When the Story is About Us

2 Samuel 12-1-7
Luke 7:36-50

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     Imagine a common scene: a family sits around the dinner table.  The mother is offering a bit of difficult but necessary wisdom to the teenager.  The teenager sits quietly—broodingly?—pondering.  The father, unaware of the dynamic as many fathers are, offers what he believes to be a word of encouragement.  “I believe what your mother is saying is…”  He never finishes.  The teenager looks up with a growl and says, “I KNOW what she is saying!”

            And such is the preacher’s lot with texts such as this.  And there are many texts such as this.  These are what we call parables, or simply the narrative itself.  In texts such as this the interaction of the character and dialogue is meant to stand as sufficient.  The meaning should be self-evident.  What more is there to say to Jesus’ words about love and forgiveness?  How does the preacher avoid being the one who says, “I believe what Jesus is saying is…” to a congregation that believes it knows what Jesus is saying.  Silence, not sermons, may be the more appropriate response to texts such as this.

            Yet I will take the risk and say something in hopes that we might hear not only what Jesus says to Simon but also what Jesus says to us.  The situation of the story is straightforward enough.  A Pharisee named Simon has invited Jesus to dinner.  This is a common strategy we see played out all the time.  Whoever is the hot ticket, whoever has the buzz, that is the one we want to be seen with.  Jesus is the latest thing.  He has been on all the late night television shows after that resurrection trick he pulled at Nain.  Or maybe Simon has a different motive.  Remember the adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer?  But whatever the reason, Jesus is at table with a Pharisee and his friends.

            Simon the Pharisee and Jesus the Christ are at table together.  But there is someone else there, someone unexpected.  A woman.  A woman from the city.  A woman who is a sinner.  A woman who is a problem.  This woman is behind Jesus, in view of Simon, washing and anointing his feet.  We need to note carefully the language and is employed here.  Simon does not 

challenge Jesus directly.  That Simon uses the third person suggests that he is more mumbling to himself or those around him than challenging Jesus directly.  This moment foreshadows a similar encounter in chapter 15, when the Pharisees grumble that Jesus cavorts with sinners and tax collectors.  “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  One could argue that, ironically, the Pharisee has done the same by welcoming Jesus and eating with him.  But that is for another time.  Here, as in chapter 15, Jesus is much like my third grade teacher.  You cannot grumble around him without getting caught.  And if you are caught, you can count on getting a story.

            Jesus tells a story of one creditor and two debtors.  One owes a great deal, the other much less.  The creditor forgives both debts.  Who will be more grateful?  The answer seems obvious to Simon.  The one who was forgiven more, he says, no doubt wondering what the relevance is.  Just so, says Jesus.

            Our Old Testament setting tells much the same tale.  When David decided to borrow Bathsheba from her husband while her husband was off fighting David’s war, he did so without much thought to consequence.  After all, he was king.  It was only after Bathsheba disclosed her pregnancy that David decided to take preventative measures.  After failing to entice Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, to spend the night with her, David decided it was simpler to kill him.  Problem solved.  That is, until his court “story-teller” Nathan came to see him.

            Nathan told David a story about a poor man with a sheep.  He had little beyond the sheep, whom he loved.  There was a rich man with many sheep and, when one was required for a lavish banquet, the rich man bypassed his own collection and took the poor man’s only sheep and served it up with a side of mint jelly.  David, upon hearing of this towering injustice, was filled with rage.  As I am King, he proclaimed, such a man deserves death!  Let him repay four times the loss.

            David’s indignation is encouraging but his sensitivity is still lacking.  After all, this was not a property issue.  This was a love issue.  In Nathan’s story the poor man clearly loved the sheep and had no intention of serving it to anyone.  David sees the injustice, but does not see the emotional import.  He doesn’t understand that there are some things more important than property, assets, and privilege.  

            Which is why, I suppose, we still need sermons on stories.  When David heard the story he knew what the story was about.  That is, he knew what the story was about except that the story was about him.  When Simon heard the story it was tiresomely obvious what the moral of the story was.  What was harder to see is that the story was about him.  This is the joy and the sorrow of story.  Story opens us to levels of awareness that rational argument cannot penetrate.  Jesus and Nathan understood one of the first rules of engaging the audience; the emotional response.  The next, trickier step, is getting the audience to apply that emotional response to self awareness.

            Those of you with children; did you ever call your parents and complain about your child?  “You would not believe the words that come out of her mouth!”  “He just thinks everything should be laid out before him!”  “They don’t clean their room.”  When I was a kid my mother had a brilliant idea.  She folded the laundry and placed it in a bucket.  All of us kids had a bucket with our name on it.  We were supposed to take the bucket upstairs and put our clothes away.  Guess which Hawley child used to come down every morning, take clothes out of the bucket, and go back upstairs to get dressed?  Guess whose children do the same thing?

