Luke 7:36-8:3<\/p>\n\n\n\n
July 1, 2001<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many years ago, there was a movie by Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. It was called, Guess Who\u2019s Coming for Dinner?<\/em> The movie portrayed a daughter of a white family bringing home her fianc\u00e9, a distinguished Black doctor for dinner. It was 1967. And it was about interracial marriage in our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all of the boundaries that we as human beings create, the one that is most clearly defined is around the dinner table. We take great care with those we invite to dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may have had occasions when your daughter has been seeing this young man and says, \u201cDad, can I invite Dan to lunch after church?\u201d Your ears perk up. What does this mean? Who is this stranger who intrudes at our table?<\/p>\n\n\n\n That happened to us with Lauren\u2019s fianc\u00e9, Dan. Our family was planning a once in a life time trip to China to see our ancestral home. We thought that it would be important for our children to see for themselves the land of their grandparents and to value their rich heritage. Now Greg was engaged already so we thought that it was appropriate for Heather to come on the trip. But at this time, no formal commitment was in place for Lauren and Dan in the summer of 1998. As the father, I said, \u201cWho is this stranger who intrudes not only at our table but on our vacation trip?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or maybe you have just started a new job and this is your first week. You wonder if you will like it here, how will you get along with your new colleagues. You have brought your lunch to work because you were not sure if your new colleagues would welcome you to their lunch table. So you ate at your desk. You feel like a total stranger intruding in the corporate culture already in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boundaries are erected around the table, and well they should be. After all, the table is a place of intimacy. The sharing of food together is one of the most intimate of human activities. I am well known in our family for making real good fried rice. Was I ready to serve Dan my fried rice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The family meal, eaten by the gathered family at the end of the day, is a sort of sacrament of family life. We talk about what happened at school or at work. We repeatedly rehearse stories and memories that only intimate family members can appreciate. The family meal is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Were we ready to have a stranger intrude our intimacy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we invite someone to join the dinner table, we expect an intimacy and commitment that\u2019s not necessarily found elsewhere. Remember what the Psalmist said?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.\u201d (Psalm 23)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Psalmist knows that the one who will invite you to the table is the one who will stick beside you through thick and thin. He won\u2019t abandon you when you are threatened by your enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Jews, every meal was a religious occasion. We get the custom of saying a blessing, 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. \u201cGod is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food\u201d is a very Jewish prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to know God, Israel says that you don\u2019t have to go up to the mountaintop or go down into the wilderness. All you have to do to discover the love of God is to consider the food on your table. God is found at the dinner table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s Scripture finds Jesus in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. In fact, Jesus went to visit Pharisees\u2019 homes frequently. In Luke 11:37, it reads, \u201cWhile he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table.\u201d Then in Luke 14:1, \u201cOn one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here Jesus is the guest of a man named Simon, a religious person, a Pharisee who spends much of his day studying God\u2019s word and attempting to put his religion into practice in everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blessing has been said around the dinner table, God has been invoked, and now the conversation begins. They were ready to talk about religion as they have in other occasions when a \u201cwoman of the city\u201d enters the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She comes in and falls at Jesus feet, letting down her hair (yes, I think the expression \u201clet down your hair\u201d meant the same then as it does today), kissing Jesus\u2019 feet, anointing his tired feet with oil and tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is more than Simon can take. It wasn\u2019t that this woman has violated social manners. In fact, as Jesus said, she is showing kind hospitality that Simon didn\u2019t do. It was customary, when a guest entered your house, to offer a kiss of welcome, to wash the guest\u2019s feet. It\u2019s like offering a guest something cold to drink. What the woman did was only a sign of hospitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simon\u2019s problem was not with what the \u201cwoman of the city\u201d did. Simon had a problem with Jesus. If Jesus was truly a religious person, a prophet that he claims to be, a rabbi that he claims to be, then Jesus should have been able to see what sort of woman she is\u2026a sinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides what are prophets for 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 un-righteous, the invited guests and the uninvited. If Jesus were really a prophet, he would be able to see! Simon thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noticing how upset Simon was, Jesus tells him a parable. One man owed his creditor a small sum. Another owed a great sum. The creditor canceled both loans. Jesus said, Simon, think now, which one would be more grateful? Simon answered the one with the larger debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said, \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d Now as he looks at the woman, he said, \u201cSimon, look at this woman, You showed me no hospitality. Look how she welcomes me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look at this woman. What do you see, Simon? Do you see a sinner in need of exclusion? Or do you see a sinner in need of forgiveness and reconciliation? Is she someone who broke some kind of code that needs punishment or is she a person full of hunger who needs life-giving nourishment? Is this woman invited to the dinner table or is she on the uninvited list?