Sermons
December 24, 2023 (4th Sunday of Advent)
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
Luke 7:36-50
I’m not sure if it was Fred Craddock or Tony Campolo who told the story of a woman of questionable morals who showed up at church.
The woman was a fixture at local bars, hard-drinking and -smoking, heavily made up, going home with a different man nearly every night. Her several children—all with different fathers and different last names—lived with their grandmother, who did her best to counter the bad influence of their mother.
Then one day, a woman from one of the local churches met her on the street and struck up a conversation with her. The conversation wasn’t long, but it ended with her being invited to church on Sunday.
The church in question was a standard mainline church, with decent people dressed in decent clothing, worshiping and doing their church business decently and in order.
This woman, not really knowing how to dress for church, had done her best. But her dress was shabbier, shorter, tighter, and more revealing than any of the dresses worn by the other women there. And she wore an abundance of gaudy makeup and cheap perfume, which did nothing to mask the smell of hard living and cigarettes.
The woman who had invited her picked her up, and they sat together in the sanctuary. People whispered among themselves when they saw—and smelled—her.
The pastor’s sermon that morning was on the love and grace of God. As she listened, the woman began to cry—which just added to the spectacle she had already made just by showing up. Someone handed her a tissue. Her makeup and her nose ran.
As the congregation sang the invitation hymn, the woman got up and stumbled, still weeping, to the front of the church. The minister, who preferred not to be surprised on Sunday morning, looked uncomfortable. The sound of the hymn being sung was almost drowned out by the whispers and embarrassed giggles from the congregation.
During the coffee hour after church, the congregation gathered in tight circles. “What’s she doing here?” they asked one another. And, speaking of the one who had invited her to church, “Doesn’t she know what kind of woman that is?”
And then Jesus, overhearing their muttering, finally speaks up. “I have something to say to you,” he said. As Jesus likes to do, along with the rabbis of his day, he tells a story.
In Jesus’ day debt was a major reality for most common folk. That world was much different from ours—except for that. We can translate the amount of the two debts into something that might make sense to us, but it’s pretty clear.
The one owed the amount of money he could earn, before taxes, in fifty days. About a month and a half or two months’ wages. The other owed the amount he could earn in five hundred days, or between a year and a half and two years’ wages. So who’s going to be the most grateful? The answer is pretty obvious.
I don’t know if Simon got it or not, but Jesus was giving him a compliment, in a way. We don’t necessarily hear it, because we’ve had two thousand years of seeing Simon as the villain in this story, but Jesus was basically saying Simon was a pretty righteous man. He didn’t have as much that he needed forgiveness for.
Then Jesus asked Simon, “Do you see this woman?”
Obviously Simon had seen her. Who could have missed her? She came in weeping and making a scene, undoing her hair in public—which was simply not done in her day—blubbering all over Jesus’ feet. Her actions, according to the customs at the time, could even have been taken as a sexual advance—and in public! And she was a sinner!
To digress a moment, though, I need to point out that we don’t know what kind of sinner this particular woman is. Tradition says she was a prostitute, but there’s nothing in the text to indicate that. The Greek word used is a generic word for “sinner.” She may have been a prostitute, but she could have just been a woman who ignored the customs of the day about speaking to men in public. Or she may simply have regularly enjoyed what was the “fast food” of the day in many parts of the Roman world: oysters. The Law Simon knew and devoted his life to upholding prohibited—and still prohibits—Jews from eating oysters or any other shellfish.
“Do you see this woman?” Jesus asks Simon.
I think he was asking Simon if he really saw the woman. Do you see a human being here, Simon? A woman beloved by God, created in God’s image? Or do you only see her sin?
Did the people in the story I started with really see that woman, either? Do we really see people we consider to be immoral or sinful? Do we see them as God sees them: beloved children in need of forgiveness? Or are they simply bad influences to stay away from, as though their sinfulness might be contagious?
