Last weekend BB and EG experienced their first trip to the basement for a tornado warning. It threw BB for a bit of a loop, I must say. For days following he was very in tune to the weather. Running inside the minute a rain drop fell or quite concerned about leaving the house if there was wind or clouds. Obviously, we left the house. But one day during quiet time, he came to the office. I had my Bible open—which must have been code for “Mom’s connected to God right now.” Because he said this to me. “You should tell God to not send tornados. God should make better decisions.” A bit later, he checked back…from the doorway he wrapped his body around the door jam and had one foot up in the air…all breeze he asked, “Have to you told God to make better decisions yet…”
A friend of mine told me to tell BB that she has had the very same conversation with God a number of times over the years. Perhaps for you, shaking your fist at God or demanding that God makes better choices seems a bit dangerous, blasphemous or unfaithful. Some of us wrestle with God a bit more than others…but I imagine if we are honest most of us have wanted God to get to work on our requests a little faster…or wondered why X, Y or Z struggle was going on in our life. All of us have also experienced those moments when God makes it very clear our ways, are not God’s ways. The systems we live by, the rules we play with, the boxes we assign people, the walls we build…all of them come crashing down, or opened up or blown through in one way or another.
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.
Simon sees this scene of confusing compassion and say to himself, “If this man knew what I know, he’d be doing this differently.”
This familiar story appears in each of the four gospels…Luke in an interesting move ties the events to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry…pulling the woman’s anointing of Jesus away from his death and burial, highlighting instead the radical nature of Jesus’ hospitality and forgiveness. It helps us see some of what got Jesus killed in the first place. He was a one man wrecking ball when it came to people’s religious rules, and society’s sense of what sin was.
Simon is often held up as a warning for self righteous behavior, but Luke turns the tables on his readers—you and I--as well….we get caught in our own assumptions about the woman, simon, Jesus. Luke introduces the story by setting us up to wonder about this woman…
say for a moment you were at a close friend’s home and someone infamous from your community walks in that you have never met, you can’t imagine your friend knows them…they throw off their shoes, begin to open cabinets in the kitchen, grab a glass of water, asking if the host would like one, too…hugs your friend and plops down on the couch. Acting for all the world like they belong at this party.
In verse 47 we hear Jesus say, “Therefore I tell you her sins which were many have been forgiven HENCE….she has shown great love. It is perfect tense…as in her lavish love is being poured out on to Jesus because she was already forgiven. She was forgiven…before this party…and ever since she was forgiven she has been responding this way…her gratitude overflows. She has kept on acting like she belongs at the party. Belongs at God’s party of lavish love and gracious joy.
Luke wants us to realize Jesus does know better than we do.…
It is mirror in front of our hearts…showing us how jealous, insecure, immature, fragile our faith is. Categorizing people, or labeling which box to put that topic in…deciding for ourselves what sins are forgiveable and which aren’t. Making sure we make out the guests lists on who gets God’s compassion…keeping general order.
To some of us, we love a good story of justice prevailing over what we perceive to be the status quo---we love Jesus the rebel. But how sanitized is this story for us…we might hold it as a beautiful story of Jesus tipping the apple cart 2,000 years ago, but what if it were our apple cart…our cultural realty, what if it were our lives Jesus came to destabilize—then it starts to look pretty scary.
We can begin to claim to mind of God. We can claim to know that limits of God’s action. Or we can trust in God’s promises.
Promises, such as “your sins have been forgiven...” Forgiveness is at the heart of this text for the day. It is what started it all and honestly it started our lives as well…in the waters of our baptism, through the nourishment of bread and wine, in the stories and promises passed down from our ancestors….This is true. Life begins through the promise….You are forgiven.
It is in that proclamation that our worldly judgments come head to head with God’s judgment of mercy and grace.
Your sins are forgiven, go in peace. We, we humans, tend to view forgiveness as a one time event. “Oh, ok…God forgives me…I can go about my life.” We stand relieved at the not-guilty verdict and walk out of courtroom glad to have that over. But really it is a life changing, on going activity. An act, a promise by God that is meant to draw us into the work of God to make things right….
We are forgiven so that we can be drawn in to the work of God…God, God the Creator, God in Jesus, God in the Holy Spirit—God comes to Create. To bless. To restore. To save. That is what God is up to in your life.
On the other hand Sin is the opposite of what God is up to Sin…breaks apart. Tears down. It kills. It condemn.
Forgiveness of sin upends everything and it is meant to sweep us up…so that it is no longer “I who lives but Christ who lives in me.” We are drawn into the work of God to bless, to restore, to save in every aspect of our life. In our families, in our jobs, in our community, the economy, the environment, all areas of this magnificent world God gave us. You in your own way, are meant to be swept up into the lavish love of God.
A few years ago, in my first parish, I found myself swept up into the drama of a family in the congregation. For a variety of reasons the family was not active in the congregation but had been and called upon me when the father was in the hospital near death. Over the weeks before he died I visited him at the hospital and when he went home on hospice I came once to hold his hand and offer a prayer. I met his children over the weeks—they shared their father’s traits of surliness, anger, alcohol abuse, chain smoking and uneasiness around clergy. One daughter stuck out to me..mostly because her body language and demeanor reminded me of an abused animal. For reasons known only to this family, she was the lowest on the totem pole in their family. It was a situation full of abuse and sin….sin that breaks apart, tears down, kills and condemn. Through brief conversations and over time, she heard me say that God forgave the sins of her family and that God did not view her as the world—or her family—viewed her. God wanted life for her…
A little while later, she saw in the church news letter that we needed someone to clean the church. So she began. It became her refuge. We had the cleanest church in the whole of the ELCA. Then she saw a flower garden near our parking lot that had not been planted…she asked if she could plant it. As the flowers grew, she experienced the life changing promise of God’s forgiveness granted upon us all.
If you were ever to have driven by this church, tucked away in a poor industrial neighborhood …you might not have noticed the humble flower garden. But each day when I walked by it on my way into my office, I saw the world as God longs for it to be and I was swept up in that promise…
* Parts of this sermon were inspired by The Working Preacher and Facebook comments at This week in Preaching
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