Love Matters Most of All

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June 16, 2013

Luke 7:36-8:3

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. ³⁷And 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. ³⁸She 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. ³⁹Now 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." ⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "Teacher," he replied, "Speak." ⁴¹"A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" ⁴³Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." ⁴⁴Then 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. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Therefore, 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." ⁴⁸Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." ⁴⁹But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

¹Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, ²as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, ³and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Sermon:

I had a plan, you know, for this sermon.  It was going to be a good ‘un.  I generally map out preaching texts, sermon titles, themes and hymns a month or so in advance, so Mary and I can coordinate music to craft consistent and meaningful worship for y’all.  I decided that two of this morning’s scripture readings fit together nicely: you’ve just heard them.  Paul in his usual intense manner describes the importance of justification through faith in Jesus Christ, and not works of the law.  Luke makes it more plain in his telling of the woman who interrupted Simon’s little dinner party to wash Jesus’ feet and anoint him with costly perfume.  Jesus calls Simon out for his obsession with the law and failure to show the faith the so-called “sinful” woman expressed. 

Oh yes, y’all, it would have been a powerful exposition on how Christ came and fulfilled the law, extending the covenantal love of God from the people of Israel to all of us, through grace.  That would have been my sermon…in fact I spent several hours writing that particular sermon this week.  But when I re-read it, it felt at best, forced, and at worst, false.

You see, it’s been a tough week.  A cousin whom I was very close to had a horrific surfing accident in Texas that left him completely paralyzed, relying on machines to breathe, and only able to communicate via blinking his eyes, and he died.  His partner had just made it through chemotherapy and they were surfing to celebrate her recovery.  He was 58 years old.  His name was Tommy, and he had the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. 

And at the same time, our beloved Bob Crigler was nearing the end of this life, and the beginning of eternal life, where crying and death, chemotherapy and cancer do not exist.  The night Bob passed away, I received a call from my mother that my cousin’s brother Lee had just suddenly died as well.  Like I said, it’s been a week.

 

Perhaps you would prefer a pastor who doesn’t venture into this uncomfortable personal territory.  Perhaps I would, too!

It would in many ways, after a week like this one, be a nice diversion to go forward with the theologically deep sermon on grace and law.  And I have to say, it was very tempting to just not mention the sadness I’ve felt this week.  Because that is easier, isn’t it?  To read scripture as an escape from our pain rather than letting it open us up to that grief, and find God’s healing there? 

Isn’t it easier make this text academic and rich, while at the same time keeping it at arms length so that we don’t become too uncomfortable or displaced by it?  But if we are to grow in this journey of faith, we have to take the harder road: the one of bringing our sadness and pain, our grief and worry to this text, desperate for a hint of hope like a wanderer in the desert desperate for water.

And so, I allowed the hollow place in my soul to begin a conversation with our gospel reading this morning.  Do you know what I realized, perhaps for the first time after reading this text hundreds of times in my life?

That wild woman, that sinful woman who gatecrashed a civilized dinner party and created quite a scene bathing Jesus’ feet, washed those dusty feet of our Savior with her tears.  Not with profound, theologically appropriate prayers.  Not with a forced smile or artificial laughter, but with her tears.  We’re not told why she was crying.  Many have said it’s because she knew that crucifixion awaited Jesus and mourned for him.

But this week, I don’t think so.  I think that desperate woman was like any of us, and so she carried around all of her carefully concealed, pent-up grief, her sadness at being labeled by her mistakes, her guilt from not being who she knew she could be. 

And when she finally, finally, reached the feet of her Lord, bearing that terribly heavy load, all she could do was weep.  All she could do was unload that emptiness at the feet of the one who seemed to really see her when no one else did.  The one who seemed to really be able to save her.  And Jesus did.  He rebuked Simon for judging her emotional outburst and said, “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven, hence she has shown great love.”  And then he turned to her and said, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”  Her faith saved her: not the stoic, right-answer kind of faith of Simon, but the messy, emotional, uncomfortable, inconvenient faith found in tears.  Having left it all at the feet of her Savior, peace was no longer an impossibility.  It was a promise. 

My cousin, knowing that he would never be able to breathe again on his own, was able to leave this life for his promised peace on his own terms.  When my parents shared with him how much we all cared for him, he slowly, blinking one-letter-at-a-time replied.  Here is what he said, his last words to us:  love matters most of all.

Bob expressed this to me as well in his final days.  I told him Billie was there and he could tell her he loved her.  In true Bob wit and charm, he replied, “I tell Billie I love her every single day.” 

Why is it that we have to come to the end of this life to see and believe that simple truth, that love matters most of all?  Why is it we so often go through our days like Simon: so concerned about the table being set correctly and the house (and our lives) being spick-and-span that we miss our Savior inviting us to come, sit at his feet, and weep, or talk, or laugh, or do whatever it is our souls are most desperate for?

Life is too short, too precious, to waste with obsessing over the letter of the law as if our own piety will buy us salvation.  Friends, we are already saved!  It’s done!  Christ did that for us.  What would our lives be like if we really believed this? 

I know, we say we are saved through Christ all the time, but I’m not talking about reciting a prayer or accepting Jesus.  I’m talking about knowing, in the core of our being, in those moments of loss and grief, of blue eyes we will not see again this side of heaven, that Jesus is already bringing the salvation we need; not just to make it to eternal life, but to make it through this day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

What is salvation if not the undeserved outpouring of God’s grace on us?  What is our faith if not a recklessly loving response to that grace?  And what does any of it matter if we don’t hold onto it when we feel most lost or sad, or if we don’t hold it for others when they feel most alone? 

Love matters most of all.  It turns out, my cousin Tommy preached in that painfully-pronounced sentence what this grace and law stuff is all about: love.  Christ made the law of God complete in his love, and through grace we are all grafted into that everlasting covenant of love.  My cousins, Bob, Mark’s father, you, me, all of us. 

You (and I) need to know that, in Christ, our forgiveness and salvation is complete.  So we can stop wasting this precious life trying to one-up others with law-without-love holiness, or prove to ourselves and God why we deserve salvation.  It’s done, we are saved.  Now what will we do with that salvation?  Will we lord it over others like Simon scoffing in the corner at the sins of an unwelcome guest?  Or will we come to the One who has done the saving, and pour out all that we are in grateful love, until through tears and honesty, that Savior calls us to rise, and speaks those promised words, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Love matters most of all.   Thanks be to the God who teaches us this again and again, to the Savior who welcomes us to lay down our burdens at his feet, and to the Spirit who binds us together in an eternal family that death can’t even begin to defeat.  Amen.