The First United Methodist Church of Napa, CA
March 14, 2010
“One Great Hour of Sharing” Sunday

Scripture Readings:

Gospel Lesson – Luke 7: 36-50¹

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. ³⁷And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. ³⁹Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” ⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” ⁴¹“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” ⁴⁴Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” ⁴⁸Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” ⁴⁹But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Psalter Response – Psalm 32²

¹Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,

whose sin is covered.

²Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

³While I kept silence, my body wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

⁴For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

⁵Then I acknowledged my sin to you,

and I did not hide my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”

and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

⁶Therefore let all who are faithful

offer prayer to you;

at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters

shall not reach them.

⁷You are a hiding place for me;

you preserve me from trouble;

you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah

⁸I will instruct you and teach you

the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

⁹Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,

else it will not stay near you.

¹⁰Many are the torments of the wicked,

but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

¹¹Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,

and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

“Come and Go In Peace.”

There’s an ancient Celtic poem of hospitality that I’d like for us to ponder for a few moments this morning. It goes like this:

I saw a stranger yesterday;
I put food in the eating place,
drink in the drinking place,
music in the listening place
and in the blessed name of the triune [God],
he blessed myself and my house, my cattle

and my dear ones.

And the lark said in her song
often…often…often…

goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise

often…often…often…

goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.³

Simon, the Pharisee, was considered to be a good man among his peers – even a deeply devout man. We might speculate further that, for his position in the community, he would’ve been considered to be extraordinarily open-minded. Why else would he have invited someone like Jesus to dine with him? As a Pharisee, Simon would’ve been doing his very best to keep God's law. God would have mattered to Simon. Holiness, in God’s sight, must’ve been immensely important to him. He would have put enormous effort into “doing the right thing.”

And yet, Simon, like so many people then and now, lived in a black-and-white world, a world of good and bad, of insiders and outsiders. There could be no shades in between. He said as much himself. He probably felt a great deal of self-satisfaction as he contemplated his own goodness. On the other hand, it also meant that he despised those who did not live as holy a life as he was certain that he did. He would see them as weak-willed, scatterbrained, easily corrupted, hopeless fools – at best. Such people only brought all of their troubles on themselves.

And so he condemned the “stranger” – this woman who so easily gate-crashed his dinner party. What’s more, it was scandalous that this woman of obvious ill-repute should even dare to enter the house of a righteous Pharisee – even worse, that she knelt by the feet of the guest of honor and wet his feet with her tears…outrageous that she should then use her hair to wipe his feet, and proceed to pour some of her own perfume over Jesus’ feet!

Everyone there, no doubt, would’ve been greatly offended – everyone that is, except Jesus. Jesus didn’t see that any of those things that she did would somehow contaminate his image or identity – as others there assumed she would. He not only accepted her actions as part of the culture of hospitality, but saw them as expressions of profound gratitude. So, unlike almost everybody else in that room, his concern and thoughts were not on himself, but on her – this “outsider.” She was the only one who mattered. “Do you see this woman?” he asks.

We here at the First United Methodist Church of Napa celebrate the fact that we are a Reconciling Congregation⁴ and that we are a progressive Christian community.⁵ Part of our Welcoming Statement announces to the world that we…

…invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope, …and that bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers⁶…

…is simply part of who we think we are called to be.

So, how are we doing?

Back when I was still in high school, a man named Marshall McLuhan introduced us to the notion of living in a “global village.”⁷ Since then we’ve seen our world change dramatically, and much of that change has been our understanding of the real need for us to move – finally and at long last – toward the kind of global village that McLuhan envisioned. Think about what’s happened in the last forty years: with such things as international commerce, the use of email and the concept of the world wide web, environmental issues (especially “global warming”), the pervasiveness of the media and popular culture. Sadly, even terrorism has gone international.

So how we think about ourselves in relation to the rest of the world, in part determines how we not only behave toward ourselves, but how we treat other human beings, our planet, and the animals and plants that make up our ecosystem.⁸ And yet one segment of society – that crosses culture, language and geography and is exemplified by fundamentalist religion and extreme right-wing politics – has committed itself to ways that are putting this global village “in peril, simply because they have not included the rest of our planet in their thinking….”⁹

The symbol of their outrage is “the stranger” or “the outsider” – the person who is somehow different. With just a brief survey of human history we can find that those “others” were most often regarded as the “out-group” and usually labeled as the enemy. Systems of morality that apply to our group, of course, our own nation or religious persuasion, do not apply to those outside, because the outsider is seen as flawed – less than fully human.

While we’re on this topic, it’s come to my attention that some people who attend the programs and worship services here at our church feel uncomfortable even to walk around the other side of the building, out of fear of being accosted by such people. But have you ever simply made eye-contact with a client of our HOPE Center and said hello? Unless the person is drunk or high on drugs, you might be surprised by the congenial response. Even in the most extreme circumstances, though, to a person lost in the dark we have got to be a place around which they can walk and talk in the clear light of day. What’s more, they should be welcome to sit down next to us in the pew on any given Sunday morning.

But with an attitude of exclusion toward the outsiders, the “strangers” in our midst, it’s been all too common for us to want to either ostracize them or convert them, to change them, to bring them up to our standards before we would even think of inviting them to church – let alone to a dinner party. At an earlier time, and for far, far too long, we’ve thought it morally acceptable to enslave people like this, to put them on reservations, or even (God help us.) to exterminate them as the enemy. As long as they learn our language and take on our customs and values, then we might begin to consider them as our friends. But if, by virtue simply of their dress, sexual orientation or lifestyle, we continue to regard them with suspicion, fear, and then (inevitably) with hatred, we’ll never be able to see them as anything but our enemies, and we’ll never think of them as worthy to become companions at our dinner table.¹⁰

What’s terribly ironic, of course, is how quickly the “we” can be turned into “they.” It’s one reason why we can’t get anything done on capitol hill these days, let alone in the church. This is exactly the problem that Luke is presenting in this story in the figure of Simon the Pharisee. And you and I need to be very careful identifying ourselves with the “good guy” – in any parable – because, more often than not, Jesus told these stories to point out to us just how much we are like the very person that we condemn.
The only religion we should follow today, the only God we should believe in, is the religion or the God who will make us more human, that will help to make possible the creation of a community that is truly universal and humane.¹¹ And in spite of what Glen Beck says, “social justice” is at the heart of the matter!¹² When will the human community (let alone the church) come to understand that everything, everyone, has inherent and sacred worth? Instead of condemning difference we ought to begin to treasure and appreciate the rich diversity of life on the face of this earth! And as we add our own support toward the evolution of life and society, at the same time we need to find ways to transform that which is not life-giving and life-affirming – whatever and wherever it is. Thinking differently about the “stranger,” the outsider, will not only enrich our world, it will enrich our own lives.