Judgement…it's hard to live under the spotlight of it, and almost as impossible to live
soundly without it. Even though scripture clearly warns that we should not make judgments about one another, we
couldn't really even begin to choose a life of faith and holiness without coming to some kind of a judgment that
an alternative path would be wrong for us.
Sometimes we judge correctly and sometimes we fail miserably in our assessments of an individual, or a situation.
Following an embarrassing moment at a dinner party, and some unspoken but obvious judgments about Jesus' character,
the Savior asked this question about two debtors being forgiven of their indebtedness. One owed a little, the other
a great deal.
"Now which of them do you suppose will love him more?"…and Simon answered, "I suppose the one for
whom he canceled the greater debt." This time Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly."
There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. That much is perfectly clear. The Old Testament lesson seems
very obvious in detailing what is purely selfish and ungodly behavior. There a man of principles is murdered after
being falsely accused of disloyalty to God and King. We have no trouble whatsoever recognizing the "good people"
and the "bad people" as they are clearly portrayed. What vegetable garden is worth the cost of plotting
to take the rightful owner's life?
It gets a little more confusing however in the Gospel lesson, where culturally accepted traditions are being thwarted.
There are things we just don't do. We have to maintain our principles! It's easy to get lost in this story…couched
in the midst of so much privilege, comfort and established moral order. Successful and socially accepted people
who while trying to give a nod to the up and coming new preacher from Galilee have gone to all the trouble of including
him in one of their weekend soiree's,--and how does he rise to the challenge? He fails miserably by neglecting
to respond to the attentions of a known sinner with a stern reprimand; instead enduring her fawning display with
mute but obvious gratitude.
The real point of the story, told with some variations in all four gospels is the ease and even the urgency with
which the uncomfortable came to Jesus, and the discomfort felt by the comfortable as a result. Once again in this
season of the coming of the Spirit, we are dealing with alternatives to true spirituality. There is goodness…clearly
evidenced by those who keep the Law, and there is awe a quality that cannot be counterfeited or artificially produced…but
one which surpasses every act of human kindness.
To be so overwhelmed, so "taken out of one's own self" by a sense of never being able to do anything
good enough to match the wonderful gift that stands before you…in a sunset, in a perfect rose, in a baby's smile,
or in the miraculous opportunity to live one more day...and to be so very grateful….that is the essence of true
worship!
Some of us can't be bothered with such a waste of valuable time. We have become what we worship as we become the
center of our own worlds. We want what we want when we want it, and we want it to look, taste, feel, sound and
smell the way we imagined it should be. In our haste to acquire more and more, sooner and sooner it stands to reason
that our goals will soon infringe on the rights of another. That which is currently the property of someone else
will inevitably become the primary challenge to be expeditiously gained by us. It happened in Eden, it happened
at Meggido or Jezreel, it happened in Nazi Germany, it happened on 9/11, and it happens in Red Bank.
Never mind that the object of our desire is your ancestral inheritance, your rightful place to be….I will give
you better…or I will give you money! (that supposed solution to every possible issue.) And what could possibly
be better than that?
And it doesn't matter if it's the screaming child in the toy store, the potential bride whose minister won't change
church policy to accommodate her wedding plans, or the person who loves the freedom their country offers but hates
the politics that make it possible…the end result for Ahab and all such individuals is "resentment, sulleness,
inability to sleep, loss of appetite and depression." God help such individual's who have someone in their
lives who feel so sorry for them when this happens that they will try just about anything to help them out by fixing
the situation. NOT getting what we want may be the best thing that ever happened to us!
The only thing of importance that might really be missing in our present life situation is a better sense of gratitude
for what one already has and a greater sense of the desire to feel forgiven for failing to see it. Without such
an insight, without such humility instead of hubris it is almost impossible to ever move forward or to grow in
grace.
In the story of Jesus and Simon so very much had been taken for granted. Jesus is the only one who simply came
as invited and quietly took his place. Customary courtesies were overlooked completely, and yet there was no remorse.
While lack of judgment was clearly in evidenced in such actions, the host had no problem whatsoever being highly
judgmental on a more self effacing front.
Simon saw this intrusion into his world as a social embarrassment to himself, and a discredit to Jesus' supposed
prophetic ability. She was a thing, an object to be overcome, an economic liability. He did not see a person loved
and at the very least possessing the potential to be redeemed by God.
Jesus was forced to remind Simon of the reality of the person in front of him, "Do you see this woman?"
and in so doing perhaps gently poked Simon verbally as if to say, "You know Simon, it's not all about you."
The Torah instructs that it is a great offense to God to avert one's eyes so as not to look upon the need of another.
One who prides themselves on knowing God's will would certainly know that! That's not Law…it's compassion.
Our epistle from Galatians stresses the need for an end of legalism in order that the possibility of healing can
begin. Can we ever earn our salvation? No, it will always be a matter of grace. The listener in this story is inclined
to hear one very sharp contrast, so evident between Simon and Jesus. Here are two religious leaders suddenly in
the presence of a sinful woman. They are both righteous men, but one has an understanding of righteousness which
causes him to distance himself from her; while the other understands righteousness to mean moving toward her with
forgiveness, compassion and a blessing of peace.
