The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for August 20, 2006

Texts: Psalm 4/Luke 7:36-50

Sermon Title: “God Can Afford It”

              Every day you and I use a vocabulary rich in possibility, rich in meaning, and we use that vocabulary without resort to a single word.  A smile, a frown, a nod of the head, a handshake, voices our doubt, our approval, our submission, our frustration, or our confusion. Not a word passes our lips, yet people get the point, they read us.  I’m anxious right now because I’m running late, but I value you and I don’t want to risk giving you offense by cutting our conversation short.  Mind you, I have not verbalized my anxiety at all, but my clipped speech and knit brow alerted you five minutes into our conversation that I am distracted.

              A human being is an extraordinary piece of work.  Through language we respond to an extraordinary range of experiences in any given day, whether that happens to be carrying on an intimate conversation with a loved one, cheering on the home team at a sporting event, or ordering dinner in a restaurant. Language is certainly a mainstay of life and relationships, but so are the intricate body language, the rituals, and the customs we have evolved.  Imagine for one minute all the work words would have to do if we were forced in every situation to verbalize everything our physical responses so graphically convey for us.  Imagine what it would be like to live a day without recourse to the guide rails of custom and ritual to help us respond in this situation or circumstance.

              We come fully armed into every new day, prepared from childhood to manage all of the Heinz’ 57 varieties of situations that life doles out.  Adaptive? You bet.  But we are adaptive by training, not by nature.  We are products of the shaping influences of our families and culture, what we have learned having an extraordinary impact on us, and each of our actions.

              Our culture is inscribed in, on, us in big bold letters.  The assumptions we bring to life, our values, our taste in music, art, and food are all to a great degree culturally encoded.  Of course, this reality is not unique to us who call America home, but is to be observed across national boundaries, in groups numbering thousands of members, or groups numbering less than a dozen. We are products of the shaping influences of our families and culture and the specific groups within which we interact, what we have learned having an extraordinary impact on us, and each of our actions.       

              When I was in college I took a course in ethnography offered by the anthropology department. Ethnography studies language and behavior patterns arising in groups of people and cultures.  As my particular project I interviewed a restaurant manager and asked him to talk about his work and relationships with his staff.  In describing restaurant operations in our conversation of one hour the manager resorted to a vocabulary containing words and phrases that evolved specifically out of that restaurant culture, words and phrases one outside of that specific culture would be at a loss to understand. The manager and I conversed freely in a common language, but he drew upon a fund of vocabulary that I as the outsider could not decipher.

              There once was a first century Jew, a man named Simon, who was the product of a particular culture, a culture quite unique onto itself.  The culture with which he was affiliated was very exclusive.  One’s standing in that culture was secure only insofar as he or she subscribed to a single core belief.  The Jew was to worship one God, Yahweh, by name. 

              Around this God evolved an elaborate tradition of belief all based on a body of sacred writings, explicit laws and rituals.  Simon, the Jew, was a faithful follower of Yahweh.  In fact, we are told that Simon belonged to a specific subculture within the Jewish faith tradition.  He was a Pharisee.  Now Pharisees were very devout practitioners of the faith, very committed to particular beliefs and faith practices that distinguished them from other Jews.  If they were Christians, they would likely be the type of Christians who showed up regularly at Sunday morning and Sunday evening worship, Wednesday prayer meeting, and lived the rest of the time with a Bible within arm’s reach.

              Earnest and devout in faith, Simon the Jewish Pharisee, sought out the company of people similarly committed.  Jesus happened to turn up in that group one day.  Not a Pharisee himself, Jesus brought a special reputation to Simon’s house.  Word had it that Jesus was a prophet.  Prompted perhaps by no more than mere curiosity, Simon opened his home to Jesus.

              Now meals in the Jewish tradition were highly ritualized affairs.  In that society men and women did not publicly socialize as couples. Men did their thing.  Women did theirs.  On this occasion the men were doing their thing.  Picture the scene, a dining area, a group of men reclining comfortably around a table laden with meat, vegetables, bread, and wine.  Conversation might have treated any number of subjects; politics, religion, perhaps even sports. That oldest of all conversational forms, gossip, may have also made an appearance.

              Custom ruled in that ancient culture, ruled as it so often does today.  Everyone present at that dinner knew the protocols, knew what kind of behavior was expected of him.  But an event was soon to occur that left them all high and dry, not knowing how to act.  You see, a woman invaded their men’s club, but not just any woman, mind you.  This woman was not some anonymous person in off the street. Eyes blinked wide open when the men saw this particular woman walk in.  Had one or two of them, perhaps met her under other circumstances?  The woman needn’t have opened her mouth; her reputation said all that needed to be said.  Our lesson states that the woman was a sinner, and we are let to speculate that she was a prostitute.

