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May 24, 2009 Sunday - AM	By Leigh Ann Raynor

Thomasville First United Methodist Church  May 24, 2009   Luke 7:36-48 - “Walk His Way: He Loved”

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner!” Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.” “Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied. Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people-500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.” “That's right,” Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn't offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn't greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. “I tell you, her sins-and they are many-have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

This past week a generous person gave me a week's timeshare, and I was at Sanibel Island for the week. I had a wonderful condo that was just feet from the water. Every morning I'd go onto the screened-in porch with my cup of coffee and my book, but I didn't get much reading done. Instead, every morning I would get caught up in watching the people on the beach. Some were exercising, some were walking their dogs, some were out taking pictures, but most of whom were looking for those special shells that come to the shore at Sanibel.

But one morning I watched a couple of people that illustrated this sermon for me. It was a father and his little boy. From that distance I would guess the little boy to be about 4 years old. So you have this scene where you've got the great big Daddy, and the tiny boy following after him - running after him. Here are the two things that interested me. First is that even if the father had gone to the beach to look for shells, that clearly wasn't as important to him as watching his son, because he almost never took his eyes off of his son. The second thing that was interesting to me is that everything the father did, the son imitated as exactly as he could. When the father squatted down to look at something in the sand, the son squatted down beside him. When the father reached into the sand to pick up a shell, the son did the same thing. When the father dropped the shell and wiped his hands on his swim suit or his shorts, the son did the same thing. If the father cleaned his hands in the ocean water, the son did it.

As I sat there watching them that morning I thought to myself, “There is a visual - a picture - of the relationship between God and us. God never takes His eyes off of us. Just like that Dad, God knows where His children are and what they are doing and how they are feeling all the time. You just have to multiply that scene by about 7 billion and you see the Heavenly Father's abilities as compared to a human's ability.

But the second example was in what the little boy was doing. Everything his father did, he wanted to do as well. He wanted to be an imitator of his father. That ought to be something that Daddy's pay attention to, because your little sons are training, practicing, right now for what kind of men they will be in the future. But that's a Father's Day sermon, so let me get back to the little boy. He imitated his Dad in everything he did. Now mind you, he couldn't do everything as well as his Dad did, but he did the best he could.

That's what this sermon series that we call, “Walk His Way” is about. It's about imitating Christ. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says, Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

We've been talking about those things that Jesus did, those things that were inside Jesus, that we should do our best to imitate. Thus far we've talked about “He prayed”, “He included”, “He invested”, and today, “He Loved”.

Let's start this morning by going back to the Scripture and using our spiritual imaginations. I want you to truly get the picture of this scene in your mind. This really is one of the most poignant stories in the Bible, and it's one of my favorite stories because I think it's so applicable to all of us - to the human condition. There is some version of it in all 4 Gospels. In Matthew and Mark's version of the story, they simply call the woman in this story, “a woman” and the perfume was poured on Jesus' head, not his feet. In John's version of the story, it was Mary (Martha's sister) who anointed Jesus' feet. But in Luke's version of this story, he makes it clear that the woman is a sinner. That's important to know as we see how Simon, the Pharisee, treats her.

The situation is this. Simon the Pharisee had invited Jesus to dinner, and Jesus had accepted. As a visiting rabbi, He would have been expected to be the guest of honor. It would have been understood that certain things would take place. It was customary for a guest to be greeted with a kiss. If the guest were a person of equal social rank, he would be given a kiss on the cheek. If he were of higher status-a child greeting a parent or a student greeting a teacher-he would be given a kiss on the hand to express honor and respect. To neglect this proper form of greeting when someone came to your house in Jesus' day was the equivalent of simply ignoring someone in our day. Imagine inviting someone over for dinner, and then not greeting him or her by name, not shaking their hand, or offering to take their coat. This is a shocking breach of common courtesy.

In that day, washing the feet was mandatory before eating a meal. It's not often today that we say: Would you care to wash your feet before we serve dinner? But at that time, in that context, people had pretty dirty feet. So, if your guest were a person of high status, you would offer to wash his feet yourself. If he were of lesser status, you would ask your servant to wash his feet. Or at the very least, you would give him a bowl of water so he could wash his own feet. That would have been a little callous, but at least you would do that.

