Who Invited Her?

On June 20, 2010, in Morning, Sermons, by Richard

Listen to Readings and Sermon The Good News Written The Yoga of Jesus, Paramahansa Yogananda Although [human beings are] beset with the perplexities that accompany residence in a physical body, God has provided [us] with the potential to remain in heavenly consciousness regardless of outer circumstances… The one who is conscious of God enjoys… supreme [...]

Listen to Readings and Sermon

The Good News Written

The Yoga of Jesus, Paramahansa Yogananda

Although [human beings are] beset with the perplexities that accompany residence in a physical body, God has provided [us] with the potential to remain in heavenly consciousness regardless of outer circumstances… The one who is conscious of God enjoys… supreme Bliss whether he [or she] is active in the outer world or absorbed in inner communion.

Psalm 5.11 (NRSV)

Let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you.

Luke 7.36-40, 44-47, 50 (NRSV)

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.”

⁴⁴…I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but [this woman] 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 [brokenness has been healed]; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, “Your faith has [made you whole]; go in peace.”

The Good News Proclaimed

Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, June 20, 2010.

In Jesus’ day, nothing was more sacred, more intimate, more socially significant than table fellowship. And because table fellowship was so important, it was almost never shared with people outside of one’s own group. Who you ate with were the people you lived with in community, the people you valued, the people who you identified as YOUR people. Table fellowship was the ultimate dividing line between us and them, and one simply did not eat with THEM.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat at his house. What an honor! This religious, lay scholar, this Pharisee must think highly of Jesus. And Jesus honors him by accepting the invitation. So far, this is a very pleasant scene. But then things become awkward very quickly.

A woman barges in. And she isn’t just a woman… she is a certain kind of woman. She is a woman with a reputation, and the reputation isn’t flattering. In fact, people are so unkind as to just call her a sinner. The implication is that she is probably a prostitute.

We call Jesus the Christ, which means the anointed one. In ancient times, leaders were anointed by a prophet to signify they were blessed by God to lead the people. So when does Jesus become anointed? Mark suggests that he is spiritually anointed from the time of his baptism. Matthew and Luke suggest he was spiritually anointed from the time of his conception. John suggests he was spiritually anointed from the beginning of time. But all four of them use some version of this story as the moment when he the physical act of anointing takes place…when someone in the prophetic role physically anoints him, thus signifying that he is the anointed one, the one chosen by God to lead people into hope and healing and liberation.

And who is the prophet figure in the story? A woman! A person who had no status apart from a man in her culture. A person in the margins. A person considered morally, intellectually, and spiritually inferior to a man in that patriarchal culture is who God uses to anoint Jesus to symbolize that he God’s anointed teacher, leader, redeemer! The person acting on God’s behalf, called by God to recognize the sacred value of the one who would proclaim the sacred value of all people is a woman! The kind of person that government, tradition, society, and religion would have excluded, condemned, vilified, ignored, or shamed is the very sort of person God uses to anoint the one we call the Anointed, that is, the Christ!

And Luke says that the woman was called a sinner! That is to say, this woman worked in the Red Light district. This woman, because she was poor, or widowed young, or left by a man, this woman who had no brothers or living father or adult sons to take care of her, this woman in a patriarchal culture found herself with no options, and so she turned to a profession that both sustained her financially and caused her to be criticized and condemned by the religious authorities and “proper” people of society. Not just a woman but a woman who was called a sinner is the one who lays hands on Jesus and anoints him, recognizing him as God’s anointed. It is a woman, one called a sinner, the so-called “other” who beholds the Christ in Jesus, who then recognizes the Christ light in her.

It isn’t the Pharisaic scholar, or the devoted disciples, or the powerful Romans, or the institutionalized Sadducees or the militant Zealots who recognize the divine Idea expressing through Jesus, it is the one society has marginalized, criticized, objectified, and called a sinner who recognizes Jesus’ potential and who allows Jesus to affirm her potential.

Now let me point out two things about this woman. She is very intimate with Jesus. How many times do you go up to stranger and start kissing their feet? Hey Sister, get a boundary, huh? But Jesus sees that she is expressing love in the way she knows how, and he affirms that love. It may not be the way most people would do it, but it is her way of loving, and love is the presence of God.

The next thing I want to point out is that when people preach on this passage, they tend to suggest that her devotion is an act of repentance, and Jesus forgives her for being a sinner. And yet, what the passage says is that she washes Jesus’ feet, and kisses him, and anoints him not because she is sorry for who she is, but because she loves him for who he is. And because she is loving, not because she is ashamed, but because she is loving, Jesus says she has experienced healing, and her faith, that is her trust, her ability to trust that her love and her devotion are good enough, her faith has affirmed her wholeness. She never apologizes for who she is; she just celebrates who Jesus is…and he celebrates her, just as she is. Now, there is forgiveness, but it is the forgiveness of shame, guilt, and fear. She believed what others said about her, and she hated herself for a while; but when she was able to love herself and to know that she was a child of God, then she was able to release all that internalized shame, guilt and fear. And without that baggage, she is able to love herself and others freely.

The Pharisee in the story prejudged the woman and then judged Jesus for not prejudging the woman; but Jesus sees not the condemnation that others have put on her, but instead he sees the love she has to give which is genuine. Jesus affirms what the writer of 1 John 4.16 wrote, “God is love and WHOEVER lives in love lives in God and God lives in them.” This so called sinful woman is the one who recognized divine Love in Jesus’ life, and Jesus in turn affirms that divine Love is also expressing through this woman, just as she is.

Now let’s bring this a little closer to home. Have you ever been judged, condemned, rebuked because of where circumstances left you? Were you told you couldn’t answer a call to ministry because you were a woman? Were you condemned because you made a procreative decision that you felt was your only viable choice? Were you condemned because you discovered your marriage was a mistake, and so you left that marriage for the sake of your health and integrity? Were you judged because the way you love is to love someone of the same gender? Were you judged because you discovered that you didn’t quite fit into the binary gender norms of our society? Did religion say, “You are not good enough!” Then the woman in our story today represents you… and to that woman, to you and to me, Jesus says, “I see the love you have to give, and that love is nothing less than the presence of God. And in the moment you trusted yourself to express that love in the way that is true for you, you touched your own wholeness.” Religion may have condemned you, but Jesus says, “You are good enough… you are the very kind of person who confirms my anointing, and I in turn confirm yours. Go in peace.” Go in peace.

It is the one others called sinful who recognized Jesus’ sacred value; and it was then Jesus who recognized and affirmed her sacred value. Have you ever believed the lie that you were somehow beyond the reach of God’s love? Then know today, whenever you have loved, you have expressed the love that God is. Jesus says, “Celebrate your wholeness today, and go forward from this moment on in peace.” This is the good news. Amen.