Third Sunday after Pentecost

June 13, 2010

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Marcus Pera

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (Luke 7:36‑50)

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “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.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The Gospel of our Lord.

In the name of Jesus, sisters and brothers, grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Amen.

I want to talk a little bit about being a Jesus freak this morning. But before I do that, and before I go to the Gospel Lesson for today, I want to introduce you to a person, and that person’s name is Sara Miles. Sara Miles is an Episcopal layperson, a lay preacher. She is a member of St. Gregory’s of Nyssa Church in San Francisco. She is director of a food pantry program at that church, which unloads something like 11 tons of food every Friday and distributes it to people standing in line in that area who are in need.

She wasn’t always a Christian. In fact, she grew up in a home that had a distaste for Christianity. Not only that, she considered herself an atheist. After she was in school, she studied to be a reporter and then went to Central America. In Central America, she did investigative reporting and wrote articles against the Sandinistas. From there, she went to New York City. Food was always an important thing for her, and she and her brother worked in a restaurant and then opened a restaurant. After that, she ended up in San Francisco. Now, get this, she was 46 years old, 46 years old when she walked past St. Gregory’s of Nyssa Church. And as a good investigative reporter, she thought to herself, “I wonder what is going on inside there?” So she went in. And the people were very hospitable and inviting of her to “take our bread.” And she did participate in the Eucharist. She saw enough connection and heard enough connection that this was somehow the bread of Jesus incarnate in her. And something overwhelmed her about it; and she said she kind of left the church right away, but came back the next Sunday again, because of a hunger that was there and a satisfaction that came through that. This was Sara Miles, who has since then done some incredibly impressive things in terms of helping to feed the poor in that area.

One of the things about that story that is also amazing is you know that, I think, Episcopal people can have a pretty strong sense of decorum about them. You can imagine the altar in the congregation of St. Gregory’s of Nyssa. Her understanding of the sacrament was such that if we are being fed with the bread of life from that altar, then that bread—Jesus being incarnate in us now—should be the bread that feeds others as well. And so this 11 tons of food comes in every week, and it is loaded literally right at the altar of that church. And there is a lunch for those who help serve. And then people come in, and they come right around this table to receive the food. There are alcoholics, and there are crack addicts, and there are prostitutes, and there are people who are hungry because of lack of means; all of them welcome, all of them receiving literally bread of life.

Now I want to go to the Gospel Lesson for today. The Gospel Lesson is in a story—just like that first lesson is in a story—and kind of in a riddle. And so I want to retell it with commentary. It’s about three characters: Simon, and the woman, and Jesus. And I would like to have you also think, while we are talking about it some more, let’s eliminate Jesus and anyone identifying with his character, for right now anyway. And of the two remaining characters, the woman and the Pharisee, Simon, think of who do you identify with in this text. And don’t let gender get in the way. Okay, Simon, a Pharisee, we remember the Pharisees and we still use the word Pharisee, don’t we, a teacher of the law, someone well versed in the law, someone who prides themselves in the keeping of the law. Simon invited Jesus to a party or a gathering, a dinner at his home. Now, this was probably one in which he had heard enough about Jesus, had enough respect for Jesus, and was curious as to how Jesus would respond in the conversation that they would be a part of. And what happened in those times and places, at least on occasion, is that a more wealthy person could have a dinner like this in their courtyard, and when they had a little bit more formal dinner people reclined. And what reclined meant was the furniture in which the body was propped up some, leaning on your left side—you’ve seen it in movies—and then eating with the right. One’s feet would be back behind them. When the person came in the house, they probably had taken off their sandals. So it wasn’t unusual for people in the town maybe to listen in on what was happening around that courtyard. Neither was it a surprise that a woman could come up and be a part of that, and come and step right behind where Jesus was and where his feet were.

Well, what amazingly happens is that she begins to cry, and the tears fall down on Jesus’ feet, and she wipes his feet with her hair, and let’s her hair down, something that did not have a propriety in that day. And she does that, and also has some ointment for his feet. And Simon is sitting there and thinking, “Is this a prophet of God?” And “I don’t think he is because, if he were a prophet of God, he certainly would know that this person is a sinner in the city,” like everybody else seemed to know, and that certainly these actions that this woman did were sensual actions. And so Jesus, thinking that is what Simon is saying, and being a prophet himself, he says to Simon, “I have a question for you.” Simon says, “Okay.” And then the riddle comes. And it is a kind of riddle, or it is a kind of parable. And it says there are two people that owe somebody a lot of money. Fifty denarii and five hundred denarii. And he says to him, neither one is able to pay the debt, so the person simply cancels the debt, wipes it clean. And then he says to Simon, “Now which of these people do you think is going to be more thankful?” Well, Simon’s logic is still pretty much intact and he says, “Well, certainly I suppose the person who had the bigger debt.”