            Not that I complain.  I know where they get it.  But I am sure that I have done my share of complaining about other things, completely oblivious to the truth that I am the man.  Do you catch yourself gossiping with your neighbor about how so and so gossips so much?  We have words for this sort of thing: hypocrite or two-faced or insincere.  And sometimes that is the case.  But it is true for us all that we have a blind spot—some part of ourselves we cannot or chose not to look at very closely—and along will come a story to shine a bright light on our blind spot.

            When we hear stories that engage our sense of right and wrong, our “common” sense, the moral seems self-evident.  But it is a common characteristic of such stories that their lessons are more easily applied elsewhere than in our own hearts.  Simon understood well enough that if one is forgiven one hundred and another ten, the one forgiven one hundred will likely feel more relieved. David understood well enough that you should not raid another person’s house for things you already have.  What Simon, David, and commonly you and I fail to understand is that the story is about us.

            Bible stories are not just history and they are not just stories.   They are deep and penetrating examinations of what it means to be a human being, good and bad, in the presence of God.  This is the power of all stories that matter, that endure.  Stories serve not only as windows on the past but as mirrors for the present.  Stories that matter have the power to change us in ways that argument and lecture and a mountain of facts never can.  So Jesus told stories—stories designed to sneak up on us with their truth so that we end up inviting them in before we know what they have to say to us—sort of like how Simon invited Jesus to dinner unaware of what was in store for him.

            Had Nathan told David to his face he did a bad thing David would have excused and argued and evaded.  Had Jesus told Simon straight out that this woman was forgiven so get off her back, an argument would have ensued and little would be gained.  Rather, Nathan and Jesus invited David and Simon into the perilous world of self-discovery.  In our debt encumbered culture we can surely relate to Jesus’ question about which debtor would be more grateful.  Can we also see, by extension, the truth about love?

            Jesus’ story is the little story inside the bigger story that Luke is telling. In Luke’s story we note that the others at the table argue about forgiveness—who has it and who can offer it.  But Jesus never forgives this woman.  He simply observes that she is forgiven.  This explains her behavior.  For the one who is forgiven little loves little.  And the one who loves much is forgiven much.  By her love Jesus observes that she is a woman to whom much has been forgiven.  We are never told if Simon understands this.  Maybe, like David, Simon understood.  Maybe he went off and read psalm 51.  You love little, Simon, because you are forgiven little.  You love little, hence little do you forgive.

            Paul Tillich, a wonderful theologian and preacher, offered a sermon on this text.  Tillich reflected upon the social reality of his time which is the same in ours.  Why, he asked, do so many turn away from their righteous parents?  Why do they turn away from their righteous churches with their righteous pastors?  To escape judgment?  That is no doubt a part of it.  But, Tillich speculates, more often it is because they seek a love that is rooted in forgiveness, and that is a love the righteous cannot give.  There was a pastor of my acquaintance once in North Platte, Nebraska who lamented to me that it was getting harder and harder to find people for the church board.  “There are just not enough righteous people,” he lamented.  He might have had more luck filling the board with forgiven people.

            Tillich’s sermon on this text concludes this way and it can serve as the conclusion for us as well.  “The Church would be more the Church of Christ if it joined Jesus and not Simon in its encounter with those judged unacceptable.  Each of us who strive for righteousness would be more Christian if more were forgiven him, if he loved more, and if he could better resist the temptation to present himself as acceptable to God by his own righteous."

Gaining Access

Luke 7:1-10

Before I entered the ministry I was trained as a journalist.  I spent a decade involved with radio and television new and sports.  Although I never moved above a market size larger than Wichita, I was familiar with the necessities of those who perform on a much larger stage.  Journalists need sources.  They need leads.  They need tips.  But to be a player for the really big scoops you need access.

Access involves getting close to the decision makers, the eyewitnesses, the people with power.  Access is everything to a reporter.  In truth access is more than a journalism question.  Access is important in many parts of our society.  Who has access to education?  Who has access to healthcare?  Who has access to government and decision-making?  However we might answer those questions, we know there are many who do not have access to these fundamentals aspects of life.  Many do not have access to good education. There are many who have no access to health care.  There are many who literally have no chance to fight city hall.

In Jesus’ day access was pretty important too.  Obviously the ones with access to power and perks were the Roman citizens.  But many Jewish people did as well, particularly the leaders of the synagogue; the Scribes and Pharisees.  Although they were not Roman citizens, they were powerful enough to position themselves favorably in Roman society, often at the expense of the poor and the marginalized who looked to the synagogue and its leaders as the interpreters of God’s laws and the bearer of God’s grace.

This question of “access” is very much at the heart of Luke’s gospel.  Perhaps you recall an earlier passage from Luke that is often read at Christmas time.  Right after the angel tells Mary she is to bear God’s son, Mary sings a song.  A portion of that song goes like this:  “He has used the power of his arm; he scattered the proud of heart, he overthrew princes from their thrones, and the humble he uplifted, the hungry he has loaded with good things, and the rich he sent away empty.” 

