Sermon Archive
Readings for 17 June 2007
Proper 6
Year C
2 Samuel 11:26-12:10,13-15
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD, and the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, "There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him." Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity."
Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master's house, and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."
David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan said to David, "Now the LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die." Then Nathan went to his house. The LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became very ill.
Galatians 2:11-21
When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh 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.
Luke 7:36-50
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him-- that she is a sinner." Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "Teacher," he replied, "Speak." "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
Sermon
The Rev. Susan B.P. Norris
St. Luke 7: 36-50
“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but (people) who are forgiven little, love little.” And Jesus said to the woman, “your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
In nomine . . .
Quite rightly, the idea that all good things - from Hershey’s kisses to the end of segregation on public buses, are equally virtuous in God’s eyes – (or in ours for that matter) – is a non-starter. Behaving ethically must be something other than thoughtlessly and/or indiscriminately doing whatever seems “loving” at the moment. People who prefer many immutable rules; and who want those of us who teach, “love is the central commandment” to correct our erroneous and unserious way of thinking simply assume that human beings can’t sort out different kinds of love. And since we simply can’t use our own judgment, we therefore need a literal rule about almost everything.
Orthodox Judaism, many Shiite Muslims, monasteries & convents with seriously rigid rules, several brands of fundamentalist Christians, and most sects work as hard as possible to find a rule or tradition for every imaginable action or possible happening. That can be fun for certain of us who like counting angels on pinheads. But for lots of people most rules and some tradition, become “the law” in the sense in which Paul used those words today saying, “A person is justified not by the works of the law, but by faith in Christ Jesus. . . . No one is justified by the works of the law.” Paul here understands and warns us that to take the law with ultimate seriousness is to turn it into a God – and thus to worship an idol – something we humans have created.
How then can we live as followers of Christ, as believers in the One God, as Christian persons here in Mercerville/Hamilton without a great many binding rules to deal with our many and great serious ethical and human questions? How do we know or figure out what is of God, AND what is not of God? How do we in the church decide what parts of life’s mixture of goodness and evil are things/people/ideas we need to support and ways we need to act? How do we decide which ways NOT to act?
And anyway, who elected us to decide these things? Second question first - God has elected us. In calling us to be part of the People of God, members of the Body of Christ, God has called us to grow up into Christ’s likeness – to become, as we have said here before – “alter Christi-” “other Christs."
But if we have that answer, We have also begun to find answer to our first question, How do we decide what is good and what is evil within the mixture of all things that is our human life?
The answer is, of course, that we should look at, look toward, look to Jesus. What did Jesus say, and do, and teach about goodness and evil? What, for instance, can we gather about “goodness” from today’s lessons?
The woman who wiped Jesus feet with her hair, is a story we hear every Monday in Holy Week. In this version, she enters the house of a priest quite uninvited, She washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, and anoints them with very expensive perfume, out of an Alabaster jar (which she had, by definition, to break to get the contents out.) She also wipes Jesus feet with her hair, and and kisses them as a gesture of submission and/or servant hood. The host Pharisee, our local PhD. in Talmudic law, is horrified. He does not believe that any rabbi should be contaminated by touching or being near such a person. And he is surprised that Jesus, who must know by looking what sort of person this woman is, does not order her away immediately.
Jesus, however, has other ideas about what is truly good. Jesus says,” I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loves much; but (people) who are forgiven little, love little.”
Jesus looks at this woman, and sees and feels her compassion. He feels her love and concern for him, for his tired dirty feet, for his coming rejections by this and other Pharisees, and his just plain human loneliness - even at a dinner party. Jesus feels her compassion – one of the greatest, strongest most world altering feelings in all of creation. Somehow, she has apparently grasped what is happening in the room at its emotional level.
Does she understand the theology and politics the men are almost certainly talking over her head? Probably not. But her deep love and concern for other people, helps her to grasp the essence of others feelings and situation. Jesus says she has done much wrong; but her compassion – her loving – keeps her moving toward God and enables her to serve the Christ.
Therefore Jesus offers her the only greater form of love, that is, Jesus forgives her. He is certain she will accept forgiveness, Because she has so much practice in making room for love in her life through her compassion for others. It is, if you will, as though her compassion for other people has created a dwelling place within her for God’s forgiveness.
From this story alone, we learn that God values compassion and forgiveness – and that those who practice these forms of loving are on the path to being Christlike, despite the probability that our attempts to be compassionate and forgiving will fall far short of Jesus’ self-giving for us in his life, death and resurrection.
Now look back at many of the biblical “laws.” You’ll see that, from the Ten Commandments to the long lists of rules in the books Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the laws are guidelines that God and wise persons throughout history have offered on how to show compassion and forgiveness. They exist to tell us what makes people feel respected, cared for, welcomed and treated as part of God’s family.
They are guidelines for behaving toward others as God has behaved and does behave toward us. They are guidelines for demonstrating overflowing generosity, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness.
Now, here’s the tough part, the “grown up” part if you will, the part we don’t explain to toddlers and younger school kids. Whenever a rule, however true and excellent it usually is, fails us by preventing our demonstrating in some instance overflowing generosity, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness; then that rule, in that situation, does not apply. To keep the “rules”, but to fail in genuine compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and/or generosity, is to be led into sin.
David quite properly did not marry Bathsheba until she was widowed and her period of mourning was over. David kept the law – except that the law did not envision his sending Bathsheba’s husband off to a certain death. David suffered from greed and a serious lack of compassion for Uriah the Hittite. His rule following did not protect him from God’s displeasure nor, I suspect, from his own guilt.
Our lives are not much different, (Although I doubt that even King David with all his wives and possessions, and in all his glory could match our modern American sense of greed and entitlement.) God has given us wise laws and many possessions, but we can only journey toward God as we work toward becoming ever more compassionate, ever more able to feel & respond to other peoples’ situations and lives.
“Compassion,” says Tom Ehrich, “is a powerful force. It is more powerful than revenge or (punishment.) Harshness merely sows seeds of future conflict. Compassion changes the ground on which we stand. “
The loves which are compassion and forgiveness not only change the situation (“the ground on which we stand,”) They also change us. Compassion and forgiveness are spiritual powers that mold us slowly into a likeness of the Christ, whom Our God in great compassion sent into this world to save us and to forgive us.
We can live then, as Christians without a firm rule for every life situation. As long as we continue to faithfully measure our individual lives, and our life together, by the strength of the compassion which we offer to each other and to the world. Yes, we will make a million mistakes. We will sin, as did the woman who washed Jesus’ feet. But we can hold tight to the words with which I began.
“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but (people) who are forgiven little, love little.” And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Amen
In nomine . . .
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