June 17, 2007 Third Sunday After Pentecost
Sermon Title: “Love And Forgiveness”
Series: None
Text: Luke 7:36-50
Dr. Steve Jackson
Delivered on June 17, 2007
“Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’” Luke 7:48
Love and Forgiveness
Summertime is in full swing now. People are
heading out on vacation, the kids are already bored of being at home, the front
yard is already scorched and wilting from the drought and summer heat, and the
big summer movie releases have started rolling out. I must drive by the “Movies
400” theater here in Cumming three or four times a day in all my running around
and it seems like every other time I do I get caught at that traffic light
right there at Buford Dam Road by the billboard showing what movies are
playing. Do you know the one I mean? When I look over at it, it seems to me
that most of the big summer movie releases this year are all sequels or remakes
of old movies. There’s Shrek 3 and Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the
The writers of the greatest story ever told – the Bible – understood the impact a good story with these overarching themes can make as well. In fact, the story I just read for you of a woman anointing Jesus with a precious ointment is one of those stories. It’s so good it appears in all four gospels, which is a rare occurrence. And even though the details of the story vary from gospel to gospel, they all have essentially the same theme: Jesus is anointed with some precious ointment and the people looking on are outraged. In Matthew’s, Mark’s, and John’s version the outrageous act is the extravagant waste of the very costly oil that shocks the bystanders. In the version we read today from Luke what the bystanders object to is not the waste of the expensive ointment, but it’s that the woman doing the anointing is a sinner. As the Pharisee hosting Jesus for the meal says, “If this man were a prophet he would know who and what this woman is.”
And so today we’re going to talk about the story of the anointing woman told from Luke’s perspective. In keeping with the idea of a summer blockbuster, and since we’re using Luke’s version, let’s call it “The Anointing, Part IV” shall we? As I studied this great story I found three crucial elements to it that make it a great one. Let’s look at those shall we?
The Element of IDENTITY
The first element that makes the story great is what I call the element of IDENTITY. By that I mean there are some great characters in this story. All great stories in literature and all great movies have great characters. Just think of your favorite books and movies; most have a tasty plot with a little conflict, or romance, or adventure mixed in, but what really sets them off as good stories are the great characters.
In most good stories you have what’s called a protagonist and an antagonist; a hero and a villain. A good guy and a bad guy. A white hat and a black hat. What you’ll find going on in almost all good stories is a simple and yet complex interplay going on between the protagonist and the antagonist, between the hero and the villain.
There are a gazillion examples we could think of. In Star Wars, the protagonist/good guy is Luke Skywalker and the antagonist/bad guy is Darth Vader. In Cinderella, you’ve got Cinderella and the old wicked stepmother. In Batman you’ve got Batman versus any number of bad guys like the Joker and the Riddler and the Penguin; all trying to take over the world. In the old cowboy movies you’ve got a good cowboy like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, wearing their white hats and a bunch of grizzly looking but unnamed bad guys with scars on their faces wearing the black hats. In story after story after story, what makes that story great is the development and resolution of conflict between the hero character and the villain character. That’s what makes them so interesting to us.
So it is with the stories of Jesus, like this one. We love stories about Jesus mainly because Jesus makes the perfect “good guy.” We learn about God’s grace and love by simply looking at the life Jesus. Jesus’ most frequent protagonists in Scripture, of course, were the dreaded Pharisees. We love the stories of Jesus, in part, because he always gets the upper hand on the Pharisees. I’m reminded of the old westerns I used to go see as a child on those Saturday matinees. The kids would cheer the good guys and boo the bad guys right out loud in the theater. We love it!
The story we read today has three characters: Jesus, a Pharisee named Simon, and a sinful woman. These three characters are what are called “archetypes,” they’re stereotypes or oversimplifications—they’re caricatures of good guys and bad guys.
As always, Jesus is the protagonist in our story—the hero—the guy who always does right and who always wins in the end. We know that no matter how those pesky Pharisees try to trip Jesus up, he’s going to be able to turn the tables and gain the upper hand and teach us all something about true righteousness as he does.
The Pharisee is the antagonist in the story. He’s the anti-hero. He stands for the type person who thinks he’s “holier-than-thou.” He sees other people as low life. He thinks he’s better than the prostitutes, the homeless folks sleeping under some overpass, the addicts all strung out on alcohol and drugs, the poor person who holds him up in line at the grocery store while they use their welfare coupons. Oh, he’s better than everyone else too: the people who don’t go to church, those who don’t speak English, Muslims, Jews, gays, ex-convicts. Pick your group. Every Pharisee has one or more groups like that.
In Jesus’ parable, the Pharisee says to himself, “Humph, this guy can’t be a prophet, else he’d know what kind of filth is touching him and kissing on him. Let’s face it. I’m good. I am a lot better than her. I go to church every week. I give ten percent of my income. I pay taxes to Uncle Sam. Just look at her...”
The final character, the “sinful woman” standing there behind Jesus anointing his feet with oil, wiping them with her hair is known in literary terms as the foil. The purpose of a foil is to emphasize the good or bad traits of another character by contrast. The sinful woman is everything the “holier-than-thou Pharisee” is not. She represents everything he’s against. Her loving action towards Jesus, done because she’s experienced great forgiveness, emphasizes the unloving nature of the self-righteous Pharisee. Her whiteness, makes the darkness in the soul of the Pharisee that much darker.
And so it’s the element of identity, these great characters, that draw us in to the story. And then as it unfolds, there is a second element that makes the story great.
The Element of IRONY
The second element is the element of IRONY. Irony, of course, is when something totally different happens than you’d suspect. In the case of this story we the readers know something that the Pharisee and the sinful woman don’t know and so the words and actions of the characters take on a different and unintended meaning as they unfold.