After Jesus returns to his home in Nazareth as an adult, he enters the synagogue and reads aloud from the prophet Isaiah.  Jesus reads, “the Spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has consecrated me to bring good news to poor people, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and restoration of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed at liberty, to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.” 

All of this helps us to see why today’s reading is so fascinating.  Given Luke’s preference for the poor, we would expect Jesus to do what he commonly does—extend healing and wholeness to the forgotten ones of Israel.  But here we have something unexpected.  We have someone of privilege—someone who customarily experiences “access” coming to Jesus in need.

But he doesn’t actually come himself.  The first we learn of the crisis is through intermediaries.  The Roman captain sends some Judean Elders to Jesus.  Although accustomed to getting what he wants, suddenly the Roman captain is unsure, deferential.  Rather than approach Jesus with a sense of entitlement, he sends fellow Jews to Jesus to offer intercession.

Jesus agrees to go with the men.  What we are not certain of is why.  Did Jesus offer the man preferential treatment because of his large donation to the building fund?  I hope not.  I hope Jesus went because there was need.  And as the story unfolds, I believe this is in fact the case.

Before Jesus reaches the Roman in question…. and therefore his slave…Jesus encounters yet another group of intercessors.  These are members of the Roman officer’s staff.  But rather than continue to entreat Jesus to come… perhaps even encourage him to get a move on… they suggest his visit is not necessary at all.  This is another surprise.  Suddenly there does not seem to be the same sense of urgency?  Perhaps the slave has died.  Jesus is too late.

No, the slave is still alive.  But rather than bid Jesus to hurry, these intermediaries suggest he need not come at all.  They bring a message from their friend, “I am unworthy to receive you under my roof,” he begins.  Now earlier we heard that the Roman captain “deserves this favor.”  And now we learn that he believes himself unworthy.  But Jesus, safe to say, is indifferent to all of that.  For Jesus does not see worthy or unworthy.  He sees need.  He responds to suffering.  He offers wholeness.

Is this a rhetorical stunt by the Roman?  Is it sincere?  The Roman captain says that Jesus simply needs to say the word and his servant will be made well.  This is the last surprise of the story, and it comes as a surprise even to Jesus.  Jesus was “surprised” to hear these words.  “I tell you, nowhere in Israel have I met with such faith as this!”

How does this story help us to understand access and intercession as these apply to Jesus?

We generally associate access with privilege.  Even in Jesus’ day there was a pretty big gap between those who had access to a good life and those who did not.  And given what Luke has said about the place of the poor in Jesus’ ministry, we would expect him to limit his access to the least fortunate.

But this story leads us to rethink this.  Certainly Jesus does make himself accessible to those who ordinarily had no access to life’s necessities.  But Jesus is also accessible to one more accustomed to a comfortable life.  By his own statement, as sent through his friends, the Roman is accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed.  But in this case the circumstances went beyond this kind of worldly power.  The Roman officer understood that his authority did not extend to his servant who was lying near death.  This circumstance did not call for conquest.  It called for surrender… a surrender to faith.

The Roman is an unlikely recipient of Jesus’ healing power.  But Jesus sees beyond all earthly condition.  Jesus responds to need.  Jesus responds to those who respond to him in faith.  And that is the key here—faith.  What Jesus marvels at in this instance is the power and certainty of the man’s faith.  Not even in Israel—not even among those whom Jesus would expect to have faith and understanding—has he seen such a display.  The power of Jesus’ healing touch is accessible to anyone and everyone, regardless of earthly condition, if that power is embraced in faith.  We have been saved by faith through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

But before we leave this story for this morning we should consider one more thing.  Intercession.  In the course of this story Jesus’ encounters several people.  He encounters members of the Jewish community who vouch for the Roman captain.  He encounters the friends of the Roman captain.  But he never encounters the Roman captain himself.  And the slave who is healed?  Jesus never touches him or lays eyes on him.

The intercessions on behalf of the sick man are many.  Are they responsible for Jesus’ response?  Certainly Jesus would not have known of the need if the need had not been brought to his attention.  The Jewish community, the man’s friends, the man himself, all petition Jesus to intercede for the need.  The result is healing.

As the church of Jesus Christ, we do not control access to Jesus.  And we must be vigilant that our message is one of grace and faith… that faith opens us up to the healing power of Jesus and not the adherence to some doctrinal code.

But as the church of Jesus Christ, we do have an obligation to bring our intercessions on behalf of others and the world.  Our intercessions help bring the healing power of Jesus to those in need.  And although we certainly offer intercessory prayer, anytime we advocate for those in need, when we send relief and aid to victims of disaster, whenever we lift up the suffering, we intercede.  Intercession in union with faith is the way to access the healing power of God in Jesus Christ.