Bible Readings: The Gospel of Luke, chapter 7, verses 36-50

1

WHAT’S YOUR STORY? What story would you tell if you were asked you to tell me the story of your faith? Each of us has a different story to tell. Some of us can remember a time when we were not Christians. And we can tell the story of how we came to know Jesus. Your story is the story of “Why I became a Christian.” Some of us have always considered ourselves Christians so our story of faith is the story of “Why I am still a Christian.” That’s the story that I have to tell.  And today I want to tell you a little bit of that story. Then I want to tell you another story that has become very important to me, even though I never met the woman in that story, and I don’t even know her name. But first my story. So, why am I still a Christian?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. But later in high school I experienced a significant period of doubt. At that time my school friends who had been part of the church abandoned the faith of their parents. It was also a time when, like many teenagers, I became involved in our national hobby of binge drinking. For a couple of years, I lived a double life—server in the church services on Sunday, and drinker in the pubs on many other days. But underneath I also had a search for meaning going on.

That was back in the mid-1980s when clothes were bright, and hair was big. Back then the “cold war” between America and Russia (or the Soviet Union as it was then), was still going on. The Berlin Wall was still standing. Today people worry about terrorism and global warming. Back then we lived with the threat of a nuclear war hanging over our heads. Back then Iran and Iraq were at war in the Middle East —and America was on the side of Saddam Hussein! And back then the Russians were fighting a war in Afghanistan. As the proverb goes, some things change, and some things stay the same!

Back then VCR players were state-of-the-art technology, and you could still rent videos in VHS and Beta format! (My apologies to those of you who are too young to know what I’m talking about). And for teenagers like me “video parties” were the new thing.  Many of the movies we watched were wrestling with the theme of war and its consequences, especially the Vietnam War which had divided the country (in Australia and America) in a way war had never done before. I remember watching movies like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now, and I think I saw Rambo movie “First Blood” at least 8 times at video parties!

Some of you will also remember how often that theme came up in the music of the ’80s in songs like Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” and Bruce Springsteen’s, “Born in the USA.” And, of course, from Australian bands you might remember also wrote songs, Cold Chisel’s, “Khe Sanh” and Redgum’s, “I was only 19.” Along with Redgum’s song the most powerful—and, for me, very disturbing—song came out when I was 17 going on 18 and the song was called “19.” Paul Hardcastle’s song “19” begins with the haunting words, “The average age of an American serviceman in Vietnam was 19.” So now I am blessed to be 3 times 19, WHY AM I STILL A CHRISTIAN?

2

My earliest memory of Christianity is from an after-school group which met opposite my primary school called the “Good News Club.” At the Good News Club, I had been given a copy of the New Testament; appropriately in the user-friendly Good News translation. I read it right through. And as I was reading, I decided a couple of things about Jesus. The FIRST thing was that the Jesus described in the New Testament was someone beyond human fabrication. As a historian I can now give good reasons why the Gospels should be taken seriously as history. But my first reaction was just that I don’t think anyone could have “made up” Jesus if they had tried to.

Now I want to tell you the other story I promised—one that was important for me then and is even more important for me now. Let me take a few moments to try and re-tell the story as I think it might happen today. Jesus gets asked to a minister’s house—not any minister we know, of course, but I’m an ordained minister so I can say that this is a modern equivalent. The best crockery and the finest table napkins etc. are brought out. A sumptuous meal is enjoyed by all, during which they engage in civilised dinner-party conversation.

Then a disaster happens: a woman with a “bad reputation” turns up—uninvited, of course! She probably comes complete with tattoos, and body piercings. She parks herself in front of Jesus and begins to cry. And as her tears fall upon Jesus’ feet, she kisses them, wipes them clean with her hair, and anoints them with her best Calvin Klein fragrance. The minister wants this person out of his house. I suspect he wants Jesus out as well. After all, if Jesus was really a great religious teacher, he would know that to have this sort of person around the church would be bad for religious business.