Also, as the host, you would give your guest something for anointing. Olive oil would have been the common thing. You might have used something more expensive. Anointing the head of someone was a thoughtful way to refresh him. I personally wouldn't care to pour oil all over my head, but that was the custom.

Jesus, this invited guest, is a rabbi. Yet he is given nothing. No greeting. No kiss. No washing of the feet. No anointing. Nothing. These aren't not subtle omissions; this is a deliberate slap in the face. We're not sure why, but there are a variety of options. Maybe Simon, who was a Pharisee, wanted to put Jesus in His place. Maybe Simon was afraid in this gathering of being too closely associated with Jesus … of looking too friendly. For whatever reason, the greeting is very, very cold, and the tension in the air had to have been very thick that night. Now picture the serving of the meal itself. Jesus and Simon and the other guests were most likely eating in the open courtyard that was common in the homes of that era. We might picture them sitting at a table because that's how we eat, but Jesus was probably reclining on his side for the meal, as was the custom in that day and time. Tables were low, and people reclined with their head propped up on one hand and they ate with the other. Doesn't look comfortable to me, but that is how they did it. Even though this dinner party was within someone's home - not inside the house but still within the bounds of the home - that didn't stop people from stopping and looking in. In fact, it was the custom for people to stop and look in and see who the guests were. But what was not common was for them to join in the party. They, after all, weren't invited.

But not being invited didn't stop this woman. She was on a mission. If you use your spiritual imaginations you can almost feel every eye on her as she moves beyond the other spectators and into the courtyard itself. If you listen and you can hear the whispers as she approaches Jesus. From behind him as he is reclining at the table, she falls at his dusty feet and she begins to weep, and the tears fall on those feet. She washes his feet with her tears and then she does the unthinkable. She lets down her hair in public. A woman of Jesus day would never think of letting down her hair in front of anyone except her husband, so that reinforces in our minds that this woman is a sinner. In this version of the story we're led to believe that she is a prostitute.

She has with her an alabaster jar or box of perfume, and after she had washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, she poured the perfume over his feet. Again, use your imaginations and you can almost smell this perfume as the fragrance goes through the air and lands in the nostrils of all of the people peering into this scene from the courtyard.

There, that night, were examples of love from Christ that we should be imitating, and examples of love from this woman who was already imitating his love.

1. Love looks beyond what the world sees

All that anyone saw that night was that the woman was a sinner. Simon even thought to himself that Jesus couldn't possibly be a rabbi, because if he were he'd know what kind of woman she was and he would never associate with her. No one could see beyond the outside, beyond the obvious.

But love always looks deeper. Let me give you an example. In my last church there was a little girl I've told you about before, but I don't think I've told you this particular story. Her name is Keri. Something isn't right about Keri, but her family has been to Shands and to Emory and to Mayo and no one can figure-out exactly what is wrong with her. She's a sweet girl, though. But when I left there she was almost non-verbal. She could say 3 words - She could say 'no'. She could say my name - Leigh. And she could say “Barney”. I was always honored to be ranked up there with Barney, because no matter how old Keri got chronologically, she never grew past a little child's age mentally, so she always had Barney with her. She was never without Barney, so I was honored to be ranked with Barney.

Even though Keri isn't verbal, she can be quite loud - not with words, but just with noises. She just yelled a lot, and there are times when she has a difficult time staying still or being quiet in church.

Keri always got very excited whenever she saw me - something that makes perfect sense to me - and she just couldn't always keep quiet in church. We couldn't let her stay in the nursery because she was too rough with the infants, and there was no way to explain to her to be gentle. Still, her parents were sensitive to that fact that she sometimes made a lot of noise in church, which is why they always sat in the very back pew. The Sanctuary was much larger than ours, so I never heard her.

One day, though, I got a call from an irritated church member who told me that she had been sitting in the same pew for years - second from the back - and that she had had to move because of “that little girl making so much noise”. I hardly knew what to say at that lack of understanding, but I did tell her I hoped she'd have a good view of God from her new pew.

