Luke 7:36\u20148:3<\/p>\n\n\n\n
June 13, 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I were to ask you to write down on a piece of paper a sin that was pressing on your heart, a burden that you wish to set down before Jesus, I wonder how many of you would find that exercise to be too difficult. You might say, \u201cWhat do you mean exactly, a sin that is bothering us?\u201d \u201cWhat do you mean a burden we wish to set down?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Talking about sin and forgiveness doesn\u2019t come naturally. We don\u2019t like to admit that we have sinned. Like you in San Francisco, I grew up in Boston hearing about the \u201cfour spiritual laws.\u201d The four points were: God loves us; sin pushes us away from God; Jesus died for our sins; and if we think this is true, then we are saved. How many of you raised your hands as a young person when the pastor asked if you believed this? I know when I was growing up; some of the sixth graders raised their hands every year just to be sure they wouldn\u2019t go to hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Acknowledging for ourselves that we are people with sins is a difficult truth to accept perhaps because we like to believe that we have evolved spiritually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dinner Party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The passage for this morning is the famous dinner party at a Pharisee\u2019s house. In this situation, we can learn about sin and forgiveness, about the God who forgives sins and the church that has been empowered by that same God to carry on the work of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luke describes the woman simply as a sinner without specifying the sins. In that culture, a sinner violated God\u2019s expectation for living in covenant. The community often isolated sinners. In addition, sinners bore the personal burden of their own guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may seem strange for us who are accustomed to houses that are completely enclosed to read that this woman enter the Pharisee\u2019s house. In those days, the courtyards of many houses were open to the street so that a passerby like this woman could slip in without being noticed. People in need would be allowed to come to gather the leftovers so that good food wouldn\u2019t be wasted and the host would come across in the community as being kind and caring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Banquet tables in those days were low to the floor and the guests sat not in chairs but reclined with their feet extending slightly away from the table. They would lean on their left elbows on a pillow and use their right hands to reach for the food. It would be fairly easy for the woman to stand behind Jesus and to bathe and anoint his feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman must have heard that Jesus is announcing the presence and coming of the realm of God. For her, the coming of the Kingdom of God means forgiveness and restoration back into the community that she\u2019s been isolated from. The woman responds to this discovery of wholeness by extravagantly honoring Jesus. With her tears and ointment she provides the hospitality that the Pharisee did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By now, it was more than the Pharisee can stand. How could Jesus let such a scandalous thing go on? The Pharisee has been gracious enough to invite Jesus to dinner\u2014even though some of his friends probably disapprove. Now this woman is falling all over Jesus, kissing his feet, and filling the room with the overpowering smell of Calvin Klein\u2019s Obsession!<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I read this story, I\u2019m afraid that if I were there, I would be Simon, the Pharisee that didn\u2019t approve. I would have pointed out the fact that this woman was a sinner. Perhaps all of us \u201cgood church people\u201d are more like the Pharisee than we are willing to admit. So how would you feel if you invited a minister to dinner and he brought a prostitute with him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The whole spectacle leads the Pharisee to say to himself\u2014just loud enough for everyone at the table to hear him\u2014\u201cIf this man were a real prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Jesus tells a story: \u201cTwo men were in debt to a certain bank. One owed five thousand dollars, the other five hundred. When neither of them could pay, the president of the bank wrote off both debts.\u201d (Anyone who has dealt with a bank in these past couple of years knows very well that this is a parable.\u201d \u201cWhich of the two will be more grateful?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simon scratches his head nervously, \u201cI suppose the one forgiven the greater debt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou suppose? Of course, the one who was forgiven more will be more grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Jesus turns to Simon, comparing his puny hospitality to that of the woman who has lovingly kissed Jesus\u2019 feet. Simon is so righteous that he sees little for which he needs to be forgiven, and so he sees little for which he needs to be grateful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy to read the story and miss the point. The difference between Simon and the woman is not that she\u2019s worse sinner. Simon\u2019s pride must be worse to God than the woman\u2019s sins. The woman knows more forgiveness not because she has sinned more but because she feels more need for grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now if I were to ask you to write down a sin that is pressing on your heart, a burden that you wish to set down before Jesus, can you do that now? I\u2019m not saying to you that you have many sins that you may feel unworthy to be at Jesus\u2019 feet. But are you like Peter, the Pharisee who believes that he is so righteous that his pride has prevented him to see that he is also in need of God\u2019s grace?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Salvation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said to the woman, \u201cYour sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.\u201d The people at the dinner party began to say among themselves, \u201cWho is this who even forgives sins?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Scriptures, salvation is not a four-step program, like the \u201cfour spiritual laws\u201d or a question of whether you\u2019ve been baptized. Salvation is the experience of God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hebrew word for \u201csalvation\u201d means \u201cto make sufficient.