Your Faith Has Saved You; Go in Peace

Our Gospel story today is a familiar one.  All of the Gospels have this story of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet, but Luke’s story, as he is wont to do, weaves a tale with multiple layers of meaning and teaching about who is in and who is out of the Realm of God.  Our first surprise in this passage comes in the first sentence.  One of the Pharisees invites Jesus to eat with him.   Wow.  This must be a good Pharisee to break with the increasing discomfort of the religious elite and actually ask Jesus over for dinner.  Isn’t this a wonderful hospitable gesture?  Well, let’s not jump to conclusions—the Pharisee’s hospitality seems gracious, but our story has some very interesting details that may indicate otherwise.  And then, we meet a woman who treats Jesus lavishly, but is known by the locals as a sinner. So those are our characters.  Jesus, a seemingly hospitable Pharisee and a sinful woman.  So we all know where this story is going, right?  Well, maybe not.

Will you join your hearts in prayer with me?  “Our God of extravagant hospitality, we are so thankful that you have invited us to your table.  Help us feast at your banquet of love.  Amen.”

One of the enduring themes of the Gospel of Luke is that words alone are not sufficient in the Realm of God; we are held accountable by God for our actions.  Luke introduces the theme that we are the hands, arms, feet and body of God in the world.  We are the living Gospel.  In this lovely little pericope at the end of Luke 7, Luke introduces a life-sermon illustration by Jesus about love and forgiveness, the two main ingredients of God’s peace that passes all understanding.  And along the way, we get a very pointed, but subtle, lesson about inclusion in the Realm of God.  Did you catch all that while you were listening?  Well, let’s see how Luke weaves this story together.

Jesus accepts the Pharisee’s invitation to dinner.  So homeless Jesus, who eats with tax collectors and sinners, goes to the Pharisee’s house, and reclines to eat.  Then we are introduced to a woman of the city, and we are told she is a sinner.  Now let’s stop here.  What are you all thinking about this woman?  Did you make an assumption about her sins?  We are never told what her sins are in the story, so if we think we know what she did, we are making assumptions about her.  Now let us consider a similar story from Luke 5:8, another place where we are told someone is a sinner. “But when Simon Peter saw the large catch of fish, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  The Greek here uses the exact same word for sin as in our passage today—hamartia, which is an archery term.  It means to miss the mark, to fail to hit the target, to sin.  So what are Peter’s sins?  I would imagine you assumed Peter’s sins were different from the sins you assumed of the woman in our story, even though the exact same word is used.  As it turns out, both of these sinners are a part of the Realm of God, so the sin itself is not the issue at all.  And I do not think it is an accident that Luke also names our Pharisee here Simon—just to make sure we recall another Simon Peter who was also sinful; but Simon Peter confessed, and Simon the Pharisee did not.  But back to the woman, why do we make these different assumptions about sin attributed to different people?  Do we stereotypically attribute different types of sins to men and women?  Well, as our story develops, we may see Jesus begin to address these questions, so let’s answer this question in a moment.

The woman lavishes hospitality on Jesus.  Imagine this very ironic scene, where a crowd is gathered at table, and there is a woman crying, drying and anointing Jesus’ feet.  After an aside, where we learn that the Pharisee has judged both the woman and Jesus, Jesus offers a little parable to the Pharisee.  The parable is about forgiveness.  Two people are indebted, one ten times more than the other.  Both are forgiven.  And Jesus asks about love.  Who will love more, once forgiven?  The Pharisee says the one who is forgiven more will love more, and by this admission, he condemns himself.  And Jesus gently agrees.  Then Jesus tells the Pharisee that his hospitality is empty—it was just words and not action, while the woman embodies living hospitality. 

Now we begin to see the Pharisee did not offer the expected signs of hospitality of water to wash, a towel to dry and oil to anoint and refresh.  But the woman, the accused sinner, provided a very intimate offering of all of these simple gifts of hospitality to Jesus.  Then Jesus talks about the woman.  Now we must take a moment to look closely at what Jesus says because the Greek is ambivalent, and it can be translated in several ways.  In our translation, Jesus says, in verse 47, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; hence she has shown great love.” 

This translation says forgiveness comes before we respond in love.  But the Greek grammar here is ambiguous, and could also be translated, “Because she has loved, her many sins are forgiven.”  There is a very wide gulf between these two translations.  Which comes first in your experience, love or forgiveness?  Obviously, there are significant theological implications of our translation choice.  Must we love God first, in order to be forgiven, or are we forgiven first, and then love God as a result?  Well, I tend to think that Luke, who was an excellent Koine Greek scholar, actually wrote this ambiguity into the story.  I think the lesson here is that forgiveness and love are very tightly interwoven, and perhaps expressions of a deeper underlying thing.  Forgiveness and love both arise within gratitude.  Gratitude, love and forgiveness all stem from the same place in our heart, and if any of these responses is genuine, than the other two naturally accompany it.  If there is true gratitude, then forgiveness and love are also found.   If we truly love, then gratitude and forgiveness are also involved.  And the reason that I think these three accompany each other is because Jesus wraps all of these together in the next verse when he tells the woman, who obviously is expressing gratefulness and love, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Jesus acknowledges this woman’s confessional love, gratitude and forgiveness are all involved in this touching moment—she is a living confession here.  Of course, Jesus also taught this concept in Luke 11 when he said, pray like this, “and forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone indebted to us.”  Again, this is the exact same word for sin in the Greek—hamartia—to miss the mark.  And again, we see reciprocal forgiveness, love and gratitude all combine into the same vessel.  And what is this vessel?  In just a moment, we will find out that acknowledgment of sin, forgiveness, gratitude and love combine into our heart and are expressed there as the peace of God.

So, enough about the Pharisee and woman here.  What about us?  Anybody here claim that they are not a sinner?  That was a rhetorical question—no need to raise your hand.  We are all sinners, and all fall short of the glory of God.  But Jesus clearly moves very quickly beyond our sin.  Notice Jesus does not demand a recitation of this woman’s sins, even though he clearly recites the sins of the Pharisee.  Why the difference?  Jesus points out the sins of those who fail to confess them, but moves quickly into loving forgiveness for those who do confess. We are human, and therefore sinful.  But the point of this story, and the basic message of the Gospel, is that God loves us and forgives us, even in our sinfulness.  However, and this is a big however, we cannot participate in the experiential Realm of God if we do not acknowledge our sinfulness before God.  Confession, acknowledgement or agreeing that we are broken and sinful, is the doorway into becoming filled with gratitude that we are forgiven.  Then loving God becomes second-nature, as shown by our anointing woman.  When we fully acknowledge our sinfulness, we can walk together with God in God’s Realm.  And this is our hope of the Realm of God on earth. 

Jesus was addressing us when he spoke to the woman at his feet.  “Your faith has saved you, go in peace.”  When we acknowledge our sins, then gratitude, forgiveness and love can lead us to a place beyond human understanding, the vessel of the inner peace of God.  Acknowledgement of our sinfulness opens our hearts to gratitude, forgiveness and love—all steps of grace into God’s peace.  When we confess our sins, forgiving one another and ourselves, then gratitude and love will fill our hearts, and the Realm of God-- the peace of God which passes all understanding—will come alive within us.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.