About a month later, on the first Sunday of the month when we were serving communion, Keri got a little loud again. She had a quarter that she was going to leave on the Altar for the Pastor's Fund. She was so excited, she could hardly contain herself. As usual, she and her parents were sitting on the very back row. When it was finally her turn, she broke free of her mother's hand, and she literally ran down the aisle to the Altar. When she got there, she started yelling uncontrollably because she was so excited.

That afternoon I got another phone call from another church member, and the conversation started off with, "I'd like to talk with you about Keri." "Uh oh", I thought, and I prayed, "Lord, help me control my temper if anyone says anything about Keri." The caller continued. "Your sermon was fine, I'm sure, but I didn't hear much of it. But that's okay, because the sermon isn't where I experienced God today. I found God in Keri, who could barely wait to get to the Altar for Communion. Shouldn't we all be like that?"

Love always looks beyond the obvious. Love looks beyond what the world can see or what the world chooses to see.

2. Love breaks down barriers

Let's go back to Simon, the Pharisee. There is a common mistake that many people make when reading this passage, and that is that they see Simon the Pharisee, the host of the dinner party, as the villain.

The problem with that is that Simon isn't a villain. In fact, he's probably as far from a villain as is possible to get. Simon was one of the best people that society had to offer. He was a Pharisee - a teacher of the law. His whole life was dedicated to God. He studied God's law, and more importantly, he lived it. Every waking moment of a Pharisee's life was likely spent on understanding and keeping God's law.

But even though Simon isn't really a villain, he did forget something this evening at his dinner party. Simon was scandalized, shocked, at this woman's behavior. It was absolutely forbidden, taboo, for a woman to let down her hair and to touch a man's feet. But it was almost as taboo for a Pharisee to be inhospitable. As a Pharisee, the host in this story, Simon, was caught in a place where he couldn't possibly have condoned this woman's behavior, and a theological mandate to show hospitality.

In the South we know about what we call “Southern Hospitality”. We try to make everyone feel welcome. But in Jesus' day, hospitality was more than just a social demand; it was a theological mandate. “Welcoming strangers” had long been a part of Jewish heritage and theology. They believed that in welcoming strangers, they may be welcoming angels unawares, as Abraham did. God had made it clear that the Jewish people were to welcome the stranger, reminding them that they had once been the strangers in a strange land. But there was even a greater incentive for welcoming strangers. They believed that at the end of time God would be their Host and would entertain them with an endless feast. But here's the catch: God would show them the same kind of hospitality, the same kind of generous and cordial welcome as they had shown to strangers during their time on earth.  Even knowing that, there was a barrier that Simon just couldn't cross. He didn't have the love of Christ, and he wasn't trying to imitate the love of Christ.

Christian love should break down the barriers that separate people. Let me rephrase that. Christian love always breaks down the barriers that separate people. Those of us who call ourselves Christians sometimes let those barriers stand, but Christian love - love that imitates Christ - always breaks down barriers.

3. Love gives without first counting the cost

The last time I went to Israel, one of the things I most remember is the Holocaust Memorial. If you ever see it, you'll never forget it. You could stay there all day, and still be struck in awe about the depth to which humanity is capable of sinking. Seeing that Memorial is an experience that I really don't even have words for, because if you were to describe with your words what happened to the Jews in Germany, your words simply wouldn't be adequate for the horrors of the Concentration Camps.

That period of time had to represent humanity at its very worst. But there was more to that Memorial than just the pictures and descriptions of the horrors. There was also a section that represented humanity at its best. One of the most moving stories that I read there was about a woman named Gerda Weissman Klein. In the midst of the hate and violence of the Nazi regime, Gerda tells a story of beauty and grace. She tells about a young Jewish girl named Ilse. She says that one day, in coming home from a work party, Ilse finds a delicious raspberry. A raspberry would have been a delicacy in such an environment, and as her troupe of women was marched back to their barracks, at great risk, she places it in the pocket of her ragged overcoat, and that night, shared the raspberry with her friend, Gerda. Gerda wrote, “Imagine a world in which you entire possession is one raspberry, and someone shares it with you.”

Look for a moment at your own relationships. Do you imitate the love of Christ? Does your love look beyond what the world sees? Does your love break down barriers? Does your love give without counting the cost. When we've done those things, then we have begun to imitate Christ.

© Thomasville First United Methodist Church

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