Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is from The Holy Longing: the Search for Christian Spirituality by Ronald Rolheiser

Sanctity has to do with gratitude. To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude. Nothing more and nothing less.

Soren Kierkegaard once defined a saint as a person who can will that one thing. What is missing in his definition, however, is the question of motivation, namely, the real energy behind the willing. We can will and do the right thing for the wrong reason. Thus, for example, I can do a selfless act for others, but be manipulative in that supposed generosity; I can die for a cause and simply be acting out of my own hurt or out of infantile grandiosity; and I can be a warrior for truth mainly because I energize through conflict. I can do all kinds of good things out of anger, guilt, grandiosity, or self-interest. Moreover, like the older brother of the prodigal son, I can be scrupulously faithful for years and years, but with a bitter heart.

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from Luke, Chapter 7, Verses 36 to 50

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took a place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that Jesus 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 Jesus 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, “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 cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love the creditor more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning towards the woman, Jesus 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 Jesus 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 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This Week's Sermon

Date: June 20, 2010

Title: Do the Right Thing

Message Delivered By: Rev. Dr. Joe McMurray

While on a road trip to visit their children and grandchildren, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant, and resumed their trip.

When leaving the restaurant, the elderly woman unknowingly left a very expensive pair of glasses on the table, and she didn't miss them until they’d been driving for about 45 minutes. To make things worse, because she was hesitant to upset her husband (she knew that telling him this news would not be good), the woman waitied another fifteen minutes to build up her courage.

Finally, she told her husband about the glasses. To add to the aggravation, they had to travel another 20 minutes more before there was an exit ramp so they could turn around to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.

All the way back, the husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained, he griped and moaned, and he scolded his wife for her constant forgetfulness. He was relentless during the entire return drive.

The more he chided her, the more agitated he became, in fact, in was so infuriated, she could almost see the steam pouring out of the top of his head. He would not let up for a single minute.

To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant. As the woman started to got out of the car to hurry inside to retrieve her glasses, the old man yelled out to her, "While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and the
credit card."

See, without fathers, life would be pretty dull and we wouldn’t have all these funny stories to tell.
_____________________________________________________________

Will you pray with me? We are grateful for our fathers, or those who have served as our father-figures—those who have guided us, who helped provide for us, and who have supported us on our journeys. May we never forget the power of endearing compassion in our lives, the external desire for us to achieve the most that we can, and the unconditional love it takes for us to grow as individuals and as a people. For the guidance we have received in the past, and the guidance we continue to receive from you, let us always give thanks. And may my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.
_____________________________________________________________

Our Gospel lesson is an age-old story, appearing in some form or other in all four gospels. In each story, the characters, the location, and the purpose of the encounter appear in varied configuration, but the message always includes one or more of the following elements: a woman humbles herself at Jesus’ feet; she does not necessarily seek forgiveness, though she is forgiven; she makes connection by offering hospitality, gentleness and tenderness as a gift to a crowd-weary Jesus; Jesus is more than willing to accept her gift; and in each evangelists’ rendition, there are those present who strenuously object to her presence and her action.

In Luke’s version of the tale, the Pharisee, Simon, has already judged the woman. He apparently already knew of her character, though the text does not claim what type of “sinner” she was. When the scriptures speak of “women” and “sin” in the same sentence, you can assume they are referring to adultery or prostitution, which is one of the gravest of sins for women, since women were considered to be the “property” of someone else. Still, this is conjecture on our part since there is no mention of it in the story.

Simon thinks he “knows” the woman; but perhaps he only thought he knew her. He had an expectation of the “kind” of woman she must be, particularly in light of her actions, which were considered quite forward. Simon painted her with one stroke of the brush—he painted her the color of sin.

It did not matter to him that her gifts, her blessings, her beauty—all parts of her—had been whittled away to leave one defining characteristic—and paying attention to her was a waste of time for she was unworthy.

Simon’s judgment of the woman was not even the key to his concern. That matter was already settled. It was Jesus’ reaction to her—the mere fact that he interacted with her that rattled Simon. He not only judged the woman; now he was judging Jesus. What was going through Simon’s mind?

Was Jesus really being ignorant, was he just playing ignorant, or was he, even worse, a false prophet? If he was a true prophet, wouldn’t he have inherently known the woman’s character without asking? And would he not then have refused to have anything to do with her?

Simon didn’t even have to speak his assumptions of the woman; Jesus sensed them and understood them. And, though perhaps not shocked by Simon’s reaction, Jesus was prompted to share the parable of the creditor and the debtors.

Jesus’ point was that we are all in debt; that we all have weaknesses and faults, and that the one furthest into debt actually has the most to gain when the debt is ultimately forgiven. Now don’t get any ideas: Jesus was certainly not saying, “Go on. Be the biggest sinner you can be, and your reward will be greater.”

