Sundays after Pentecost Proper 6 [11] Year C
Every good story has two key
characters in it – one good and the other not so good. Sometimes they become the antagonists –
fighting against each other, usually with the good one victorious over the bad
one – and sometimes they are simply compared with each other to make a point.
In our Gospel Reading today,
among the many characters are two key characters:
1.
Simon the
Pharisee; and
2.
A woman of the
city, a sinner.
Without one of these, the
teaching opportunity would have been lost to Jesus.
It is a story that I love
dearly, especially in Luke’s version.
When Matthew and Mark tell this story they place it as a prelude to the
Last Supper, and by doing that they are getting us ready to hear of Jesus’ need
of anointing for burial, after his execution.
By telling the story so near
to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in his Gospel, Luke is making sure
that we understand something quite different by it.
The people who selected the
readings for the Lectionary have tried to reinforce this by choosing the
passage we read from Galatians this morning.
This story has something
really important to tell us about God’s love for us and grace. Let’s see how Luke makes this plain to us.
TWO SINNERS
There are two characters in
the story and they are classics really.
They appear extraordinarily different from each other as far as the
externals go - a religious leader and a woman - but the real difference that
Jesus wants us to notice is quite unexpected.
1. So we
have Simon – a Pharisee.
The Pharisaic traditions of Jesus’ day laid
the foundations for the kind of Judaism that would survive after the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD and which we most closely see today in
Orthodox Judaism with its emphasis on Kosher food and right ritual.
Jesus was no friend of the
Pharisees. They were experts in
“self-righteousness” and reduced their religion to a purity code and an
understanding of covenant as a system of requirements and rewards – “If I do
all these right things, God will fill my life with blessings.”
Simon invited Jesus to have
dinner at his place. Now Jesus was
probably thought of in some circles as a rabbi – the term crops up in a few
stories – so perhaps Simon wanted to hear some of his wisdom.
Or maybe Simon wanted to show
off to his friends that he could get Jesus to come to his place for dinner.
The text is not clear, so we
are left to guess.
I think Simon thinks he is
doing a pretty good job at keeping the requirements of the Law and he probably
thinks that if he has failed God in any way, it won't be too bad.
2. And
then we have a woman from the city.
She is further described as a sinner – and
that could have been code language for a woman of ill-repute; at least that is
what most preachers make of it. But I
want to give her the benefit of the doubt.
In the story we get the idea
that this was no random act on her part.
She knew who Jesus was and she knew where he was going to be. I wonder if they had met in some other place
and perhaps had had a conversation in which Jesus had made it very clear to her
the extent of God’s love and grace – that although she was a sinner she could
be sure of God’s good favour.
She is obviously responding
in an extraordinary way to something she had come to understand about
Jesus.
And it was scandalous, what
she was doing.
Let me remind you of a very
small episode in the story of Ruth.
When she goes back to Israel, her mother-in-law Naomi does a little
match-making with her kinsman Boaz.
The procedure was simple –
when Boaz nodded off for a nap after a fantastic dinner, Ruth was to lie down
at his feet. At the very least it was a
ritual invitation to great intimacy, but was also regarded as a form of
marriage proposal.
So, you can begin to imagine
what was going on in the minds of the other people at Simon’s party.
The woman was behaving
scandalously by touching his feet at the meal, and then by uncovering her hair
in a public place and in the company of strange men – orthodox Jewish women
today often wear wigs to cover up their hair in public.
You can imagine all the men
there shooting sideways glances at the woman – checking out what she would do
next.
You can also imagine, I am
sure, their knowing glances at each other expressing indignation that Jesus
should not object to what she was doing.
And Simon was doing this, too.
I am sure I would if I was
caught up in a similar modern day example of this story.
So, in the context of this,
Jesus draws Simon’s attention to the scandal of his own behaviour – his failure
to meet his obligations of hospitality to a guest. Simon had failed to wash the dusty feet of
his guest; he had failed to greet him appropriately with a kiss; and he had
failed to honour him with oil for his hair.
Jesus is wanting to make it
very clear that much and all as Simon thinks the woman is in an awful
predicament of condemnation – because she is a sinner – Simon is in no better
situation. His behaviour is just as
scandalous.
A PARABLE
This is the central feature
of Luke’s version of the story and it is what makes it different from Matthew
and Mark’s version. So this is what Luke
really wants us to take notice of.
“A certain creditor had two
debtors; one owed nearly two years’ salary and the other less than two months’
salary. When they could not pay he
cancelled the debts for both of them.”
It’s a simple scenario –
perhaps a little incredible – but the really important part is Jesus’ question
to Simon – “Now which of them will love him more?”
The people in that room would
have known full-well how many peasant farmers’ lives were unbearable because of
debt, and so they would also have known that the forgiveness of such a debt
would have been transformational for their families.
The two sinners in our story
provide a striking contrast. The woman
is so stigmatised by her sins as to be a public figure (everybody knew she was
a bad woman); and Simon comes across as a blind, smug religionist who cannot
recognise his own sinful predicament let alone the genuine gratitude of a forgiven
woman.
In these two characters,
Jesus exposes our modern moralisms and dramatises for us an authentic response
to divine grace. It is this response
that is transformational – and that is the good news.
I found this quote on Friday
that says it all, really.
“For I
tell you this: one loving, blind desire for God alone is more valuable in
itself, more pleasing to God and to the saints, more beneficial to your own
growth, and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than anything
else you could do.”
-From a fourteenth-century
anonymous work, The Cloud of
Unknowing
When Jesus says (again) to
her “Your sins are forgiven,” I am pretty sure he has already met the woman and
told her this before, but I think he said this publicly to make a point.
And the question from the
crowd was the same as the question I told you last week was behind so much of
the Gospel of Luke – “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”
What kind of man is this?
There are three things about
Jesus in this story that emphasise again what Luke wants us all to get – that
Jesus is a prophet.
Firstly, he seems to
understand Simon’s unstated criticism of Jesus for allowing THAT WOMAN to touch
him. This kind of intuitive
“foreknowledge” is a characteristic of prophets.
Secondly he uses that very
real and gritty situation to teach something that is very true about life – we
are all in need of God’s forgiveness and grace; no one is more or less
deserving.
Finally, we hear Jesus
pronouncing divine forgiveness for the woman.
In these three things, Luke
wants to make sure we get it – that Jesus is a unique prophet of God who is
able to see below the surface of things, who teaches us about life, and who
forgives sins.
Hallelujah!!
Let us pray:
God our most holy Friend,
please assist us to cherish the deep salvation which you have begun in us. Save us from the lure of those shallow things
which win the praise of the world. You
have called us to be people of grace; let us express grace in all our
affairs.
We pray this through Christ
Jesus our Saviour.
Amen!
Acknowledgement: Bruce Prewer's resources for Sundays often provide me with much inspiration for sermons and prayers on Sundays. http://www.bruceprewer.com/b_rcl.htm
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