Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

He who is forgiven little," Jesus said, "loves little." He goes to dinner at Simon the Pharasee's, and has just sat down when a scummy woman (notorious to the others) comes in, stands behind him, begins to sob, washes his feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, and soothes them with ointment. She is horribly out of place. Wrong level. She is a disgraceful person, and she is disrupting a proper dinner party.

Judging the Lord

Simon, the host, silently blames Jesus: "If this man were really a prophet," he thinks to himself "he would know what kind of woman this is" and (presumably) would have nothing to do with her. But, of course, Jesus does know. He reads Simon's thoughts and says, "A debtor who is forgiven a huge debt loves his creditor more than one who has been forgiven a pittance." Right? Frankly, you haven't shown me much love, Simon. You didn't put out a bowl of water for my feet, didn't kiss me when I came in, didn't anoint my head with oil. None of the usual courtesies. But this woman has washed my feet with her hair and anointed them with precious ointment.

It's not so much that you have been rude, Simon. It's just that, in your pride, you don't realize how much you owe God, how much you need forgiveness, and how much I can offer you.  She knows. Her pride has not blinded her to God's grace. As the result, she loves me, and you do not. "He who is forgiven little, loves little."

The Highest Love

Our culture is in love with love. We talk about it all the time. Even pagans -- as they watch the world fall apart -- say we need to love each other more. But their version of love is a man-made, secular thing. As if people could open a can of love, or pluck some out of the sky, and start living it. As if, by dint of effort and discipline, we could make love happen. It doesn't work. We've tried, and failed.

It is a monumental conceit to think that we can love on our own. All the evidence is otherwise. This century, now closing, has had as its hallmark murder and hatred (and "man's inhumanity to man"). Two world wars, the holocaust in Germany, the purges of Stalin with millions carried off in the night, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Korea, Viet Nam, militant and murderous regimes in China, tribe against tribe in Africa, race against race, people against people.  We flatter ourselves talking of love, as if we knew how to pull it off.

Love Rooted in God

Jesus knew that the only real love has its roots in God. Just as children learn love from their parents, we learn love from our heavenly Father.  And he empowers us to love.  We manage to love (when we do) not because it is in our nature to love, nor because the recipients of our love deserve it.  No.  We love because God first loved us.  We love in gratitude and thanksgiving.  God has laid aside every charge against us and made us right with him through Christ.  That is why we fall down sobbing before Jesus, and love him, and wash his feet with our tears, as did this poor woman.  She, of ill-repute, was right.  Simon, and all his fancy friends, were wrong.  She knew how much she had been forgiven; they did not.  No longer feigning goodness, she was free to love with all her heart.  They were still playing the righteousness game, were bound up in it, and couldn't get out of themselves. And therefore could not love, could not even be courteous.

We are Forgiven and Washed Clean

We kneel and receive this meal of grace, "trusting (as the ritual says) not in our own righteousness but in God's mercy." We rise from this table refreshed, no longer imprisoned by our angers and resentments, no longer needing to pretend righteousness, but comforted and assured, once again, that God loves us and has forgiven us, has washed us clean, inside and out. We are able then (and only then) to love and forgive ourselves, and to love and forgive our enemies (the quintessential Christian thing). Love is a miracle. It is not possible without God.