But Jesus knew that there’s so much more to our humanity than what is apparent to the naked eye. There is so much more to human life, so much more depth to each of us in the entirety of our being, so much so that we cannot, we must not judge or be judged by others. The depth of forgiveness is for God, not for us, to determine. It is God who forgives human weakness and transgression.

By example, and by his very nature, Jesus treated the woman in the totality of what he knew her to be—and what we all are—flawed human beings. Some of us are more flawed than others, perhaps, but each of us have imperfections and faults, each of us face temptations, each of us commits transgressions, each of us commit sins of omission, if you will, by not acting when we should. Each of us face these things that keep us from wholeness, and keep us from oneness with God.

You know, it’s very hard for human beings not to judge. Life is filled with judgment and with people who are self-appointed judges. When I was a child, we watched the news every night at 5:30pm. Walter Cronkite was as much a fixture in the dining area of our kitchen as the tables and chairs. In those days, news was news, or at least, it seemed to be news.\

Today, most of the news is more about opinion—and opinion is about judging. We’re all guilty of it. And I don’t think we stop to think that when we weigh in—when we offer our opinion—we are, in a sense, judging. And sometimes we do that even when the judgment at hand doesn’t even concern us.
Try to get through a day, sometime, without saying something or sending an email or a text, or making a comment on the phone or on Facebook, that doesn’t have an opinion in it that places one thing against another. It’s a challenge most of us couldn’t even begin to take. It is ingrained in us as part of our behavior and part of our expectations of one another.

When Jesus did the comparison between Simon and the woman, it was Simon who came up short. The woman’s sins, which were many as Jesus acknowledged, were forgiven before she even entered the room. The one who cannot admit their fault, cannot admit the depth of their own sin, though they might receive forgiveness all the same, will have spent a wasted life, often judging the lives of others, while experiencing emptiness and isolation.

In the bible studies I’ve conducted over the years, we’ve discussed at length the sin of inhospitality. This was the greatest sin of Sodom, contrary to the ultra-conservative view of the scripture: treating the stranger with disdain, contempt, and irreverence. As that principle is applied here and the failure to provide hospitality becomes the issue, it is Simon, not the woman, who must answer for his sin. It is Simon who fails the test.

Taking this lesson even further, if we examine the “breaking news” of this story—it is that we must practice humility, honesty, and openness; that we must be willing to allow transformation to occur in our lives despite the risks; that we must admit our wrongdoing, and acknowledge others fairly, absent our personal judgment. Then we will experience lives great in abundance and truth; lives worth living; lives that, according to Jesus, will be rich in love and will be special in the sight of God.

And that’s not all. Ronald Rolheiser says that rather than striving to live a gracious life to become saintly alone, it is the motivation, the energy, the character behind what we do that determines our essence; in other words, doing the right thing for the right reason.

You know, at one time in my life, when I was younger and fancied myself the “philosopher” (you know, when I was in college), I was of the belief that there was no truly unselfish act. I reasoned that even the most noble cause might be advanced for the right reason, yet still not be unselfish.

Whether an act of graciousness was done privately, secretly or was widely known by others, deep within us—in our very conscience—we would still know, we would have the feeling of self-satisfaction—that we’d done something good. And in my view, that spoiled everything. You see, I assumed that the “feel good” afterglow from a positive action, regardless of its intention, was in itself a form of selfishness; so that even a good deed done for the right reason, was not entirely blameless. As you can see, I had a lot of time on my hands.

I have since revised my opinion about what might be deemed a selfish versus an unselfish act. I came to the conclusion that my analysis was a bit harsh. Not only that, I discovered that if my reasoning had been advanced, it would give us permission never to strive to accomplish anything for good.

Ultimately, who cares about the “nth” degree of the principle of selfishness, as long as we are ethically engaged for the right reason, and the general welfare is advanced? We can argue until we’re blue whether the woman with the alabaster jar came to anoint Jesus’ feet because she felt guilty, or because she wanted to be forgiven.

We can speculate what her intentions were and whether her intentions were pure—she simply wanted to comfort Jesus; or tainted—she needed to wipe the slate clean so she could be seen as repentant and perhaps begin to repair her reputation. The latter reasoning, I must admit, is deeply cynical and judgmental; it is also symptomatic of those who have much to hide, and therefore, would rather be in a position of judgment than focus the light on themselves.

We could live our lives like the brother of the prodigal son, as Rolheiser suggests—faithful for years, but ultimately, a long life lived with a bitter, frustrated, and angry heart—and we would end up in that same way. Or we could, like the father in that story, put aside judgment, caution, suspicion and punishment. We could, instead, open our arms, choose to forgive the past, and move into the grace that redemption and reconciliation bring.

We would be more at one with God if, as we are encouraged in the spirit of Jesus’ teaching, we nurture a full and generous heart, do the right thing for the right reason, and above all, be gracious, gentle and compassionate with the hearts of our sisters and brothers. And may we accomplish all of this with a true sense of gratitude, always, for the opportunity. Let us continue to follow where God is leading. Amen.