Unrepulsed (Luke 7:36-50)

Today I continue my sermon series focusing on the meals Jesus attended, and how he transformed their meaning. To give credit where credit is due, much of this sermon series is inspired by a book by Alan Streett called Subversive Meals: An Analysis of the Lord’s Supper Under Roman Domination during the First Century.

The scripture today begins with the words, “One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him…” but if you were here last week, you may suspect that the original Greek speaks of reclining… and you’d be right. “One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to recline with him….” The language signifies that Jesus has been invited to a formal Roman banquet.

For these more formal banquets, the host would send out invitations in advance, and invitees would respond as to whether or not they were attending. That way the host knew how many to prepare for, how many places to set, and so on. Guests were invited because they were acquaintances of the host, because the host owed them a favor... or because the host felt they would be good contributors to the post-meal conversation known as the symposium.

This Pharisee had heard of Jesus. Perhaps he had friends who had reclined with Jesus before. Perhaps he had heard that Jesus was a holy man, and wanted to see if this was true. Perhaps he had heard that Jesus had some wonderful, radical, crazy ideas about the kingdom of God, ideas that, if presented during the symposium at his banquet, would make this Pharisee’s banquet the talk of the town! Soon, everyone would want to attend this Pharisee’s banquets. He’d become the most popular person around!

The day came. At about 3:00, the guests arrived. They entered the triclinium and took their designated places on couches placed around three tables in a u-shape.

They ate their meal as a fresh breeze came through the large open windows and doorways of the triclinium, mixing the wonderful smells and aromas of their food and drink with some possibly unwanted smells from outside.

They drank the ceremonial cup of wine in honor of Caesar and the Roman gods.

And then it was time for the symposium, the post-meal conversation…

 But at that point, an uninvited guest showed up: a woman of the city, a sinner. In other words, a prostitute.

She had no right to be at the banquet. She was a woman, she wasn’t invited, and she was a person who Rome had no use for. Her lifestyle was outside of the Roman order. A profession like hers was hard to tax, so what good was she to Rome? A person like that does not get invited to banquets.

From a religious perspective, she was certainly considered unclean. Perhaps doubly or even triply so. This was particularly important to Pharisees (like the banquet’s host), because Pharisees worked hard to keep themselves completely separated from all things unclean. Their holiness depended on it.

Nevertheless, this woman walked in, and went around behind the couches to where Jesus was reclining. She was weeping, and her tears fell onto Jesus’s feet. She had let down her long hair, and she took her hair and began drying Jesus’s feet with them, and then she anointed his feet with some oil that she had brought in. Expensive, costly oil. Who knows where she got it… She anointed Jesus’s feet with the oil… and kissed his feet.

And Jesus let her. He should have been repulsed by her presence, but he wasn’t.

I imagine that the host’s responsibility at this point would be to have one of the slaves shoo her away. Take her back out into the street. But in this case, the host is dumbstruck by Jesus’s reaction to this woman, too dumbstruck to do anything.

The host had invited Jesus because Jesus had a reputation for being a holy man, a prophet even, one who could improve the Pharisee’s reputation if he accepted the invitation. But no prophet or holy man would allow an unclean person to touch him, especially not in such an intimate way.

Yet Jesus did not stop her. He did not express outrage. He did not withdraw his feet from her. He let her continue, and he didn’t care how inappropriate it may be.

At this point, the host, the Pharisee, was thinking, “This Jesus isn’t the man I thought he was. If he was a prophet, he’d know what kind of a woman this is. Oh, this is terrible. I can’t believe I invited him into my house, to my banquet! What will the other guests think of me? They’ll think I’m the worst host ever, for inviting this man who welcomes the touch of sinners like her. This will ruin my reputation! I’ll never get invited to another banquet again, and no one will ever again accept one of my invitations!”

The Pharisee is right. The other guests were probably murmuring to each other, “What am I doing here? This is embarrassing. It’s an outrage!”

You see, it was all about impressing one another. The host trying to impress his guests. The guests trying to impress the host and each other. Everyone was seeking honor in the eyes of society.