              You need to know that the particular piety the Pharisees practices was none too congenial to sinners.  A sinner was regarded as a flawed piece of work, an object of condemnation rather than rehabilitation.  The woman was a sinner, moreover, an intruder.  Were Simon not so stunned by the woman’s presence, he may have leapt to his feet and commanded his servants to usher her out. “Toss the sinner out!”  The woman, however, was too fast for him, her errand too urgent.  Before anyone had time to react, the woman was already engaged in the task for which she had come.

              Custom be damned.  The woman tossed off the head covering that all women were expected to wear, a disgraceful act.  Her long hair came tumbling down.  Extraordinary; an act that violated every norm, every custom.  The men were shocked, but they were to be even more shocked as they witnessed the woman at her work. 

              Picture the scene.  There is Jesus, the object of the woman’s attention.  Left with no time to react, Jesus is, with the others, a mere spectator.  What motivated her?  She washed the Lord’s feet with her tears; she dried them with her hair.  She anointed his feet with precious ointment.

              The woman barged into Simon’s home uninvited. She violated every cultural rule.  And the host, Simon, was prepared to grab her and throw her out, refuse to be tossed on the garbage pile.  But his reaction time was lengthened as he witnessed Jesus’ response to the woman.  As Simon looked on in amazement, Jesus made no attempt whatsoever to stop the woman.  He made no response.  How could this Jesus possibly call himself a prophet and tolerate a sinner’s overtures?

              Was it the expression on Simon’s face or some other tip off that gave Jesus access to Simon’s thoughts? We are not told.  But Jesus was onto Simon like a blanket.  He saw disapproval.  Now put yourself in Jesus’ place.  Suppose you were implicated in some event in your host or hostess’ home of which that person disapproved.  You became a little too adamant in stating your political views. You expounded on some topic altogether too long.  You reacted to some event in a way your host deemed inappropriate.  Worried that you may have given offense you look for an occasion to apologize, right?  So what did Jesus do in addressing Simon’s disapproval?

              He told a story, that’s what he did.  “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarius, and the other fifty.  [Jesus posed this question.] When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them, now which of them will love him more?  Simon might be excused if he groped a bit to understand where Jesus was leading, but he was ready enough with an answer to Jesus’ question.  “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt [will love the creditor more].”

              Logic served Simon well.  But mere logic alone would not take Simon where Jesus wanted him to be.  You see, hidden away in that story was a much larger point that Jesus wanted to make.  The larger point, quite interestingly, centered on custom and ritual.  Turns out that old Simon had missed the mark host-wise.  “I entered your house [Jesus declared]; you gave me no water for my feet…you gave me no kiss…you did not anoint my head with oil.”  Missed the mark, Simon did.  So little hospitality, so little love, to show his guest.  But that is not to say no hospitality was extended under Simon’s roof.  “Do you see this woman?  She has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair…she has not stopped kissing my feet…she has anointed my feet with ointment.”  Now that’s hospitality.

              A sinner earned scorn from those righteous types who shared Simon’s table.  It was the custom of the good Jew to avoid sinners at all cost.  Simon couldn’t bear the thought of scandal, the taint on his good name.  And it was his good name above all else he was anxious to preserve.  To that end he was meticulous in observing all the customs and the rituals of the Jews.  He went to his bed each night content that his bases were covered.  He was certain that all of his obligations as a man of God were paid in full.

              There was a mentality present among those Jews with whom Jesus hung out that the sinner, read all those who did not take their religious obligations and rituals seriously, who violated the commandments, incurred a lasting debt.  It was a “pay as you go God” that the Jew worshiped.  At all cost keep the balance sheet clean.  Never run up a debt, and you will earn your just rewards.  Simon wrote the woman off as a hopeless debtor, a loser.  But he was wrong.  Wasn’t he?

              The “pay as you go” mentality Simon brought to his faith converted God into some divine paymaster meting out rewards and blessings on the basis of good deeds accomplished.  So invested was he in that way of thinking that Simon and his kind could not begin to conceive of a God who didn’t fit their mold.  Bottom line: he wouldn’t risk debt, which is just another way of saying that he couldn’t risk the extravagant mercy of God.

