sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 03/30/2014
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Note: As you will surely notice, this text is actually from Luke 7v36-50. However, all of the images say “Luke 8.” This is an error. If you look for Luke 8v36-50 you will find stories about a demonized man, a dead girl, and a sick woman. This message has nothing to do with those stories. Alright….carry on!
36When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38As 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.
39When 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.”
40Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44Then 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. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You 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—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Luke 7v36-50
We’re going to talk today about forgiveness. About how the goodness of God, and the goodness of Jesus is revealed in forgiveness. About how Jesus’ forgiveness is one of the reasons that we can trust him, that we can have confidence in him, that we can be sure of him, that we can be free to take a leap of faith in depending on him. About how Jesus is really good, better perhaps than some of us might ever have imagined.
We all come to the topic of forgiveness with different perspectives, emotional responses, experiences. Some of us have experienced profound forgiveness, perhaps after having wronged a family member, or a really good friend, or maybe even a stranger who surprised you by their response to you. Some of us, maybe, even from God, in a moment, or many moments of spiritual repentance. Some of us have been offered forgiveness, but we feel conflicted about receiving it. Some of us have longed for forgiveness from someone, and they have been unwilling or unable to give it to us. Some of us wrestle ourselves with forgiving someone else. Perhaps we’ve started to, but it feels like more is required than we’ve already given. Perhaps we’re afraid to take the next step, or unsure if we even should. Probably, for some of us, we don’t even know exactly what forgiveness means. We have some feelings about it, but it’s hard to get our minds and hearts wrapped around it, at least enough to resolve the internal conflicts we feel about it.
[Dating Ronni…blowing it big-time, causing her deep pain and distress…the sense that I felt unsafe to her, the rift in connection…the mutual vulnerability…the decision, embrace, the end of exile]
Notice a few things. Forgiveness is not saying “what you did is OK.” It’s saying, at a more profound level, “there is no outstanding debt between us. I’ve canceled it.”
The terrible thing may remain a terrible thing. But forgiveness robs it of its power to separate people, to inhibit the intimacy where love brings life in a relationship.
That’s part of why, in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, the words for debt and sin were the same thing. When we sin against someone, we put ourselves in their debt. And beyond the pain of whatever the harm we’ve done, debt changes the power structure between human beings. It puts one in power over the other, just because of the presence of the debt. And power differentials make intimacy very, very unstable in human beings. Because intimacy is a fragile thing in the best of situations, given how dependent it is on trust. Throw a power difference in the mix, and the volatility of the intimacy goes way up. Can the debtor trust the indebted to pay them back? Can the indebted trust the debtor to not use their power to manipulate them? Every relational exchange becomes loaded with questions and suspicion. That’s why we hate having debts between family members or close friends – we recognize that the potential for the collapse of intimacy is sky high. Which puts love and the life that flows from it in jeopardy.
When Ronni forgave me, in other words, she was lifting me up from the position of a debtor, saying we were on equal terms with each other, neither owing the other anything but love. A powerful, courageous action that made room for intimacy to be re-established, and love to take root, and life to flow freely again between us.
In Jesus’ day, the forgiveness of sins had an even larger, nation-wide implication. The Jewish people understood their exile from God – the experience of being out of his favor and under Roman occupation – as punishment for their collective sins. So the forgiveness of sins meant nothing less than “the end of exile.” It was much more than an individual wrestling with a troubled conscious. It was about God himself coming home to his people and saying, “It’s all over. I’m here and I’m with you! Your exile is over! We can get on together with the blessing of the world part of the story.”
So with all that in mind, let’s go back to that story about Jesus and the woman at Simon’s house.
36When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.
Set the scene.
Dinner parties were semi-public affairs. Takes place in an open air courtyard, with the door left open so uninvited guests could enter, sit by walls, and hear the conversation. The guests would have been seated on the ground, at a very low table – probably a Roman triclinium, a U-shaped dining area made up of three tables, diners on the outside, reclining with feet stretching away from the table. Servants could enter at the center of the table to replenish food, etc.
