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."
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