And he turns away from Simon, he looks at the woman, and in looking at the woman he still talks to Simon, though, and he said, “I came into your house and you did not greet me with a kiss, but this woman has kissed my feet while I have been here. I came into your house and you did not give me water to wash my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears. And I came into your house; certainly you did not give me any oil for my feet as well.” “And the person who has been forgiven much also loves much, but the person who has been forgiven little loves little. “

Now, let’s try to make sense out of that sentence. On the first hand, could we say, or should we say, “Well, let’s go out and sin a bunch,” because if we’re forgiven a lot, then what that will mean is we will be able to love more. I don’t think that’s probably what is meant. Paul even presents that as a possible argument also in Romans; he’s alluding to it in Galatians as well, when he says, “Should we sin then in order that grace might abound?” No, I don’t think that’s what is being meant. I think a clue to that is to hear the tense of the verb that you wouldn’t normally have in that phrase, “your sins are forgiven.” And it’s a perfect tense, which means that the action happened in the past, but it is continuing on into the present. What its meaning is that this woman experienced forgiveness, release from slavery, release from enslavement; and that she is experiencing a reshaping of her life that comes into the present and is continuing into the present. She is aware that she did not contribute to this at all, that her life was pretty messed up and broken, and that it was dependent and received totally on the basis of God’s unconditional love, his unconditional forgiving love in Jesus Christ. And because of that, her gratitude spills over and is generous, and she is responding accordingly.

Now, for Simon, that wasn’t true. And that happens so easily. Simon is a pretty good person. He is living a pretty good life. Doesn’t the phrase usually go, “I pretty much live according to the Ten Commandments"? “I do those things, and I don’t really have all that much need of forgiveness, maybe a little bit.” And we talk language that says “not in spite of” does God forgive us, because there are a few things in my life that need to be attended to. But whenever that happens, what we begin to do is we begin to look at other people judgmentally. We begin to look at other people critically. We do not see them as living up to the standards and the place that we live up to. And because of that, we aren’t forgiven that much. And because of that, we also aren’t filled with the depth of gratitude that comes from the unconditional grace of God, God’s forgiving love. And because of that, it doesn’t reflect in our life in the same kind of way.

The church, it seems to me, often easily makes this mistake as a church. It sees itself maybe as a little bit better. It sees itself certainly as confessing sins, as we have done. But also not seeing itself in that same enslavement and being released from that enslavement, according to that full and generous grace and unconditional grace and forgiveness of God. It is certainly true you, but we don’t always feel it and live it, I guess, and that is that the church is made up of a community of sinners, not just a community of saints.

Why did I say at the beginning I was going to talk about Jesus freaks? This same Sara Miles has just written a book—her first one was “Take This Bread.”—she has just written a book called “Jesus Freak.” And she has said taking life seriously according to Jesus is what a Jesus freak is. She obviously is taking off on the time of the seventies in which people were high then not on drugs and alcohol, along with rock and roll music, but rock and roll music and high on Jesus, and taking seriously the lifestyle and the expectations of Jesus. She says being a Jesus freak is, for her, bringing healing, taking seriously the life of Jesus Christ in her, bringing healing, bringing feeding, and even raising people from the dead.

What do we make of all of that? It seems to me that if Jesus comes to us, and comes to us, for example, today in a very tangible way, and that is when he says, “Take, eat. Take, eat of this bread; it is my body,” that Jesus, in turn, is incarnate in us. And if we take that very seriously, then we take seriously the mission that Jesus was and continues to be on through his church and through his people, and that is to bring healing, and that is to feed the hungry, and that is to bring words of life and resurrection to people.

Well, being a Jesus freak, it sounds kind of strange to us. But it doesn’t sound all that bad a way to go, does it?

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(This is an unedited transcription of a tape-recorded sermon given by Pastor Pera.)