Not A Fan: Choosing Intimacy
1/21/2018 Psalm 139:1-18 Luke 7:36-50
Some of the ideas in this sermon came from Kyle Idleman’s series Fan or Follower which we did at our church.
We are in our third message in our series Not A Fan. We have looked at “Fan or Follower”, an “Open Invitation, and Today we will be looking At Choosing Intimacy. Let’s suppose for a moment you have a million dollars in your bank account and you want to make a difference in some poor teenagers lives. You meet two teens and they both say they really would like to be adopted by you. You think of how you can enrich their lives and how you can show them what a loving parent is like and you decide to go through with the adoption. You have plans for just all kinds of great things. You’re in court and the judge finalizes the adoption and wishes you well.
When you leave the courthouse, you tell your new kids, here’s what I have planned for us today. How do you feel when the teenagers respond, “we can’t do that, we got plans to be with our friends.” You keep your cool and you say, okay, well this week we, will go look at this school I have for you to consider. They respond, “we don’t want to go to another school, we want to stay with our friends. You say we will talk about that later. You say, we’re going to have a family night once a week to get to know each other better. They respond, do we have to come if we don’t want to? You say why did you want to be adopted to which they respond, “because we knew you were rich.” Whereas you were seeking relationship and intimacy, they were simply seeking access to things.
That’s kind of how fans treat God. They show up when they want something or need something. They will even invite God over for a moment or two, but they are expecting to get something. Followers on the other hand are trying to get to know who God is and for God to know who they are, so they can be helped.
In Luke Chapter 7, there is a guy by the name of Simon who is a Pharisee. Pharisees were very religious people who were leaders in the community. They studied the Scriptures quite often and would teach people what the meaning of the Scriptures were. They came up with all kinds of rules to make sure you were right with God. In addition to the laws of Moses in the first five books of the Bible, they had another who series of laws that they came up with to keep you on the path of holiness. Jesus had a few run ins with the Pharisees because he felt some of the laws they came up with were not in agreement with the word of God and sometimes even set aside the word of God.
For instance, God said “honor your father and mother” which included taking care of them in their old age, but the Pharisees declared, “If a person said, anything I might have given to you is now devoted to God, then the person would not have to take care of their parents. Jesus said this was cancelling out the word of God.
Jesus has done numerous miracles before chapter 7. He has cast demons out of people, he has healed people of many diseases and sickness, he’s done a miracle catching two boatloads of fish, he’s healed a man of leprosy and he’s recently healed a man who had been paralyzed. What amazed the Pharisees about this last healing was that Jesus said to the man, Friend your sins are forgiven. They were thinking, who can forgive sins, but God alone. They knew in saying that, Jesus was saying He was God. Jesus ha gotten some other Pharisees upset because he healed a man right in the synagogue or a church service on the Sabbath which was to be a day of rest. Jesus had done so much good for so many people that it was hard to say he wasn’t working with God, but he stirred up enough trouble by not following the traditions of the Pharisees that they did not know what to do with him.
Well one Pharisee by the name of Simon had been a fan of Jesus. He was aware of all that Jesus was doing and had done. Perhaps he had to make a decision for himself on whether Jesus was for real or a deceiver of the people. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow he invited Jesus over to his house along with some other important guests for dinner. Now this was going to be an important event and word spread that Jesus was going to be at a dinner party hosted by none other than Simon the Pharisee. The last party we know that Jesus had attended was a big party hosted by Levi the tax collector when Jesus invited Levi to come and follow him. The Pharisees had been furious that Jesus actually went to Levi’s party and ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners. Perhaps Simon wanted to show Jesus the difference between a party from sinners and a party from the righteous.
Well the guest reclined at the table. No doubt the big shots were there. They would have been seated around a horseshoe table, lying down on some low couches with their feet extended outwardly from the table. Normally when a guest would arrive, the host would give the person a kiss, and would either wash or have a servant wash the person’s feet. You would give them some inexpensive olive oil to anoint their head. I’m not sure what Simon’s agenda was, but he overlooked these matters. He wanted to know about Jesus, but he was opening the door of his heart to get to know Jesus.
Now word of this party got around, and people showed up in the courtyard to see who was there and what was being said. You can believe CNN, NBC, ABC, and all the rest were there, probably hoping some kind of fight might break out with Jesus and the Pharisees. They got more than they could have hoped for, when a lady comes the party uninvited. This is not just some lady. This lady has been somewhat of a success in her own business. She dresses well. She is well known in high society. She has wealthier men as part of her clientele. She is living her life as a prostitute most likely and its something that has left her in pain, in misery, and in need of a change for her life. She has heard about this party of Simon with Jesus attending. Perhaps one of her clients told her about it, and he too may be sitting at the table.