Except for one person. Jesus. Who obviously didn’t care about that.

Now, lest we judge the host and the other guests too harshly, consider this. I remember the strategy of one interdenominational youth ministry organization I worked with. Their strategy, in forming youth clubs, was to go after the most popular kid in school. This is how they trained their leaders: get the captain of the football team. Get the cheerleader. Get kids like that to join your club, and others will want to join, too. Everyone wants to be where the popular kids are.

I never heard the leaders in this organization say, “go after the kid with the drug problem or the mental health issues. Go get the kid who’s bullied and picked on. Focus on inviting them and getting them to come.” I never heard them say that.

They wanted to have a club with a good reputation. They wanted to have a club that kids wanted to come to.

Is that so different than the banquet host and his guests?

And I’m sad to say, I’ve even caught myself doing the same thing when visitors come to church. This is the type of person we want in our church. This is the type of person who will improve our church’s image in the community and help draw other people, so I’m going to work extra hard to make this person feel welcome…

That person, on the other hand… well, I’ll be friendly toward her, of course. But I’m not going to work too hard at it. After all, she’s a mess. We get too many people like her, and it will affect the reputation of the church, and no one will want to be a part of this congregation. No one will want to come and gather around our table if we have too many people like her.

God forgive me.

Don’t you hate it when scripture comes around and bites you in the butt like that? It’s so easy for us to point a finger at the Pharisees, without realizing that we are also pointing at ourselves.

Jesus allowed – and welcomed – the touch of this untouchable person. In fact, she was as important to him as the host and all the other guests. Perhaps even more so, because the others all had their reputation, they all had a place at the table, but she did not. She has never received an invitation to the table. She knew she shouldn’t be there. She expected to be thrown out. She didn’t belong…

No wonder she was weeping. No wonder she couldn’t stop weeping when Jesus welcomed her into her presence, accepted her touch, her tears, her anointing.

This contact, according to religious laws, made Jesus unclean. Contact with an unclean person makes you unclean; she touches Jesus, and Jesus becomes unclean.

Well. Jesus didn’t buy into that. He said to her, “your sins are forgiven.”

The other guests were blown away. He can’t do that! He’s got it backwards! Jesus actually believes that his contact with her – instead of making him unclean – made her clean!

And in that moment, Jesus transcended the societal boundaries that these banquets were meant to enforce. Rome believed a well-ordered society consisted of everyone knowing and respecting their place in society, and not seeking to upset the structure upon which society is built.

Yet that’s exactly what Jesus did.

He even affirmed that she was, in fact, a better host than the host! Through her actions, she showed great hospitality, which the host failed to show. The host felt embarrassed by the presence of a person of lower status, but Jesus showed that she was actually the greater person (and not a lesser or lower person) because she, and not the host, showed hospitality to him… and, to Jesus’s way of thinking, it is the one who serves, the one who shows hospitality, who is the greater person…

This is the lesson we’ve been struggling to learn ever since.

In the years following Jesus’s death and resurrection, when believers gathered around the table, they tried to follow the example Jesus set, but found it hard. The apostle Paul had to remind them: the table is for Gentile and Jew, slave and free, women and men. All are welcome. Hospitality is to be extended to all. After all, they were eating and drinking in remembrance of Jesus, and not in honor of Rome and Roman gods.

In the early 19^th century, in America, churches often required you to pass certain tests in order to be welcome at the table. After all, they had their reputation to uphold. This time it was Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell who reminded the church of Jesus’s rules of table etiquette. They started a movement focused on the table – a welcome, open table – a movement that became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Bixby Knolls Christian Church is a part of that movement; and just as God has called Christians throughout history to ignore the divisions set up by society and to welcome all, so God calls us today.

After all, every single one of us comes to this table with dirt on our hands. Just like the woman who touched Jesus and wiped his feet with her tears, we come to encounter the living Christ who makes us clean. We have no right to take our place at the table and turn others away.

This is why we welcome all to the Lord’s Table, just as God has welcomed us.