To Simon's credit, there are clearly erotic implications in this woman's behavior toward Jesus better seen by those
who heard this story toward the end of the first century where a man's feet were seen as symbolic of his sexuality,
and where a woman who let her tears fall on his feet, and then wiped his feet with her hair, her crowning glory,
and kissed his feet, anointing them with ointment,…would have been seen as pouring out her most intimate self in
the presence of a room filled with men. Luke want's us to know she became fully vulnerable, fully exposed---that
she held back nothing of herself and no matter what anyone else felt or saw, that is what Jesus could not overlook!
The constrast between her selfless actions and Simon's carefully orchestrated dinner party in terms is shameful,
but not in the way we might first think. Even though Jesus is a supposedly honored guest in Simon's home, it is
a sinner who extends the customary hospitality above and beyond expectations. She gives without thought what Simon
had intentionally witheld: water for the feet (tears), the kiss of welcome, and the anointing for one coming in
from a journey exposed to the heat of the day. Prescribed hospitality should be emblematic of genuine feeling,
otherwise even in the accomplishment of it---it would mean nothing. It was little to expect…but it meant everything.
I heard a story recently of a little boy who came into the kitchen one evening while his mother was fixing supper
and handed her a piece of paper on which he'd written::
For mowing the grass, $8, For raking the yard, $5. For making my own bed this week, $1 per day totaling $7. For
going to the store $2.50. For playing with my brother while you went shopping $4. For taking out the trash, $1.
For getting a good report card, $15.
The woman looked at her son, standing there expectantly, and a thousand memories flashed through her mind. So,
setting her dinner preparations aside she picked up the paper he had given her and turning it over wrote this:
For the nine months I carried you, growing inside me. No Charge
For the nights I sat up with you, doctored you, prayed for you. No Charge
For the time and the tears, and the cost through the years. No Charge
For the nights filled with dread, and the worries ahead. No Charge
For advice and the knowledge, and the cost of your college. No Charge
For the toys, food and clothes, and for wiping your nose. No Charge
When you total it all, the full cost of my call to love you is this--No Charge
And that is what is God's love is all about, and that is what the Church should be all about. It is not very complicated
and quite capable of working perfectly! Everyone could get along wonderfully and truly love each other just as
God intended--- and all the bills would always be paid on time…if we kept in mind this most important thing, and
just knew more than any list of rules and regulations or prescriptions or principles that God loved us enough to
do everything that was necessary for us to be happy…and there was no charge!
What gratitude could do to change the world!
And so, at the end of this little story, what does Jesus do to drive that point home? He turns to the woman herself
and addresses her verbally for the first time, and says directly to her: "Your sins are forgiven…Your faith
has saved you; go in peace."
Now I want to ask you a very practical question. Where does one go when told by Christ "You are forgiven.
Go in peace?" The price of that woman's way of life in the city where she had come from would have been dependent
on the very institutions that carried the resources to restore her. The one place where she had always been welcomed
was the street, among other people just like herself, and avoiding future sins would have meant removal from all
of them. For sinners then were great in numbers according to Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza to writes from "In
Memory of Her" (p128):
As is the case today, so in antiquity most prostitutes were impoverished unskilled women. Found mostly in cities,
they often lived in brothels or houses connected with a temple. Prostitutes usually were slaves, daughters who
had been sold or rented out by their parents, wives who were rented out by their husbands, poor women, exposed
girls, the divorced and widowed, single mothers, captives of war or piracy, women bought for soldiers - in short,
women who could not derive a livelihood from their position in the patriarchal family or those who had to work
for a living but could not engage in "middle" or "upper" class professions. In ancient Palestine,
torn by war, colonial taxation, and famine, the number of such women must have been great.
She goes on to describe other types of people that might be called sinners:
criminals, or those who worked in disreputable jobs such as fruit-sellers, swineherds, garlic peddlers, bartenders,
seamen, public announcers, tax collectors, pimps,. prostitutes, servants and other service occupations, all of
which were deemed "polluting" or "unclean." All categories of sinners were in one way or another
marginal people who were badly paid and often abused. Their needs were rarely if ever seen.
What such people would need to survive from that moment onward would be a whole community of people just like themselves,
forgiven and forgiving sinners. This story screams for the need for a Church, and not just any church but one that
says, "You are fully welcome here, and not just tolerated. You are not viewed as a project, or a symbol of
our acceptance…but as one with us and loved because we see in you so much of what we see in ourselves."
His final admonition was quite simple: for "the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." If you
want to pride yourself on all the good you've done…it must begin with a recognition of where you came from, who
you really were, and how unlikely it ever could have been that you would have the opportunities you have been given
today. Unmerited, undeserved, and yet blessed beyond your wildest recognition….this is the very entryway to the
Kingdom of God.
For such a portal there can be no price…for such a privilege no principle will do. It is the grace of God, or as
Paul wrote so long ago: I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and
it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith
in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. No Charge!
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