Simon, a Pharisee, has invited Jesus to a dinner party at his house. The Pharisees had a conflicted relationship with Jesus. At one level they treated him as an equal, because they recognize he’s got the ear of the populous, and because he clearly has some extraordinary personal strength. On another level, they despise him, because he’s been hanging out with various “sinners” – the term the Pharisees used for religious, moral, and political outcasts. They think what Jesus is doing is really terrible. In their view, these sinners need to be condemned so that they get with the Pharisees program and reform, or they should be ignored and despised so that they don’t corrupt the “true” Israelites. In some ways, they’ve lumped Jesus with these “sinners” and consider him tainted by them. So this dinner is probably an attempt to either challenge Jesus and persuade him to change course, or it’s a chance to expose and humiliate him so that he loses credibility with the people.
37A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38As 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.
We’ll talk about why she does this in a bit. For now, let’s just get a handle on what she did and why it was so incendiary.
The phrase “a woman in that town who lived a sinful life” is a polite way of saying she was a local prostitute, and that at least some of the people in the courtyard knew that about her. Simon the Pharisee among them.
This woman had come along with a jar of expensive perfume, probably to give it to Jesus as a gift. It seems clear from the context that she’d heard Jesus’ message of good news that God loves people like her. That God’s grace was available to her even though she couldn’t pay the debt she owed for her sins. That she was welcome in Jesus’ community, even though she was an outcast in her own. So she had come to thank him.
But something happens before she does that, and it causes her to weep. She notices that her tears are falling on his feet, outstretched from the table towards her. Her tears are mixing with the dirt on Jesus’ feet, so she bends down and uses her hair to wipe his feet.
A few things about this were provocative to anyone witnessing.
First, feet are taboo in Middle Eastern cultures. They pick up the dirt of the roads, and in agrarian society, you shared the roads with livestock and all that they would leave behind, muddying the roads. As we’ll discover, Jesus’ feet at this point in the party are unwashed, and here this woman – a known prostitute - is kissing them.
And she’s let her hair down in the process. It was taboo for women to do that in the presence of any man except her husband. A woman’s hair was considered highly sexual (and still is, in conservative Muslim and Jewish cultures). In the first century, the most pious Jewish woman wouldn’t even let their hair down in their own homes. Had this woman been married, letting her hair down in public, where other men could see, would have been legal grounds for her husband to divorce her without any financial settlement. This prostitute does this highly charged act to a respected Rabbi, at the dinner party of a Pharisee’s home. That’s like flashing the Pope while he gives mass at the Vatican.
39When 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.”
Simon’s response, all things considered, is not surprising. It’s confirming to him everything negative and judgmental he’s thought about Jesus.
40Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44Then 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. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.
Ah, now some of what’s happening behind the scenes is starting to reveal itself. In Jesus’ words, we can begin to understand why this woman did what she did, and what it all means about her, and about Jesus, and about how staggeringly, remarkably, unprecedentedly, wonderfully good Jesus is.
The first thing that becomes clear is that Jesus was snubbed by Simon when he arrived. Powerfully, intentionally snubbed.
In any culture, there are things you are expected to do when a guest you’ve invited arrives to your home, especially if they aren’t a close family member or friend. Even here in the 21st Century U.S. you greet them at the door. You say hello, welcome, please come in, make yourself at home. You offer to take their coat. You offer them something to drink if the food isn’t ready yet. You turn off the TV, put your phone on vibrate. If it’s an honored guest, you maybe have the house all straightened up, candles lit, nice music playing, you bring the kids over to say hello, one by one. Not doing even a couple of these things – especially the common courtesies – can make a guest uncomfortable, feel unwelcome. For example, if I don’t offer to take your coat or suggest a place you can hang it, you’ll wonder if I don’t want you to stay very long.
Basic Jewish hospitality at the time of this story required hosts to do at least three things for any guest – simple, common courtesies - none of which Simon did for Jesus. There was no water to wash his feet. An honored guest would have had a servant come to wash his feet for him, no less. There was no kiss on the cheek, no oil for his head. And it’s not like this rudeness could be explained by an oversight…Simon calls Jesus “Rabbi” earlier on, so we know he knew who Jesus was and what kind of respect would be anticipated. This is calculated mistreatment to knock Jesus off balance, to send him a message.