\u201d Salvation is the discovery that life without God is insufficient, and that God\u2019s grace makes sense of life. In the Gospels, when Jesus tells someone, usually someone in need of healing, \u201cYour faith has saved you,\u201d he literally says, \u201cYour faith has made you well.\u201d This means that you are okay, sufficiently well and ready to begin your life anew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Salvation is the experience of losing our selves in grace that\u2019s bigger than we are, that makes us well. We have all experienced times in our lives when we are more fully our selves is when we love somebody. By losing our selves, we find our selves. For then it\u2019s no longer our selves at the center of the universe, but the one we love. We give of our selves so that by all the rules of arithmetic there should be less of our selves that there was to start with. But we find out that we have more\u2014blessings from God that is all sufficient for life. Only by this divine paradox there\u2019s more. Jesus puts it this way, \u201cThe ones who lose their lives will find their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this desperate woman, coming to the Pharisee\u2019s house was the moment to see Jesus and possibly receive grace. She knows that she isn\u2019t welcome at the Pharisee\u2019s house. But she made a simple plan to be in the moment to receive salvation. Are you open to having those moments with God when you\u2019re not hurrying through life as business as usual and to say to God my life is insufficient unless I know God\u2019s grace? Are you ready to give your life to God to become insufficient in the world\u2019s definition of sufficiency in order to become truly sufficient because you have salvation from God\u2019s grace?<\/p>\n\n\n\n God\u2019s Grace<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus turns to Peter, the Pharisee and asks, \u201cDo you see this woman?\u201d The answer is \u201cNo.\u201d Peter doesn\u2019t see this woman because he thinks that she is unworthy to be in Jesus\u2019 company. Peter doesn\u2019t see her because he thinks that people like him who\u2019re hosting the dinner party are more righteous and are not in need of sins to be forgiven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier, I suggested that you might be the Pharisee in this story. But is it possible that you are the woman in this story? Did you slipped into the sanctuary without anyone noticing like the woman who slipped into the dinner party? When it comes to hearing stories about grace, is no story about grace far from our own?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fred Craddock tells of visiting a small church and being surprised at the appearance of a large pastor\u20146 feet 4 inches and 300 pounds. \u201cThe pastor\u2019s most noticeable feature was his stumbling, lumbering gait. He was awkward, almost falling, with long, useless arms at his sides, like they were waiting further instruction. His head was misshapen. His hair was askew. He stumbled up the steps to get to the pulpit. When he turned to face us,\u201d Craddock says, \u201cI saw the thick glasses, and through them I could see milky film over his eyes, one of his eyes going out, nothing coming in to the other. When he read, he held the Bible near his nose. When he spoke, the muscles in his neck worked with such vigor as he pushed out the words, as if he had learned to speak as an adult. But I lost all consciousness of that after a while. He read 1 Corinthians 13 and spoke on the greatness of love. He wasn\u2019t poetic or prophetic, but was warm and affectionate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The relationship between those people, the love that he extended as he preached, and the love that came back from those people who sat quietly, leaning forward, was captivating and I was captured. How could this grotesque creature be so full of love? I didn\u2019t understand. I started remembering those stories about how people who have grotesque features are sometimes granted a special quality of affection, Beauty and the Beast<\/em> or The Hunchback of Notre Dame<\/em>. I thought of children with Down\u2019s syndrome, how they have the capacity to grab you and hug you and kiss you, when other children stand at a distance. Is this what I am seeing? Is this the providence of God that grants people who lack attractiveness on the outside to have that quality on the inside?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter the service, I lingered at the door and listened to the greetings and little words of pastoral care and comfort between him and the members. One woman I would guess to be seventy shook his hand at the door. She said, \u201cI wish I could know your mother.\u201d She was having the same trouble I was. She didn\u2019t understand the source of this love and thought maybe, \u201cI wish I knew your mother.\u201d He said, \u201cMy mother\u2019s name is Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few minutes later, Craddock remarked, \u201cThat was an unusual response you gave to that woman, \u201cMy mother\u2019s name is Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pastor explained: \u201cWhen I was born I was put up for adoption at the Department of Family Services. As you can guess, nobody wanted to adopt me. So I went from foster home to foster home, and when I was about seventeen, I saw some young people going into a church. I so wanted some friends, so I went in, and there I met grace\u2014the grace of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n God\u2019s grateful salvation is offered to you and me. God accepts the woman who sat at Jesus\u2019 feet. God accepts this pastor when no family wanted to adopt him. God accepts you and me today not because we have so many sins and burdens that we need to seek penance, forgiveness and reconciliation for surely we know we are sinful but because we feel more the need for grace in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are no four steps to salvation; there\u2019s only one word\u2014grace. We\u2019re not saved by anything that we hold, but by the one who holds us. The best that we can do is give ourselves to God\u2019s grace and give thanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lord, thank you for revealing to us your grace and mercy to receive salvation. Help us to understand that we are all people who have sinned against you and against each other and are now in need for forgiveness and reconciliation in order for us to start life again. We are grateful for your loving salvation of which we do not deserve but out of your love for us, we have received. In Christ who accepted the woman at his feet has also accepted us, we pray. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luke 7:36\u20148:3 June 13, 2010 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. If I were to ask you to write down on