She knows that she is taking a huge risk to go to the house of a Pharisee. If Jesus had not have been there, Simon would have thrown her off his property immediately to keep rumors from flying left and right. She had heard the same stories about Jesus as Simon had, but they affected her in a different way. She came to that party, not as one who wanted to be a fan, she came as one who wanted to become a follower. She brought along a vial of expensive perfume to pour some on Jesus, just to show she was willing to demonstrate her love and commitment to follow him.
It would have been interesting to have known what the conversation was when she showed up. Some of the guests may have choked when they saw her. She simply came in and went to the feet of Jesus. She was surprised by what she saw, and immediately saw it as an opportunity to serve. Noone had washed Jesus’ feet, and she didn’t see any water close by, so she produced as many tears as she could to get enough water to get the dust off Jesus’s feet. She didn’t bring a towel, so she did something some considered disgraceful. She let down her hair in public, so that she could wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair. For a woman to let her hair down in public, had been grounds for divorce. After she got them clean, she broke the top of the perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet. No doubt she would have wanted to have poured it on his head as he had been due, but she wasn’t going to push things by going to the head of the table. This woman didn’t know why Jesus had not been given the courtesy he was due, but she was going to do something about it.
She risked all of this, because she wanted to know who Jesus really was on the inside. Could Jesus accept her knowing who she was and all that she had done. It is amazing that in the midst of all this, the woman never speaks a word. While she is doing this Jesus never speaks a word. There is some kind of a communication going on between Jesus and this woman that we cannot see. There is an intimacy that is taking place between the two of them. Somehow, she knows that Jesus knows who she is and that He’s accepting her offer. Jesus knows that she has received his love and affirmation even though it looks as though he is just eating.
Simon on the other hand thinks that what he has observed has told him, all that he need to know about Jesus. Fans look at Jesus from a distance, and say “I got this. I got all the information I need to know about Jesus.” If Jesus really was who he claimed to be, then he would have done this for me. He would have done that for my momma. He would have kept that from coming into my life. He would not have allowed this to happen. I would never have lost what I had. Because things did not turn out the way I thought they would, Jesus must not be for real.
If Jesus had wanted to get in good with the Pharisees, all he had to do was to tell this woman in a nice way. “You have no business being at this party. Please leave and I will talk with you later.” Because Jesus did not do what Simon considered the right thing to do, Simon rejects the Son of God who is sitting right in his own dining room. He says, “ If this man was even a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of a woman this is, that she is a sinner.
Simon gives this woman a tag that lumps her with a whole group of people. If you read the gospels, you will not find a place where Jesus looks at a person and says, “you are a sinner.” Jesus deals harshly with sin, but he doesn’t go around labeling people as sinners. He calls them daughter, son, child, son of Abraham, daughter of Abraham. The closest he comes is after he heals a guy, he finds the guy sinning in the temple a few hours later and he tells him stop sinning or something worse may happen to you and he tells the woman caught in adultery, “go and sin no more.”
The reason is that Jesus wants his followers to enter a relationship of intimacy with him. If you see yourself primarily as a sinner, it makes it hard for you to get to know God. Jesus wants to change us and make us into His own likeness.
Simon was hoping Jesus would write her off just like had. He saw a sinner who was never going to change and was always going to be that way. You may have had someone say the thing about you. They told you, you will never amount to anything. My friends if we are going to see changes in our life, we have to ignore the Simons around us and get to Jesus, and the people who have been touched by Him. WE have to see life the way He sees it and believe in what Jesus can do. Jesus sees a potential in us that others do not. Simon was so busy looking at what the woman had been, that he could not see what she could become. He had imprisoned her with his own label. We have to give people the freedom to change, the freedom to become and let go of our prejudices. If you look down on a person, you can never lift them up.
Simon was worried about what people were going to say about this woman at the party. Jesus could care less about what other people might say. He let this woman do all that she needed to do, to show her love and affection for him. It didn’t make him uncomfortable. He wanted to know her and for her to know him. Simon though he knew the woman in the same way he thought he knew Jesus.
Jesus knew what Simon was thinking and pretended for a moment that the woman was not there to ease the tension in the room. He asks Simon a theological question about two men, one owing a guy $500,000 and another owing $5,000 and guy cancelling both of their debts. He asks, which one will love the forgiving guy more. Simon is feeling pretty good with his answer but just in case it’s a trick question he says, “well I suppose the guy who was forgiven more would love more.”