Imagine Jesus walking in. He’s taken a risk just accepting this invitation. He looks around and is met by…? Silence? Staring? Awkward ignoring as others wash? How long did it go on? We don’t know. We just know that eventually Jesus sat down at the table on his own, un-greeted, shamed.
And we know what that can feel like. To be hated, humiliated in that way. Made into an outcast.
And we know the woman could see it, what Jesus was experiencing. This woman who knew what it was like to endure that kind of humiliation, day after day, perhaps every day of her adult life. She knew how painful that was, even when she felt like maybe she deserved it. It’s awful, the heaviest kind of pain, the kind that pushes air out of your lungs and doesn’t let it back in easily. And here was Jesus enduring it. Without protest. Jesus, making himself vulnerable amongst the powerful. Taking his seat, as everyone watched without watching, out of the corner of their eyes.
Enduring it not because he’d earned it for himself, but because he made space for people like her to not feel it in his company.
So this woman who has come to thank Jesus, to honor him, sees the dishonor and begins to weep.
Tears of compassion.
Mixed with tears that spring from her own pain, too.
Then, it seems, she sees them splash against his unwashed feet. The rivulets and streams forming, accenting the dirt that signifies his humiliation.
She cannot let this go on.
She loves Jesus.
She feels safe with him.
So safe that she loses all regard for her own self, and makes herself completely vulnerable in this house of judgment.
She lets down her hair. Washes his feet.
Kisses them.
Opens the perfume and pours it on him.
She’s made a royal mess, and she doesn’t care.
Nor, it seems, does he.
Jesus takes in the judgment breathed against her by Simon, and probably by many others at the table, and tells his parable.
A parable that reveals the forgiveness she’s already experienced from him. The way in which he has cancelled her debts and put her on equal footing with himself. The way in which he has announced to her that her sin doesn’t stand between them. Forgiveness that everyone can see, a reality that’s embodied before them. Forgiveness that has made intimacy possible between them, a place for love to grow and life to flow. A table prepared for both of them in the presence of their enemies, as the psalmist wrote.
And a parable that shows Jesus has cancelled Simon’s debt for his rudeness as well. Except that Simon perceives his own cancelled debt to be small, as revealed by the smallness of his love.
47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Do you see? It wasn’t her love that earned forgiveness from him. Her love that shone a light on the forgiveness she’d already received.
What she had was faith. Confidence in him. What faith, confidence, trust had she demonstrated? Simply that she could approach him vulnerably without fear, fully herself before him. The willingness to trust his forgiveness. To take a chance on it. To taste and see that he was good. To see that he was as good as she hoped he was.
What goodness Jesus must have exuded. We tend to conceive of forgiveness as an intellectual decision of sorts. Not for God. For God, forgiveness seems to be something of who he is towards us. Jesus seemed to have worn it on his shoulders, like clothing.
Because forgiveness is a relational reality. It is renewed peace between us and God, embodied in God’s incarnated love, Jesus of Nazareth.
The result is salvation and a life drenched in peace.
And so she welcomes Jesus where no other welcome was to be found for him.
He who was in exile in this house finds himself at home with her.
His exile over.
The forgiveness of sins, realized.
She who was in exile everywhere else has found herself at home with him.
Her exile over.
The forgiveness of sins, realized.
Practical suggestions:
1. Put yourself in the prostitute’s place. Take note of any vulnerability you feel when it comes to considering a leap of faith with Jesus. The vulnerability that comes when you think about asking him for help or responding to some invitation he’s giving you, depending on him to come through for you. Or maybe when you think about trusting him with your life and committing yourself to being his disciple. Now imagine yourself as that woman in that scene with Jesus, seeing Jesus vulnerability and shame. Ask God for the grace to leap the way she did, to see in Jesus the end of your exile and to be moved to trust from a place deep in your heart, not in the risk calculating part of your brain.
2. Give away some perfume. Give a gift to a vulnerable person, as a thank you to Jesus for his forgiveness. It could be a world vision or compassion international sponsorship, or a gift to the compassion ministry, but perhaps better would be a direct gift to someone like a homeless person. So you can experience the exile/vulnerability dynamics personally.
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