              How the woman in our lesson discovered the extravagance of God we are not given to know.  But discover it she did.  A sinner cut off from all those respectable “pay as you go” types who wouldn’t give her the time of day, her sin drove her to God.  Now I know that none of us can relate to the woman’s predicament.  None of us labor under her burden.  But if sin were an issue for us, wouldn’t it be great to know that we had an extravagant God in our corner, a God willing to forgive our sin, even those sins for which we can’t forgive ourselves.

              Some of us may have grown up with the notion that our sin is the last thing we can bring to God.  Ashamed, we hold a ledger sheet so loaded with debt that we deem ourselves lost.  We judge ourselves sternly.

              Sadly, the church itself, self-righteous and holding itself at arm’s length from the unclean, has in many instances been complicate in promoting a piety alien to the teaching of Christ.  “Not here, you don’t belong here.”

              There is another message, and it is “debtors, come.”  No message in the scriptures is more forcefully sounded.  But we aren’t buying it are we?  The extravagance of the invitation runs completely counter to our experience.  We cannot conceive of such an extravagant mercy.

              Where do you stand with God? Are you a debtor?  How would you calculate your debt to God?  How much do you owe?  Fifty? Five hundred? Five thousand? Perhaps you are satisfied with the appearance of your debt ledger. Good for you.  Let God direct his extravagance elsewhere.  But perhaps there is someone here for whom a little---a lot?---of God’s extravagance would be most welcome right now. Don’t shrink back.  Don’t count yourself out.  Believe in God.  Trust in God.  In Christ, God has demonstrated that he can afford to carry our debt?  You see, in God’s house that is the way things get done.

              Forgiveness?  Mercy?  In our accounting those commodities carry a big price tag.  But God can afford it.  Just look at that cross.  The debt has been paid.  All those debts we have been holding have been paid.  Thanks be to God for that marvelous grace.  AMEN.

PRAYER

              O God, the mind is a wondrous gift, but insufficient to grasp the divine things you would have us to see.  For that we need more that mere intellect can provide.  For that we need faith, faith to imagine a world untainted by the pollutants of sin and death, faith to envision a world where peace is more than a desired possibility, but a reality in day to day experience.

              Lord, we are a needy people.  We pray that you will hasten the day when the malignancy of war is at last routed.  And thus we pray for those forced to live in that wound today, our friends in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere where lives are burdened by the curse of war. We pray for the day when we will learn how to live in harmony with nature rather in opposition to it.  We pray for the day when “dysfunctional” ceases to be the verdict rendered on so many of our families.  We pray for the day when every child will awaken from sleep to enjoy a bright prospect, a kind or affirming word.  We pray for the day when the ill fed, the ill clothed, the ill housed will exchange the rags of despair for a wardrobe of hope and justice.  We pray for the day when issues of race, ethnic affiliation, or sexual preference no longer alienate us from our neighbor.  We pray for the day when the church at last speaks and acts from its center, Jesus Christ, rather than from the fringes where dogma and ideology might otherwise carry us.  We never ceasing praying, sovereign God, for the day when our prayers are answered.

              Lord, we pray for the faith community we have been privileged to build.  We thank you for the equipping of the saints that is carried out here.  We pray for our leaders, the session, giving thanks for the gifts they so generously share.  Grant onto them, and to all who serve in you name, ease at prayer, new freedom as they voice the concerns of the heart, renewed patience as they await your answers.  Be for all of us, teachers and taught, a sustaining presence as we inquire after your ways.  Where persistence in worship, prayer, and service have failed to deliver answers to the questions brought, O God, there speak a fresh and renewing word.  Where this community is tentative and slow to match commitment to the great opportunities you have given us, there may you Spirit supply what we lack.             

             Lord, forgive us for our sloth, our unwillingness to use the gifts we have been given.   Many of us are content to stand in the ranks.  We avoid responsibility.  Lord, everyone expects that this meeting will be held, this project completed, that vision realized, but few will take charge and lead.  O God, you called us to be a servant people, but many of us covet individual prerogative more than service, our personal freedom over the needs of the community.  Forgive us for being useless when we could be useful, for offering an excuse rather than offering a helping hand.

              O Lord, we come to you as we are, seeking to be that other person you have created us to be.  Accustomed to our sinful ways, grant us the will and the courage to establish new customs, new ways of thinking and acting.  Chasten us for our sins, but do not remove your steadfast, redeeming love.

              O Christ, our brother, in the sure and certain confidence that you are present now to hear our prayers and encourage us in the ways of righteousness we pray the prayer you taught us…