The texts for this sermon are as follows, and can be read here.
1 Kings 21:1-21a
Psalm 5:1-8
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3
As one might surmise when reading this message, it owes much of its form and substance to the work of William Willimon in his periodical for preachers called Pulpit Resources.
———-
Will Willimon, commenting on today’s gospel reading in Pulpit Resources,
states that rarely, in human life, are boundaries drawn more clearly than around the dinner table. We are careful about whom we invite to dinner.
Your daughter is dating a young man.
“Dad, can I invite Ted to lunch after church?”
Your ears perk up.
What does this mean?
Who is this stranger who would intrude at our table?
You are at your first week on your new job.
You wonder if you will like it here, how you will get along with your new colleagues.
Then someone says, “There’s a group of us that goes out for lunch on Fridays.
Do you want to join us?”
And then You think that you may make friends here after all.
We erect some pretty touch boundaries around the table,
and in a way this is good.
After all, the table is a place of intimacy,
and sharing of food together is one of the most intimate of human activities.
The family meal, eaten by the gathered family at the end of the day, is a sort of sacrament of family life,
an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
Maybe that’s why the writer of the 23rd psalm sings,
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”
The psalmist knows that the one who will invite you to the table is the one who will stick beside you through think and thin,
even when you are threatened by your enemies.
For the Jewish people of Jesus’ day,
every meal was a religious occasion.
We even get our custom of saying a blessing,
a grace before meals,
from the Jews.
When you say a blessing before eating,
you claim the dinner table as a place of divine grace and revelation.
“God is great,
God is good,
let us thank him for our food” is a very Jewish prayer.
If you want to know God,
Israel says that you don’t have to go up to some mountaintop.
All you have to do to discover the love of God is to consider the food on your table.
So today’s gospel puts us at the table with Jesus.
Now Jesus is the guest of a man named Simon,
a very religious person,
a Pharisee who spends much of his day studying God’s word and attempting to put his religion into practice in everyday life.
When we get to today’s reading,
the blessing has already been said,
God has been invoked,
and the conversation has begun to get underway.
First-century Jews were often members of religious societies that met regularly for meals and for religious conversation.
Maybe that’s what’s happening here at Simon’s house.
They do seem to be discussing religion,
and as I said,
Simon is very religious.
And everything seems to be going well until a woman enters the scene,
This woman is a “woman of the city.”
And she comes in and all but literally falls upon Jesus,
letting down her hair
(And yes, I think the expression “let down her hair” meant the same then as it does today),
kissing Jesus’ feet,
anointing his tired feet with oil and hair.
Well, as you can imagine,
this is more than Simon can take.
And the problem isn’t that this woman has violated social customs.
In fact, as Jesus notes,
she is showing kind hospitality.
It was customary,
when a guest entered your house,
to offer a kiss of welcome,
and to wash the guest’s feet as a sign of hospitality.
No, the problem is religious.
“If this man were a real prophet,” Simon says to himself,
just loud enough for everyone at the table to hear him,
“he would be able to see what sort of woman she is.
a sinner.”
I mean let’s be real for a minute.
What good are prophets anyway if not to be able to recognize real sin when it occurs,
to point to the boundaries between the holy and the unholy,
the righteous and the unrighteous.
If Jesus were really a prophet,
he would be able to see.
And in response to Simon,
Jesus does what he often does when confronted.
Jesus tells a parable.
One man owed his creditor a small sum.
Another owed a great sum.
The creditor forgave both.
Think now, Simon,
which one would be the most grateful?
And being the great religious scholar and person he is,
Simon answers right away,
well, the one forgiven the most would be the most grateful.
Then Jesus turns to Simon at the table and says,
“Simon, look at this woman.
You showed me no hospitality.
Look how she welcomes me.”
Perhaps it’s a matter of perception.
Simon, look at this woman.
What do you see?
A sinner we need to keep out of our presence,
a woman in need of exclusion?
Or do you see a sinner in need of forgiveness and reconciliation?
