Do You See? Breaking Boundaries 4
Feb 8, 2009 Luke 7:36-50
Intro:
Charlie chaplin face illusion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vtZXELRK8&eurl=http://www.moillusions.com/2006/06/charlie-chaplin-hollow-face-illusion.html&feature=player_embedded
The British guy narrating the clip makes a fascinating statement: “Your brain refuses to see it as hollow… and this demonstrates the immense power of top-down knowledge, which will actually counter signals bottom-up from the senses, and force an extraordinary illusion in which the sensory information of the present is cancelled by immense knowledge derived from the past.”
Jesus had the exact same impact on his society. He came into a world where there was an “immense knowledge derived from the past”, which completely determined the way many people chose to see and understand their present, and Jesus spoke truth so that people would have the opportunity to see reality from God’s point of view. An optical illusion, such as the one we just watched, is at best intriguing. When Jesus reversed things, many found it offensive, base, unacceptable, and simply wrong. Today we are going to see another example of that as we continue our journey through Luke 7.
Background:
Last Sunday we heard Jesus speak the words, “34 The Son of Man… feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!” And then, to make the point even more obvious, Luke tells another story.
But before I read the story, we once again need to step into a far different time and culture, so that we understand what is happening. In Jesus’ time, wealthy people would, from time to time, throw a banquet in their homes, and they may invite a visiting teacher as an honoured guest. Now, on these occasions, the meal was a semi-public affair: the door would be open for any who wanted to come and watch the meal. Invited guests would be served food, and others would simply be allowed in to listen to the conversation to follow, which often included a time of debate, discussion, or teaching. At these banquets, the guests would lay on their sides, with their heads towards the extremely low table, feet out behind them.
We also must remember that there were very strict guidelines governing male-female interaction. Women were treated poorly – they were to always keep their heads covered, they were not to speak to men, there would certainly be no touching unless established roles demanded it, such as a female servant washing the feet of a guest. There were no public displays of affection. One of the leading schools of thought (Hillel) permitted a man to divorce his wife if she burned his dinner. I had a Bible prof who once explained that in Jesus’ day, the social ranking went: men, dogs, women. Now imagine how much further dismissed would be a woman who was a prostitute. That should be enough to shed beginning light on the story:
Luke 7:36-50 (NIV)
36Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38and 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.
39When 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."
40Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."
"Tell me, teacher," he said.
41"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,(one denarii equaling an average day’s wage) and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"
43Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.
44Then 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. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
48Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
49The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"
50Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
Shaking Up The Party: vs. 36-39
So Jesus gets invited to another party – this one not at the home of an outcast tax collector, this one at the home of a Pharisee named Simon. An upstanding member of the community, who out of curiosity or social obligation or a desire to debate the new rabbi throws a banquet with Jesus as one of the guests, likely the guest of honor. As Jesus is laying at the table, one of the onlookers, described to us as “a woman who had lived a sinful life” (which almost certainly means that she was a prostitute), started to do something quite unacceptable. One commentator describes it like this:
Her actions are accentuated by the narrator, who allows each to stand out individually and who notes that each was performed continuously. She is behind Jesus because of the placement of people around the U-shaped table; reclining on his left side, his legs would have stretched out behind the person to his right, giving her ready access to his feet. Within her cultural context – especially with women readily viewed as temptresses and/or sex objects, and all the more given her apparent reputation as a prostitute – her actions on the whole would have been regarded (at least by men) as erotic. Letting her hair down in this setting would have been on a par with appearing topless in public, for example. She would have appeared to be fondling Jesus’ feet, like a prostitute or a slave girl accustomed to providing sexual favors. (Joel Green, Luke, NICOT, p. 310).
What are we to make of this? If you or I were to have been present, we would have clearly known that this behavior was unacceptable. Imagine if someone like Billy Graham were out to dinner and a topless prostitute approached and started to touch him in a way that “would have been regarded as erotic”. It would be all over the news, and the Christian community would reject any suggestion that this was all completely innocent.
So I can identify with Simon the Pharisee. From his perspective, this behavior is not ok, it is out-of-bounds, grounds for disqualification, proof of the moral failure of the leader. It is like the British guy says in the video, “the sensory information of the present is cancelled by immense knowledge derived from the past.” So what does Jesus do?