What does Jesus do at this point? Does he storm out of the room in protest? No. Jesus tells the minister a “story.” I mean, come on. Was he serious? He was. And the point of the story is that you would be more grateful if the bank cancelled your loan of $1 million than if it was only $100 grand.  This woman had seen something in Jesus which persuaded her that her million-dollar debt had been cancelled. So, Jesus turns toward the woman but says to the minister (in verses 47-50):

“Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

What did it take for that woman—someone quite possibly on the Z-List in her community—to go to the home of a “very important” religious leader and before all the dinner party guests—the A-List—and to wash the feet of Jesus with her hair? Surely it was the experience of being forgiven, even though she had committed “many sins.” The minister on the other hand doesn’t think he needs to be very grateful for the cancellation of his “little” debt. He is a religious leader after all. But the point, Jesus says, is that he has completely missed the point. It is not to him that Jesus says: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (verse 50.

3

There are two extraordinary things about the story Jesus told Simon:

Firstly, the story Jesus told was clearly about what was going on right then and there, wasn’t it? It was a “story” of a real life-changing event happening before Simon’s eyes. It was not a “story” about a fictional debtor who owed 500 denarii coins but could not pay, it was about a real woman. And this was not a “story” about another fictional debtor who believed he only owed 50 coins and may have thought he could pay whatever he owed. The woman’s actions were those of someone who knew that she could not pay but had still been forgiven.

The second extraordinary thing is that Jesus claims that he is the one who is able to cancel the debt! The rest of the people at the table are left asking the million-dollar question (or in their case the 500 denarii question): who is this guy who does what we think only God can do? Luke writes (in verses 49–50):

⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

4

 “Who is this?” That was the question I asked myself as a teenager. A few years after I went to the Good News Club, I happened to read a quote attributed to the notorious 19^th-century English poet Lord Byron [1788-1824]. Now if you know anything about Byron you know he could be politely described as “colourful character.” He is supposed to have said: “If ever man was God or God was man, Jesus Christ was both” [Frank Mead, Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, London: Peter Davis, 1965, p. 81]. (Of course, Byron didn’t use inclusive language).

This (finally) brings me to the SECOND thing I decided about Jesus. It is because of the way Jesus related to that woman, and many other men and women, and gave his life so that sinful people like me might have peace with God, that I was persuaded back then, and I am still persuaded now, that if ever God was human or a human was God, Jesus Christ was both. Or as Professor Tom Wright put it more recently, Jesus is “God with a human face” [The Original Jesus, Oxford: Lion, 1996, p. 82].

5

Why have I told the story of the unnamed woman in chapter 7 of Luke’s Gospel today? Because I believe that it is the story of every one of us here this morning who claims to be a follower of Jesus. That doesn’t mean we all came to know Jesus in the same way as the woman in the story. But it should mean that we are people who have also experienced the life-changing love and forgiveness of God through Jesus. We are people who believe that—whatever our personal story is—Jesus has also said to us: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” I hope that you do.

Of course, we know now what the woman didn’t know then; and that is that Jesus’ words were not hollow or cheap. Not long after that dinner party he would give his life in one of the most painful ways imaginable (with his hands and feet nailed to a cross) for her and for us—to pay the price for our forgiveness. We are all members of a “Good News Club” (in our case, the St Luke’s Taroona Anglican Good News Club) and the good news is that Jesus died for every one of us.

We are all different people, and we wrestle with different questions—the issue of war and the problem of evil may not have been the issue for you. But I am looking forward to hearing your story because I believe passionately that the story of God’s work in each of our lives is the most precious gift we have to share. And if we can tell people the story of our relationship with God then we will be able to help others to hear Jesus say to them: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Amen

 Luke 7:36-50 (NRSV)

Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman
7:37-39 Ref — Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9; Jn 12:1-8

7:41, 42 Ref — Mt 18:23-34

³⁶ When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
⁴⁰ Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
⁴³ Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
⁴⁴ Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”