
Unlike this sinful woman, his life
has never hit rock bottom. He knows
nothing of the pain and desperation that forced this woman into such a
disreputable line of work. His spirit
has never been so parched that he felt the need to drink deeply at the well of
divine grace. He’s not a bad guy - it’s
just that is faith is kinda shallow.
He’s annoyed because this woman has ruined his party and if she hangs
around too long, his reputation will be dragged as low as hers.
Simon has worked his entire life
to build a good name and reputation for himself, and in one instant, this
sinful woman is threatening everything he holds dear. He sees her not as a child of God, but as a
threat to his own goodness, and he hates that she rudely thrust herself into his perfect and predictable world. He is so anxious to do right and to be right
and to look good that he fails to see how his own desire for goodness gets in
the way. He is blind to the fact that he
too is a sinner forgiven and healed by grace, and yet she is the one who drinks most deeply from the well of grace, and she is the one whose spirit is quenched
and whose sin is forgiven.
Meanwhile the host and the invited
guests remain parched, the foolish pride of their own hearts standing between
them and the genuine, healing, life-giving touch of Jesus they so desperately
need.
They are so worried about their
own reputation, they miss seeing the transforming work of God in the human
heart even when it happens right before their eyes. We don’t want to do that! We don’t want to be so worried about our own
reputation that we miss seeing the kingdom of God breaking forth in our
midst. It was right there! It was happening in his home, and he missed
it! How tragic is that?? We look around at the world and we’re
horrified by what we see and we yell out, “God, where are you???” and we miss
what God is doing right in front of us.
Simon missed it. His guests missed it. But the sinful woman, she who is an outcast
among outcasts, sees Jesus for who he is, and in him she sees the kingdom of
God right here and now.
How about us? The challenge for us is to respond like this
woman - with great love and gratitude.
We first have to recognize how much Christ has done for us - not for
other people, not for anyone else, but each of us has got to recognize how much
Christ has done for us. And then, when
other people show up in the places where Jesus is - especially those who look
different or have a reputation or are the “wrong kind of people” or are just
the sort of people we are uncomfortable around, that’s our cue to get excited
and say, “Oh Jesus! What are you up to
today?”
The good and godly people around
Jesus grumbled, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them,” and you can
almost hear Jesus respond, “Yes, I do - what of it?” Thank God Jesus welcomes sinners and eats
with them; it means Jesus can even welcome a sinner like me.
Friends, God welcomes sinners like
us; we joyfully welcome others. May we
be found weeping at the feet of Jesus and inviting others to do the same. God’s grace has been given to us - thank
God! May we be a community who is
constantly experiencing and extending God’s grace.
I am grateful and surprised to
learn that Jesus had such bad manners, that he couldn’t care less about
cultural norms and social protocol. What
gets Jesus excited are transformed lives.
I am grateful that Jesus busted into my life when it wasn’t convenient
or polite or proper or on my timetable.
Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them; that’s not something to
grumble about, it’s something to be grateful for. I’d much rather be grateful to be a sinner
welcomed by Jesus than a self-righteous person whose whole life has been an
adventure in missing the point.
Surprise someone this week with
your bad manners. Willingly cross polite
social boundaries, so that all people will come to know the saving grace and
forgiveness of Jesus. Live out our call
to be a community of forgiven and forgiving sinners.
It’ll be the end of polite society
as we know it, and a sign that the kingdom of God is among us.
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