Does it ever occur to anybody that influence goes both ways—we can be a good influence, too?
Do we rejoice when a sinner returns to God—as God does—or whisper behind our hands, as Simon and the church members in that story did?
There’s also the matter of hospitality. We didn’t hear about it before. Now Jesus brings it to Simon’s—and our—attention that Simon didn’t honor him, as a guest, with the customary niceties.
Translated into today’s customs it might look like this: You’re invited to someone’s home for supper one winter evening. When you get there the porch light isn’t on. Nobody answers the door when you ring the bell, so you let yourself in. Once inside, nobody greets you at the door or offers to take your coat, or asks if you’d like something to drink.
In Simon’s time, washing the feet—it was hot and dusty and shoes were pretty insubstantial—greeting with a kiss and anointing with oil were ways people honored guests in their homes. It was basic hospitality, just like offering to take somebody’s coat and offering them a drink would be today.
And for some reason Simon didn’t do that for Jesus. Maybe he just overlooked it in the bustle of the evening—or perhaps he had some other reason. We don’t know.
What the woman was doing may well have been seen as a sexual advance. And she was certainly making a scene, something most of us would rather not witness, or do. But Jesus didn’t see it as unseemly at all. What he saw was that she offered him the hospitality that his host had neglected: she washed his feet, kissed him, and anointed him.
Now this is where we run into some trouble.
The next word out of Jesus’ mouth is “Therefore…” Therefore, her sins have been forgiven. Is she saying she’s earned her forgiveness by her actions? Were her tears tears of remorse? Does Jesus declare her forgiven because of something she did?
Does this mean we can earn our own forgiveness—as Simon may have believed he did, although that’s not exactly how the Law describes it—by behaving in a certain way? Or is he saying her actions are the result of her forgiveness?
In other words, is the great love she is displaying an act of gratitude? And what’s that mean about us?
I don’t see it as often anymore, but people used to put a bumper sticker on their cars that said, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” This is certainly a true statement. But I’m not sure it goes far enough.
God acts out of grace and love when he forgives our sins. Do we really comprehend how huge that is?
Paul did, and he wanted us all to get it. “All have sinned,” he said in Romans, “and fallen short of the glory of God.” All have sinned, Simon as well as the woman at Jesus’ feet.
God doesn’t necessarily categorize sins and put them on a hierarchy, as we’re tempted to do—usually with our sins at the less important end and someone else’s sins at the really horrible end. All of us need God’s forgiveness.
The difference between Simon and the woman wasn’t that the one was righteous and the other was sinful. The difference was that the one knew her need for forgiveness. She knew she was a sinner. Simon thought he was righteous, and thus he didn’t think he had any need to be forgiven.
In Romans, after Paul explains that grace and forgiveness are free gifts from God through Christ, gifts that we don’t earn by any effort of our own, he responds to a question he predicts his readers will ask. “Well, then, if this grace and forgiveness are free, and there isn’t anything we have to do to earn them, and they’re so wonderful, shouldn’t we just keep sinning, so God can keep lavishing grace and forgiveness on us?”
Paul’s answer is, “By no means!” In the words of a catchphrase we hear now and then, “God accepts us where we are—but doesn’t leave us there!”
We don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love or forgiveness. But that forgiveness changes us.
Think about how huge a gift that is—from a God who is totally righteous, totally just, who is capable of inflicting punishment and doing damage—but has chosen not to, out of love. Out of love for us. For us.
A Pharisee, who has received forgiveness from his loving God, doesn’t recognize his need for forgiveness and thus responds to another’s behavior with ungrace, to use Philip Yancey’s term. A sinful woman, who has also received forgiveness from her loving God, responds with an outpouring of love and gratitude.
We have also been given grace and forgiveness from our loving God. Do we recognize that? How do we express our gratitude?
And how does knowing the magnitude of God’s love and grace toward us affect how we treat others whom God loves and who are in need of the same grace and forgiveness we have received?