| Note: No sermon is quite the same when you read it. You miss the inflections, the expression that you gain in the hearing. The words below are only a close approximation of the sermon, taken from handwritten notes. Nevertheless, the words (as best as can be deciphered!) are shared with you here. The Webmeister |
Third Sunday after Pentecost I've never tried to keep track of how many funerals I've done as a priest. I've also never tried to total up the number of weddings or baptisms or Eucharists. But in every service you do there is for every priest one or two lines that even as you say them in the liturgy bring you up short inwardly. They make you pause and think, even if the people who attend the service cannot tell. In the marriage service, I am always caught by, oddly enough, the ring exchange. When the groom and bride repeat after me the words, "with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you," I always wonder if any of us have a clue that that means; for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. In the baptism service, it's the moment when I tip the oil cruet up and with my thumb I make the sign of the cross on an infant's forehead and say: "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and you are marked as Christ's own forever." And I always wonder if this child will remember in years to come that they are so marked. But in the burial office are words that I have said so many times and yet they always make me inwardly catch my breath. They are called the "commendation." It was written in the early 1600's by a man named John Costin who had it in a book of Private Devotions. I have said it many times at the bedside of someone who has just died and at every funeral. It goes in part, "Into thy hands O merciful Savior we commend thy servant. Acknowledge we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming." And I always wonder about any person's life, the somehow intertwined themes of sin and redemption, of being a sinner and a lamb of God at the one and the same moment. There used to be a sort of smug bumper sticker you saw on cars that read: "Christians aren't perfect, they're just forgiven." I always wondered if the people who had put those on their cars didn't do it out of pride that they really did feel morally superior to others because they claimed to be Christians. Because why would anybody be proud to advertise their sins. The ancient Eastern Orthodox "Prayer of Jesus" was an echo of the prayer of the tax collector in one of Jesus' parables. "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me a sinner." The monks were to repeat this prayer until it became like breathing in and breathing out, a basic part of being alive. In our Prayer Book, when a Priest has finished the Reconciliation of a Penitent, otherwise known as a Confession, he or she says to the person who has made their confession "The Lord has put away all your sins." then the penitent replies, "Thanks be to God." And the last line in response by the priest is "Go in peace, and pray for me a sinner." In other words, it seems to me that the issue of sin and redemption cannot be taken apart. One reflects the other. No one is without sin and no one is beyond redemption. This paradox was captured powerfully by Jimmy Grace on one of his Quiet Days in Advent on which he said, "Sin exists so that God can forgive it." When he said it at first, I thought he was saying gibberish. Yet this issue of sin and its redemption is exactly what the life and ministry of Jesus were all about. If the law given by God to Moses and his fellow Hebrew ex-slaves could have done the trick then the law would have saved everyone from sin. But it did not and could not. " This is St. Paul's point in the passage from a letter he wrote to some Christians in central Turkey some 25 years after the death of Jesus. He said "I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing." In other words if the law could keep us from hurting or destroying ourselves and one another then we would not have needed Jesus Christ and his death was meaningless. But no one is without sin and no one is beyond redemption. This is what the life of Jesus proclaims. The story in the gospel today takes place in Galilee in the house of a man named Simon. He was a Pharisee, one of the observant Jews who tried to stay out of worldly politics and tried to focus his life on simply keeping the law. Jesus is often a guest of Pharisees in Galilee who seemed to find his teachings powerful or interesting. He was invited to Simon's house to teach, to perhaps debate. The chief guests at the dinner table of a wealthy household would have reclined on low couches resting on their left elbows and reaching toward the table with their right hands. The couches were placed at an angle to the table with the guests' feet pointed away, like cars parked at an angle to a sidewalk. At such a dinner, people would have been allowed to come into Simon's house to stand around the sides of the room and listen as Jesus and Simon spoke and taught. Among those who came into the room and moved around and stood near the feet of Jesus as he reclined on his dining couch was a woman who was known in the town to be a sinner. Most likely she was a prostitute. Luke says that she came to Simon's house because she learned that Jesus would be there. She had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. Matthew and Mark place this story in Bethany near Jerusalem and use it to speak of Jesus' death which would soon follow. It takes place in the house of Simon called, "The Leper." But Luke places it here in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Well according to the story, the woman suddenly standing behind him by the foot of his couch begins to weep on his feet and dry them with her unbound hair and pour the contents of the alabaster jar of ointment on his feet. A Jewish woman of antiquity would never, after her marriage, have been seen in public with her hair unbound unless she was in extreme grief. Simon the Pharisee of course sees all this commotion and he is inwardly horrified that Jesus is allowing a sinner and a woman sinner to boot to touch him. At this moment Jesus guesses the prejudice of Simon's heart and tells him a simple parable. Two debtors have a debt they cannot pay. One's debt is 10 times the other. Both have their debts forgiven by their creditor. Then Jesus asks Simon which one will love the one who forgave their debt more. And Simon answers that just as you or I would if we had been guests and Jesus had asked us. "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And then Jesus proceeded to point out that Simon had not given him the traditional kiss of greeting for an honored guest. He had not had Jesus' feet washed as was customary for an honored guest. And he had not anointed his head with fragrant oil as was customary also. But this woman whom everyone deemed a vile sinner had done all these things. And Jesus said to Simon "The one to whom little is forgiven loves little." "The one to whom little is forgiven loves little." Maybe Simon clearly did not feel he needed that much forgiveness, probably like the person who puts on the bumper of their car a sticker that says "Christians aren't perfect — they're just forgiven." But the woman knew what Jesus' forgiveness meant. It meant that even though she was indeed a sinner, she was a sinner of God's own redemption, a lamb of his own flock. And the "grace" as St. Paul says of that forgiveness must have blazed up like a spark in the utter darkness of her heart. And then Jesus turned to her standing at his feet and spoke these blessed words that would only have been said by a madman or Son of God, "Your sins are forgiven." And there was a murmur that ran around the table of "well bred" Pharisee dinner guests, "Who does this man think he is to forgive sins!" But Jesus ignored his fellow dinner guests and kept his eyes on the woman and said, "Your faith has saved you, go in peace." It is always a strange thing, unless you are really thirsty you don't know how truly sweet a glass of water tastes. Unless you are truly hungry you don't understand the grace of a simple sandwich. And unless you are really in touch with your need to be forgiven, you can't really understand the grace of God. How can you appreciate Easter Sunday without the despair of Good Friday? Jimmy Grace said "sin exists so that God can forgive it." I wondered at the time what he meant. But now it is obvious. this is what Jesus lived and died for, to redeem sinners. When the day comes that some priest will be saying words over your casket or urn or body and he or she says: "Acknowledge we humbly beseech thee Lord, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming" — may you be among those blessed who already understand this paradox of sin and redemption because you see God face to face. Amen. The Reverend James T. Tucker June 17, 2007 *Past sermons may be found here. |
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