Grace in Action
Third Sunday after Pentecost - June 13, 2010
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Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |
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Our thoughts this week flow right on from our subject last week. We heard about grace in the life of Paul. We developed a working definition of grace, =the good gifts of God. And today we see how that grace is in action in the ministry of Jesus.
Perhaps it is a bit like the old question: is the glass half-full or half-empty? Simon and his friends look upon the woman and Jesus' relationship with her, see only her sinfulness, and react with horror. Jesus looks at her and sees something very different than those folks who consider themselves so very upstanding. He sees a person who has been forgiven for much, one who now has new, fresh, different possibilities in front of her, one who will be capable of much love abd faith.
Simon and his friends look only at what has been, a notorious shady lady; Jesus looks at what she is becoming, a new person who will do very different things. Simon looks to the past; Jesus looks to the future.
Some have the idea that if one is a genuine Christian, then everything will go well with one's life; it is all smooth sailing and happy life. But think for a moment about this woman who has trained herself in one thing. If she gives up her shady past, what will she do in the future? Who is going to employ her? Who would be willing to marry her? Does she have anyone whom she can call “family” and more? How will she live? How will she be restored to the community if Simon and the others do not themselves have a change of heart? We don't hear answers to any of those “what happens next?” questions. Suffice it to say that life will not be easy after she has this encounter with Jesus.
37 years ago when I was a 1st-year seminarian, part of the arrangement in the 1st year field-work parish was that every Sunday I was invited to join one of the parish families for Sunday lunch. [One of them was the 1st and only time I've ever had hog maw.] Perhaps this is the way that Jesus ends up in Simon's house; Simon is perhaps taking his turn in inviting the guest speaker for lunch after the synagogue service. Perhaps he was also curious. Perhaps he wanted to put Jesus to the test. Whatever the reason for the visit, the smooth flowing event is disrupted by the presence of this notorious woman. She is unexpected, and unwanted. She is probably a prostitute. She is a non-person to the Pharisees.
She asks for nothing from Jesus. Rather, she is overwhelmed by what she has already received from him, the news that God is willing to forgive sinners, and continues to love them despite their faults. She is amazed and grateful that God can still accept her, even though she cannot accept herself.
She comes to say Thank you in person, and is overcome with emotion, bursting into tears of joy, she mops them up on his feet with her hair, since she has not come prepared to do anything else, and anoints his feet with the perfume.
She knows what her life has been, and this last action is a signal that she recognizes that her life is going to be different in the future. The perfume has been a tool of her trade; she dabs on some in order to attract customers. But now she has used it up on Jesus' feet.
“Go in peace”, says Jesus, “your faith, (that is, your hearing gladly of God's love for you) has given you your freedom.” And she went out to a new life. The chain that bound her to one kind of life and expectation has now been shattered.
There was a big contrast between Simon and the woman, but Simon and Jesus saw the contrast quite differently. Simon is a Pharisee, one of a group which prided itself in the keeping of every rule set up by the Old Testament, living within a whole fence of regulations in order to make sure that they broke none of the 613 laws. Simon is intelligent and answers Jesus' question correctly. He is able to rattle off the answers, but they are only in his head, not in his heart and hands. Simon was sure he was keeping the law and thus earning God's favor and salvation, but his obedience was cold, calculating, a means to an end. Simon had heard of the woman's mis-deeds and had already dismissed her as being inferior.
On the other hand, the woman's obedience is just beginning, but it is not a way to manipulate Jesus. Instead, the woman acts in response to what she has already received!
“The woman is loving an kind because she had experienced God's great love and forgiveness. Simon, on the other hand, was a stranger to God's love. He had an intellectual association with God, not a personal one. He was quite satisfied with his own righteousness and thus experienced no forgiveness, which might have made real for him the mercy of God in a personal way. Consequently, in his personal relationship with people, he exhibited little or no love.” [Richard Hoeffler]
He had not offered the usual courtesy of foot-washing when Jesus came in; perhaps it was a deliberate snub to see how Jesus would react. Simon, the one who thought he had all the answers, is shown to have no answers at all. The woman who supposedly has no answers, responds to the snub done to Jesus with her tears, her hair-towel, and her perfume, her best answer.
And what about us? Do we get things backwards like Simon did? Do we promote our own brand of obedience, and assume that God will therefore favor us? How many times over the years, more often than not, from folks who can't be bothered with inconvenient church worship and service: “Oh, I've tried to live a good life, and that is what God wants anyway.” That is Simon's kind of calculating; and it will never work.
All that we can prove to God is how many different ways we can mess things, and God has known about all that ever since Adam! And then there is the opposite problem, where we smile sweetly and say, “Jesus loves me; I'm saved.,” but then never get around to actually doing anything, neither sharing Good News nor helping a neighbor in need. We all know times when we a have acted in those ways. Unlike Simon, the woman has it right; she not only says the right words, she is right in her relationship with God: (1) she recognizes with joy what God has done. (2) she gives thanks to God, with awe (3) she goes out to a new life in a new relationship with others.
That is the joy, challenge, and responsibility which God places before each of us also. We can't prove anything to God, but we can hear his promise with joy, gather here to give thanks, and discern how best to live and use these gifts henceforth. Our model for life is the woman, not Simon. Simon is the un-repentant sinner, filled with pride, arrogance, hard-heartedness, hostility, misunderstanding the nature of God's forgiveness, and more. The challenges for us keep popping up every day. (1) When we sit down to a meal, any meal, do we give thanks for God's gifts to us on this particular day and hour? (2) And do we remember those who have not enough food locally and around the world, and share in the work through the local food pantry and our wider efforts? (3) When we drive past hospital, nursing home, or an old house that is too quiet, do we set aside time to call, write, visit, pray, greet, etc? (4) When the offering plate passes are we reminded that it is supposed to contain first-fruits and not left-overs?
What measure of grace have we received? How shall we joyfully live within it today?
Amen.
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