Embarrassing Love

Sermon 6-16-13     Luke 7:36-8:3

Some weeks it seems as if there is an embarrassment of riches in our lectionary.  Today we get not only one of the great (and intrigue filled) Old Testament stories, but also one of my favorite of Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.  We also have Paul strongly stating his theology on justification by faith vs. the law – something a Lutheran preacher usually loves to dig into!

And then we have men behaving badly, specifically David, as well as stories of both Old and New Testament women just begging to be told:  Bathsheba, who get wedged into the background during the story of David’s lying, cheating, murdering, and scheming; and then Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Suzanna, whose mention just get pasted into our Gospel almost as an afterthought. (and ironic perhaps to have all these women on Father’s Day!)

Each one of these readings deserves an entire sermon devoted to them:  The full story of King David’s many sins and how they affected his victims needs its own focus.

And Paul’s sweeping indictment of the notion “God helps those who help themselves” could cover a sermon series; and a sermon on the other disciples of Jesus – the women who supported Jesus’ ministry - sometimes financially – also should stand alone.

But since I am pretty sure you don’t want me to talk for the next several hours, we are left instead with two disparate characters – a proud Pharisee named Simon and the woman whose behavior can be described kindly as embarrassing. 

And of course, the preacher, healer, teacher, savior, who connects them.

When I was a kid I remember feeling a tiny hint of the embarrassment that the woman in our Gospel causes today.  Every time in worship my mom would sing just a little too loudly, or pray just a bit too long, or God forbid, cry during a prayer or sermon or hymn, I’d cringe.  As a twelve year old I am pretty sure I thought my mom was a religious nut.

What on earth, I wondered, could drive a person to act so crazy in a dignified place like church?

Something also meant to be dignified are symposiums or salons – that’s the kind of dinner Jesus was taking part in at Simon the Pharisee’s home.  A dinner for conversation and teaching and discussion.  A place for great minds to debate the ideas of the day.

Now it isn’t clear why Simon invited Jesus.  To test him?  To mock him?  Because he was really interested in him? 

It’s unlikely that it was the latter, since we know from Jesus that Simon broke several rules of hospitality: he did not greet his guest with a kiss or water to wash his feet or anoint his head with oil – all things a proper first century host would do for a respected guest.

But Jesus was as least a guest that Simon expected, and far more welcome than the woman who barged into the middle of his dinner to create a mortifying scene for the host – far more mortifying than my mom’s religious fervor was to me!

As with the case of many characters in the Gospels, this woman has no name.  She is sometimes referred to as the “Sinful” Woman, and sometimes the “Anointing” Woman.  Because this story is similar in some ways to ones from Matthew, Mark, and John, she often gets confused as Lazarus’ sister, Mary of Bethany, who anointed Jesus’ feet in the Gospel of John.

And sometimes she is thought to be Mary Magdalene or the adulterous woman who was nearly stoned to death but saved when Jesus says “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

Whoever she is, we know very little about her.  We don’t know what her “sin” is – though I am sure that many of us (myself included) assumed off the bat that it was prostitution. But we don’t know that’s what it was. We do know however the one thing that matters. 

That she is shamelessly, embarrassingly, flagrantly full of unsparing, unwavering, unlimited love for Jesus.

There is a key difference between this the story of this anointing woman and those found in Matthew, Mark, and John.  In each of those gospels, whether the woman is unnamed or is Mary of Bethany, the reason for the anointing has to do with Jesus’ impending death.  Each of those stories happens near the end of the gospels, and the womens’ devotion is seen as a preparation for Jesus’ burial.

But our woman today has a different purpose.  Jesus death is still a ways off.  For this woman, it is all about gratitude for the incredible gift of forgiveness she’s been already given.

Already given.  When we meet this woman, she’s already met Jesus before.  He’s forgiven her already.  Jesus tells Simon near the end of the story:

Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

Jesus hasn’t forgiven her because she’s come prostrate at his feet and bathed his feet with her tears.  She’s not coming begging to be forgiven. She’s already been forgiven, and her response embarrasses everyone in the room except the person who has forgiven her.

So Jesus tells another of his parables. 

 “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?”  

Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” 

He supposes?  Really? 

This woman has shown great love because she knows the value of forgiveness. She’s had five hundred denarii hanging over her head for ages. “But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Jesus says.

“The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

Jesus isn’t judging Simon here or saying he isn’t forgiven.  He’s describing the situation. And, like all great teachers, he is telling a profound truth, and this truth is about the value of forgiveness.

In other words, what Jesus is saying is this: Those who don’t think they need forgiveness, love little.   If we can’t admit what we need, then we aren’t going to notice when we get the remedy that we are missing.  That’s not an indictment.  It’s a description.

On the other hand: if your whole life is spent with a daily reminder of your faults, your failings, and your sins; if you are referred to as the Sinful Woman, The Drunk, The Jerk, The Drug Addict, The Racist, The Loser, The Loner, The Womanizer, as if that were your name; if the reality of your sinfulness has come to define you and has taken so strong a hold of you that you don’t know another part of yourself, then yes, you know the value of forgiveness.

The value of forgiveness is freedom.  The woman in our gospel today wasn’t even seen as an individual by those around Simon’s table except by Jesus.

Instead for them she is simply a sinner.  She’s “that kind of woman.”  Have you ever felt like that?  Felt as if you weren’t seen for who you truly were, but instead by the label you’d been given?

How valuable is freedom from that?

Forgiveness can either be a blessing or it can be a curse.  It’s a blessing if like the woman, we feel the weight of our sin removed by the sheer words of absolution each time we hear them. 

It’s a curse, however, if we, like Simon, don’t see that we need it.  Simon was righteous.  He followed the law.  He minded his Ps and Qs and did what he was supposed to. 

He couldn’t see forgiveness as a gift.  Instead it was a threat.

Again, as a kid, I remember having fights with my best friend and when I really wanted to goad her I’d simply say “I forgive you” before she’d even had a chance to apologize for whatever minor infraction she’d made.  

There is both sadness and joy in this story today.  It’s profoundly sad that Simon is so trapped by his pride that rather than share in the outpouring of love from this woman, he judges both her and Jesus and is thus prevented from seeing the true freedom that forgiveness brings. 

“A proud man,” said CS Lewis, “is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.” 

God knows that Lewis is talking about me more times than I wish to count in my life.  As much as I want to identify with the woman in this story, I know that I’ve been Simon as well.  I’ve been too confident of my own “right-ness” whether it’s in an argument with my husband or daughter, or when I was embarrassed by the faith my mother showed when I was a kid. 

But fortunately the woman in our story today shows us that when we just look up to see; when we let those words of forgiveness sink into our hearts the joy is boundless. 

As theologian, teacher and preacher David Lose says this woman shows us “the joyful truth that those who recognize their need receive their heart’s desire and live out of gratitude and love.”

What’s the value of forgiveness?  Is opening ourselves up to the possibility of abundant love worth the price of admission?  Is letting go of soul crushing labels that falsely define us worth it?  The anointing woman in us reminds us of the gift we receive and helps temper the Simon in us when he forgets that value.

“Your sins are forgiven,” says Jesus.  He’s forgiven the woman already but says the words again so they can sink in.  “Your sins are forgiven,” says Pastor Mark every single week at St. Paul's after our Confession of Sins.  Some things are just so good we need to hear them again and again.  May that knowledge bring you boundless joy and hope.