Is she a code breaker who ought to be punished for her violation of the code? Or is she a person full of hunger who needs life-giving nourishment?
It all depends on how we look at it.
But note please the difference in the way Simon sees the woman and the way Jesus sees her.
Friends, what kind of vision do we have?
When we gather to celebrate the Lord’s supper,
the holy Eucharist,
what does this meal mean?
Who comes to this table?
Is this a meal just for the family,
those of us gathered here in the fold?
Or is this a meal of invitation and inclusion,
meant to be shared with the whole world?
Is this a meal for the righteous elect?
Or is this a meal for sinners being forgiven?
Today’s gospel story is a story full of physical activity,
of touch and smell,
taste and touch.
Jesus doesn’t bother the woman with the fine points of theology that Simon surely knows so well.
It is enough for her to be at the table.
She doesn’t say anything.
She reaches out.
She touches Jesus.
This is more than Simon can take.
“If Jesus were a real prophet,
he would be able to see what sort of woman is touching him!” he exclaims.
But for Jesus,
forgiveness is not some doctrine to be believed; rather,
it is a feast to be received,
a party to which the outcasts are invited,
a gift to be received with empty hands.
So Jesus not only tells a parable at the table,
he becomes a parable,
a sign to us of what God is up to in the world.
In Jesus,
God is busy inviting the whole world to the table.
A concluding question:
How do we insiders like this story?
We began our service of worship with an invocation,
with prayer and song asking God to be present among us.
We are here to receive Jesus into our hearts and minds.
But how do we like this story about a woman,
a “woman of the city,”
an outsider and sinner,
who was better at receiving Jesus than Simon the insider?
The Jesus whom we receive is too often the Jesus of the elect,
the Jesus owned by the insiders.
But here comes this Jesus who has this thing for the outsiders;
who makes the table,
not just a place of warmhearted fellowship for the family,
but also a means of grace,
a sign of invitation to others to come join the family.
How well do we receive that Jesus?
When Jesus says to her,
“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
I don’t think he means,
“Because you have faith,
you have been forgiven.”
That would be the old
“if you do this, I’ll give you this.”
Rather, this woman’s faith is revealed in her coming to Jesus -
in her seeing something that Simon,
for all his religion,
can’t see.
She sees and knows that Jesus has come to save sinners.
Jesus has come to invite the lost to be found.
In knowing who Jesus is,
she is found,
she is saved.
If faith is a way of seeing,
she has it.
She sees who Jesus really is.
Simon sees only a would-be prophet.
She sees the Savior of the whole world,
the one who has come to invite all sinners (and aren’t we all?)
to the gospel feast.
Every time the church gathers for a meal,
be it the Lord’s supper here or a family night covered dish supper,
we believe that Christ is with us.
You know,
where two or three of us are gathered,
there he is also.
Today’s gospel bids us to open our eyes and see among us the outcast,
the outsiders,
the sinners as sisters and brothers at the table,
invited by Jesus to a great feast of salvation.
Willimon tells of a woman who once said to him,
“I don’t know that I’m Christian,
but I do consider myself very religious.”
The problem with that statement Willimon says,
is that Jesus, through his life,
assaulted our view of “religious.
We often use religion to draw lines across the world,
lines that demarcate the sinners from the saved,
insiders from outsiders.
Jesus makes religious an openhanded hospitality,
a gracious welcome and invitation toward those whom our religion often excludes.
I don’t know if I am very religious,
but I do hope that I am a disciple of Jesus.
And who is a disciple?
A disciple is someone who hears Jesus say,
“Come, sinners, to the feast”
and knows that Jesus means him or her.
A disciple is someone who then turns to sisters and brothers throughout the world and says,
“Come, join us sinners at the table.”
Technorati tags: 1 Kings 21:1-21a, Psalm 5:1-8, Galatians 2:15-21. Luke 7:36-8:3, sermon, lectionary, welcome, sinners, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, forgiveness, preaching, Pentecost 3, Proper 6, Ordinary 11
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