Jesus lets him know, this is not a trick question. You have answered correctly. Then for the first time Jesus acknowledges the woman in the room. How do you think the woman felt when she heard Jesus say, “Do you see this woman?” What do you think is going through Simon’s mind and the mind of his guests. I think all of them saw her, but very few of them actually saw her. You see they saw the woman, but Jesus saw what she was doing and who she was becoming.
Jesus pointed out to Simon, how this woman had come to Simon’s rescue and did for Jesus the things that Simon should have done. This must have been a rather embarrassing point for Simon to hear in front of his guest. But Jesus’s goal isn’t too humiliate him, but to let him know, that he knew Simon far deeper than Simon thought he did.
We study the bible in order to see ourselves in it. Who are you most like in this story today.
Is it possible that we have some of Simon inside of us? Our treatment of Jesus is cool. It's at arm's length. We've invited Him to live in our house or we've invited Him to visit with us. But our treatment of Him is just to let Him be there, without him interfering in our lives or getting to deep in our business. He shouldn’t bother us about how we treat those who come into our homes or our space. Is it possible that Jesus could be in your house but not in your heart? After all we know the best way to run the things in our own house. Jesus is a fan of ours but not certainly our master.
Or do you see some of this woman in you. You know you can’t going on with things as they are in your life. You need a change, and it has to involve getting up close so that you can really know Jesus. So many people act or feel that they don't have a real need for God. Everything's ok and we can somehow make it on our own without Him. One of the great things that this woman models for us is the fact that, if we take a moment to let our heart really talk to us, we can all think of moments in our life where we have not been what we could have been.
That's a fundamental definition of sin: to miss the mark, to fail to be what we could have been. Or to transgress, to do wrong. This woman had a profound sense that she needed Jesus. She senses that Jesus is indeed one who loves her as He loves us. To identify with this woman in responding to the love of Jesus is to end the cool correct relationship, a casual relationship, a relationship that periodically finds me in church, finds me respectful toward Him, but has somehow not yet brought about a real response from my heart of, "Look at what He's done for me!
He died for my sins. He cares so much about me." We often talk about responding to the truth of God. How about responding to the love of God? How do we handle the love that is so great that the one who loves us will lay His life down for us? What can we say in response to that? Except, "I don't understand it, but if love is what You're looking for, then let me give it to You." God’s not looking for our sin, God is looking for our love.
We're often so afraid of intimacy with others when we say, "If you only knew me the way I am you'd never accept me." Have you ever felt that way? We're afraid. "If you really knew me as I am you wouldn't accept me." Many times we transfer that to God. God could never accept me because He really knows what's in me.
This story so dramatically reveals to us that here is a woman who stopped worrying about what other people might think and was willing to stand and let her hair down, physically and spiritually, I think there's a lot in that little phrase—letting her hair down in the presence of Jesus. Did Jesus say, "Don't do that?" No. "Your sins are forgiven you. Go in peace." Unconditional love and acceptance we find in Him, because He really knows us as we are. And really loves us as we are. And really seeks to bring His wholeness and peace and love and forgiveness into our life.
However, we can’t expect knowledge to replace intimacy, even though we often try to.
And I think we try to substitute knowledge for intimacy because knowledge is so much easier.
It’s easy for us to say, “Well, I know about Jesus,” but He wants to know us. That’s where we find Simon the Pharisee. He knew a lot about Jesus and his teachings, and he wanted to learn more. He calls him Teacher, emphasizing that he’s most interested in learning from Jesus, not opening up to Jesus. Simon sees all this woman does for Jesus, her embarrassing actions, and the Bible tells us in Luke chapter 7, verse 39 that, “When the Pharisee who had invited Jesus 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.’” And he says it to himself. What do you say to yourself when you look at others who aren’t in as good a situation as you think your self to be.
But Jesus, who knew Simon’s thoughts, answered him, “Look, I came in the house. You
did not give me a kiss, not even on my hand. She hasn’t stopped kissing my feet. You gave me nothing to wash my feet with, and she is washing my feet with her tears. You gave me no olive oil for my head; she has poured perfume on my feet.” And people can just see the brokenness of this woman, and then Jesus turns to this woman and He says, “Your sins
are forgiven. Go in peace.” Simon brought Jesus to the meal, but all he wanted was knowledge. He wanted to keep things shallow, and he defined his relationship by not washing Christ’s feet, not caring to kiss him, not being willing to anoint his head, but this woman was willing to open up to Jesus. She made herself vulnerable, being totally willing to open up and let Jesus know her.
So will you let Jesus know you? Will you embrace the close and intimate relationship He wants to have with you? Because with that intimate relationship comes forgiveness and something only followers truly experience.