In this case, the most prominent instance of irony is the role reversal where the apparent “good guy” in the story (the Pharisee) actually turns out to be the “bad guy” and the “bad guy” (the sinful woman) turns out to be the good guy.
Of course, you can have irony on top of irony at times. For instance I heard about a missionary who went to a remote island to tell a tribe about Jesus and he spoke to them recounting the story of Jesus’ life, how he died for our sins, and how his friend Judas betrayed him. In our culture, of course, one who betrays is a villain, and one who willingly sacrifices his life for another is a hero. But in the odd (to us) culture of this tribe, someone who can betray another person and get away with it is actually a hero, and someone willing to lay down his life for another is a buffoon. So the entire gospel message, the whole idea of “good guys” and “bad guys” didn’t work in this culture—irony of ironies, the very story that caps the gospel account becomes one that destroys its value as “good news” to these people.
There are other instances of irony in the story of the anointing which help make it entertaining and informative. For instance, when the sinful woman entered the room and began weeping and wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair. No doubt every eye around the table among Simon’s Pharisee friends was on the shameless woman. Can you imagine the smirk on Simon’s face and perhaps raising of eyebrows and nodding between guests as they silently agreed in their assessment of Jesus? If Jesus were really a prophet, surely he would know what kind of woman this was touching him—a sinner! But ironically Jesus not only knew the woman was a sinner he also even knew Simon’s thoughts without his saying anything because Jesus addressed Simon and his friends saying that he had something to tell them and he proceeds to tell the story of the two debtors. The very thing that Simon thought proved Jesus was not a prophet was the device the Lord would use to prove he was. As he often did Jesus concluded his little parable with a question that would draw out the truth in the story. Simon answered correctly indicating that he understood the story quite well. Jesus’ teaching then continued by taking the theme of the story—those who have been forgiven much will in turn love much—and making a comparison between Simon the self-righteous who failed to do what was right and expected, and the sinful woman who did do what was right and was unexpected. A wonderful ironic twist.
The Element of INSEPARABILITY
One final element of this story that I believe sets it apart as a great one is the element of INSEPARABILITY. Inseparability isn’t really a literary device or anything, but it really is a big part of what makes this story so great, in fact, it’s the climax of the whole story. As you know, for two things to be inseparable means one can’t be imagined without the other.
When I was thinking of this point I got an old Frank Sinatra song in my head and it took days to get it out – it’s called “Love and Marriage.” [Begin CD] Have you ever heard it? The words go like this:
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you brother
You can’t have one without the other
Try, try, try to separate them
Its an illusion
Try, try, try, and you will only come
To this conclusion
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
Dad was told by mother
You can’t have one without the other
Just as “love and marriage” go together, so, too do love and forgiveness, the two overarching themes of this story from Jesus’ life. Jesus is teaching us here that you can’t have one without the other, and where one exists, the other is sure to be found, and each is the surest evidence there is of the other’s existence.
So taken together, the elements of this story teach us that Jesus wants us to have the heart and attitude of character identified as the sinful woman instead of the righteous Pharisee. He wants us to understand the magnitude of our forgiveness, to be honest in our self assessment of our sinfulness and to realize the extent of our need for forgiveness. He wants us to beware of some ironic twist that might mean that we are the ones on the outside and not those we consider “outsiders.” At the heart of the parable today is the sinful woman and her deep seated awareness that she was a flawed sinner in need of the mercy of God. We should never outgrow that awareness ourselves. Throughout our whole lives, we should have this deep seated awareness that we are sinful and imperfect people who need God’s grace and mercy as a gift. And when we do we’ll certainly not look down our spiritual noses at others, but instead we’ll turn, with love, toward Christ as she did.
Jesus once said that those who are well have no need of a physician. Those who know they are sick know that they need a doctor. I wonder who was the patient in the exchange chronicled in this story? Was Jesus healing the sinful woman, or the Pharisee?
As I close this morning I want to leave us with three questions to think about.
The first question is one which is often asked after we’ve heard one of Jesus’ parables: “Which character do you identify with in the story of the anointing woman? Who are you in the story?” Are you like the self righteous Pharisee who thinks that he/she is better than the poor sinful woman whose life is not as good as yours? Or are you like the sinful woman who never gets off her knees as she washes his feet with her tears and kisses his feet. Who are you in this story?
Second, thinking of the second element in the story, the element of irony, let me ask you, could there be some hidden or unknown irony in your own life of faith? Could it be that you think you know what’s going on, but you don’t? Could you be wrong? Could we? The admission that we could be mistaken keeps us humble and teachable, and that’s how Jesus wants us to remain.
And the final question is this: Is the forgiveness you have received reflected in your love for God and others? Would you call yourself a loving person? Sometimes I think the longer we go in our Christian life the harder we become. We seem to develop some kind of shell or a wall around us and we become insensitive to the Spirit’s promptings and we become weary in well-doing. When’s the last time your eyes filled with tears at the thought of how much God loves you? It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I’m not trying to manipulate tears out of anyone this morning, I’m just asking a question. Is your heart still soft towards God and the things of his kingdom?
This story ends with a question by the bystanders. Did you notice? They ask, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” (v. 49). That’s a great question. Who do you say he is? A good moral teacher, a good storyteller? Savior of the world? The woman go it right. Jesus told her so, he says, “Your faith has saved you, go in peace” (v. 50). How about you. Has your faith made you whole? Has your faith saved you? Have you placed your trust in Jesus Christ? If not, today is the perfect time to do so. Will you do that? If so, please pray with me….