<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Simon saw the \u201cwoman of the city,\u201d he wanted Jesus to see her the same way he did. She was not worthy to be seated at the dinner table. But when Jesus saw the woman, he saw a child of God with a repentant heart seeking for forgiveness and grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was traveling to Providence last week for the American Baptist Biennial Meetings, United Airlines was featuring movies by Julia Roberts. So on both flights going and coming home, I saw Pretty Woman<\/em> (edited version for the airlines). Remember the scene when Richard Geer gave her money to buy new clothes. She was a \u201cwoman of the city.\u201d The designer store sale women refused to help her because of the way she looked and dressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Simon saw the way Julia Roberts looked, he would have shown her out the door too. What do we see when a \u201cwoman of the city\u201d come into our midst?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today we celebrate the Lord\u2019s Supper, the holy Eucharist, what does this meal mean? Is this meal just for the family, those of us gathered at the table? Or is this meal an invitation to be shared with the whole world? Is this meal only for the religious elect? Or is this a meal for sinners being forgiven?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story about the \u201cwoman of the city,\u201d forgiven for her sins is all about inclusion and forgiveness. Jesus doesn\u2019t bother the woman with the fine points of theology. That\u2019s what Simon wants to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is enough for her to be at the table. She doesn\u2019t say anything. She reaches out. She touches Jesus. This is more than Simon can take. \u201cIf Jesus were a real prophet, he would be able to see what sort of woman is touching him!\u201d he exclaims. Simon refuses to see the opportunity to forgive and accept and focuses on blaming and judging Jesus for being a fake prophet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, I attended the American Baptist Biennial meetings in Providence along with 4000 delegates from churches across the country. Like in many denominations in recent years, American Baptists have been tormented and divided over the different beliefs we hold on issues of biblical interpretation. Because we disagree, we have official exhibits that are in the official exhibit hall and we have unofficial exhibits in another church building away from the convention center. We still have a long way to learn how to accept each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After 30 years of racial\/ethnic constituents in the denomination trying to share in partnership in the direction of the American Baptists, we still have caucuses like the Asian American Baptist Caucus. Today\u2019s issues seem to warrant an even greater advocacy than before. We still have a long way to learn how to accept each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is the table of the Lord for outsiders as well as for the insiders?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We all came to church this morning as insiders. We started worship with songs and an opening prayer asking God to be present among us. We are here to receive Jesus into our hearts and minds, but suddenly, a \u201cwoman of the city,\u201d an outsider and sinner came in. And she was better in receiving Jesus than Simon, the Pharisee, the insider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Jesus whom we receive is too often the Jesus of the elect, the Jesus owned by the insiders. Here comes this Jesus who has this thing for the outsiders; who makes the table, not just this place of warmhearted fellowship for the family, but also a means of grace, a sign of invitation to others to come join the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How well do we receive this Jesus of the outsiders, this Jesus of the uninvited?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says to her, \u201cYour faith has saved you; go in peace.\u201d I don\u2019t think he means, \u201cBecause you have faith, you have been forgiven.\u201d That would be the old \u201cif you do this, I\u2019ll give you this,\u201d style of religion. Rather, this woman\u2019s faith is revealed in her coming to Jesus. She saw something that Simon, for all of the religion that he had, can\u2019t see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus has come to save sinners. Jesus has come to invite the lost to be found. In knowing who Jesus is, this woman is found. She is saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If faith is a way of seeing, she has it. She sees who Jesus really is. Simon sees only a would-be prophet whom he questions. She sees the Savior of the whole world, the one who has come to invite all sinners to the gospel feast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time we gather for a meal, be it the Lord\u2019s Supper or at one of the fellowship groups meetings, we believe Christ is with us. Where two or three are gathered there Jesus is also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s gospel bids us to open our eyes and see among us the outcasts, the outsiders, the sinners as brothers and sisters at the table, invited by Jesus to a great feast of salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have used religion to draw lines across the world, lines that demarcate the sinners from the saved, insiders from the outsiders, the invited from the uninvited. Jesus shows us an open-handed hospitality, this gracious welcome and invitation toward those whom our religion often excludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know if I can say that I am very religious. But I do hope that I am a disciple of Jesus. As a sinner, I identify with the \u201cwoman of the city\u201d more than Simon the Pharisees. And as I continue to know that my sins are many, I pray for forgiveness so that I may also show great love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our daughter\u2019s fiance, Dan was once an outsider intruding into our family, but soon he will be a member of our family. The \u201cwoman of the city\u201d was once an outsider intruding into the theological conversations but now her sins are forgiven and Jesus said, \u201cYour faith has saved you, go in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Christian is someone who hears Jesus say, \u201cCome, sinners, to the feast,\u201d and knows that he means him or her. A Christian is someone who then turns to sisters and brothers throughout the world and says, \u201dCome, join us sinners at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Lord, we pray for the openness in our hearts to welcome the stranger who comes into our midst seeking your grace and love. Lead us to be more inviting as Jesus invited the whole world back to God. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luke 7:36-8:3 July 1, 2001 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco. Many years ago, there was a movie by Sidney Poitier,Dinner Table Sacredness<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Pharisee\u2019s Table<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Parable of the Two Debtors<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Insiders and Outsiders<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
FCBC Table<\/h6>\n\n\n\n