In Response, A Story: vs. 40-43
As he does so often and so well, Jesus launches into a story about two men in debt, one with a lot of debt, one with an amount one-tenth of the first, both with no capacity to repay their loans, who have their debts cancelled by the moneylender. And he looks at Simon and asks a question: “Now which of them will love him more?” Simon is a smart guy, so qualifies his answer because he doesn’t want to get trapped, and he says, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
He gives the correct answer, but still ends up trapped – not by his words, but by his actions. Jesus details them in the next paragraph:
The Overflow of Love: vs. 44-50
Here comes the zinger to the Pharisee – all the actions which he witnessed, and concluded were sexually inappropriate behavior, were in fact a bestowing of honor which results in shame upon the host, not upon the prostitute or Jesus the recipient. Essentially, Jesus says,
• “you didn’t give me water to wash my feet – she has washed them with her tears”. (The verb used actually means “she rained tears”).
• “you didn’t greet me with a polite kiss on the cheek or the hand – she has not stopped kissing my feet”
• “you didn’t offer me even a small bit of cheap household Olive oil for my parched forehead – she broke a bottle of expensive perfume and rubbed it on my feet.”
All of that combines to completely reverse the situation – it is not the prostitute who has acted shamefully, but rather the Pharisee.
It is evident that there is more to the story that has not been told. What experience had this woman had with Jesus previously, which has evoked such a strong emotional reaction, made her willing to publicly humiliate herself, made her risk walking into a Pharisee’s home where she could expect to be rejected and kicked out? We don’t know. Perhaps she was one of many Jesus had healed. Perhaps she had been moved deeply by his teaching. Perhaps she heard the story of the widow whose only son was raised from the dead, and she believed that Jesus could likewise help her from her horrible situation. We don’t know the details, but we do know that something has happened to get this woman to come and pour out a deep, passionate, consuming love for Jesus, regardless of what anyone else might think.
Who is more worthy of our admiration – the woman or the Pharisee?
Let us take careful note of Jesus’ words: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven.” Jesus is not condoning her previous lifestyle. He is not dismissing it, excusing it, pushing it under the carpet. Another translation puts it better, “her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.” (NLT). But neither is Jesus staying in the past, writing her off as hopeless, rejecting her once again. And this translation also clarifies the important truth that her love flowed out of the forgiveness she received – she hadn’t earned forgiveness by her love for Jesus, she experienced forgiveness and the response was her deep love. And lest there be any confusion, Jesus states that again for everyone: “Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven… Your faith has saved you; go in peace."”
Do You See?
As Jesus turns the conversation from the parable to the truth, he asks Simon a critical question: “Do you see this woman?” I think it is a lot more than a simple question to bring something to his attention – I’m quite sure from her actions that everyone in the room had seen and noticed, and the text tells us that Simon did. Jesus is asking something deeper – do you see? Really, do you see this woman? Or is all you see your prejudice, your misguided notions of the appearance of virtue, your preconceived ideas, your forgone conclusions? Do you see that here is a woman, a human being, a real live person?
You see, I think many of us suffer from the same problem as Simon – we don’t really see others. Or at least, we don’t see them the way God sees them. We tend to look at a person like this and see an angry scary drunk, maybe God sees a paranoid schizophrenic whose family couldn’t or wouldn’t care for him. We see a prostitute, maybe God sees a girl who was sexually abused, ran away from home, got threatened by a pimp who got her addicted to drugs and then forced her to sell her body. Or maybe we see a smiling mom, God sees someone a woman whose kids are un-manageable and whose husband is having an affair. We see a man in a business suit with the thumbs-up, God sees the man who is addicted to gambling and who has wiped out all his retirement savings. We see a strong, confident-looking teenager, God sees a boy terrified of the world and what place he may have in it.
My point is not that things are not what they seem from the outside, though that is true. My point is this: being the people of God means that we learn to see people the way God sees them, not the way our world sees them, and then we treat them differently. We ignore the socially imposed boundaries that keep people from forgiveness and hope, we cross over those and go to people who are lonely, angry, hurting, who appear to have it all together but just underneath the surface are crying in agony, and we offer them the hope we have in our knowledge of a Savior who comes for the lonely and the angry and the hurting, and who comes with an ability to forgive, offer a new start, to bring power to change, and a new way of life.
And we do it all out of love. A love that comes from us, like the woman in the story, having met Jesus and having been forgiven by Jesus and then being filled with gratitude and love and a determination to share this incredible Jesus with everyone, anyone who will listen, so that they too can discover a God who loves them and who longs to forgive and embrace and make them whole.
When we look through the eyes of God at the people around us, we don’t see the surface. We don’t see the socially acceptable or expected. We don’t see just the past and the mistakes. We see a lost child of God, and we see an opportunity to share a story of a God who still loves, who still refuses to just go with a stereotype, who still offers hope, and who still loves to say, “Your sins are forgiven… Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
As we go in peace today, we go with that message as well. Our sins are forgiven, our love for Jesus is deep and passionate, and our experience can be the experience of others whom we meet this week. May we find and cultivate opportunities to share that story
