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.

Faith in Action (Luke 7:1-10)

It’s called “tact.” The dictionary defines tact as “a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offense.” Tactfulness often combines truth and gentleness, sometimes with a measure of flattery.


Well, have you ever noticed that Jesus can be … not very tactful? “Not even in Israel have I found such faith.” What does he mean, “not even in Israel?” He himself is a child of Israel, is he not?

Can you imagine the president of the United States visiting a foreign country and saying, “You people are great. The people back home aren’t as good as you all.”

Can you imagine a pastor talking to a group of people on the street, saying, “man, compared to you guys, the people at church are terribly lacking in faith.”

Can you imagine the mayor of Long Beach saying, “You know, it’s too bad Long Beach isn’t Huntington Beach, because Huntington Beach – now that’s a nice city.”

Jesus is the Jewish messiah; he himself is a child of Israel. But here he is, in Capernaum, commending a gentile, a commander in the army of the oppressors, saying, “Not even among the people of Israel have I seen such faith.” … How utterly tactless.

And it’s not the first time… Remember, early in his ministry… Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth, among the people who knew him (which was everyone there; Nazareth was not a very big place), and he read from the prophet Isaiah. On that occasion he had, in fact, just returned from an earlier visit in Capernaum, and the people of Nazareth were eager to see him do for them the things he had done there.

But instead, while he was sitting there in the Jewish synagogue, he began talking about prophets who ministered not to Jews, not to the people of Israel, but to foreigners and gentiles. He so enraged the people of his hometown that they tried to kill him.

Getting back to today’s story: this centurion, whose faith Jesus admired – did he even believe in God? Luke says that he built a synagogue, but it’s strange: when Matthew tells this same story, the synagogue is not mentioned. Some people think that Luke added that detail, figuring the story would be too much to swallow without it. “He’s a worthy man, he loves the people of Israel, he built them a synagogue!” That explains it, right?

But those details are not present in Luke’s version.

Whether those details are true or not, the fact remains that Jesus said that the faith of this gentile, this foreigner, this officer in the army of an oppressive regime, was better than anything he had found among the people of Israel.

So: Did Jesus not like the people of Israel?

Well, that doesn’t make sense. He was one of them. He himself worshiped at the synagogue and observed the feasts. He was a practicing Jew, and for some time after his death and resurrection, his disciples continued practicing Judaism.

But you know, as the children of Israel, the Jews were on the inside, so to speak. Being on the inside has its privileges, but it also has its responsibilities. More was expected of them, I think. After all, they had the teachings of the law and the prophets … they had the stories of their faith; stories which, time and again, show the special concern God has for those who are not on the inside: the foreigners, the outcasts, the aliens among them:

“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien,” the Torah says, “for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

“The alien who resides among you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Now, I’ll leave it to you to figure out how this applies to the current debate in this country regarding immigration. The point I’m making today is that those on the inside don’t just have privileges; they have a responsibility. A responsibility to those who are on the outside.

It’s a responsibility to actually love one’s neighbor – and remember, the parable of the Good Samaritan shows that even the foreigner, the alien, the outsider, is our neighbor. Those on the inside have a responsibility to love the neighbor with a love that is active, not passive; a love that doesn’t pass by on the other side of the road; a love that does more than mutter, “Oh, that poor soul; God have mercy on him;” a love that actually gets involved, a love that leads to acts of compassion and a pursuit of justice, a hunger for justice that leads one to pursue justice for the oppressed the way a hungry wolf pursues its prey. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.

Who is on the inside today? Who is it who has access to the stories and teachings of faith? Who is it that has these words written upon their heart?

Quite a few of us in here do. Not many people out there do. Many people out there have lost their connection to God. They’ve lost the faith that makes people whole. They no longer know the stories that give meaning to life.

Do we have a responsibility to them? You bet we do! We are Christ’s ambassadors to the world! That’s what Paul says to the Corinthians: We are ambassadors for Christ, and God is making his appeal through us. We are the people who bring wholeness to a fragmented world! It happens through us!

It does no good to consider ourselves blessed just because we are children of the church. And as much as some people may disagree with me, following Jesus requires a lot more than believing in a set doctrine, or even following three simple steps or four spiritual laws.

Many of the ancient Jews believed, but it was the faith of the centurion which was commended. Why? Because for him, to “believe” meant to “be-love.” It meant actively believing, not just nodding one’s head when the preacher says, “Do you believe in Jesus?” One who really believes in Jesus does a lot more than nod his head.

Who is blessed? Are we blessed solely because we have been borne of the church? No. Inheritance alone is not enough to make us part of Christ’s family. “Jesus’s mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ But he said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’”

A woman once interrupted him while he was teaching; she shouted to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of

God and obey it.”

The centurion may not have had everything clear in his mind about who Jesus was. He may not have known much about the God of Israel. I’m pretty sure that he would not pass any sort of doctrinal examination in the temple or synagogue. And yet something about his faith greatly impressed Jesus.

Maybe it was the fact that he believed that faith equals action, that what one believes and what one says corresponds with what one does. “I’m used to having words become actions,” he said. “I say something, and it happens. I say to a soldier under me, ‘Go,’ and he goes; I say to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. For me, speaking is doing … and I know it is the same for you. Just say the word, and it is done.”

This centurion may not have known it, but that is, in fact, the very first lesson in scripture. In Genesis One, God speaks a word: “Let there be…” and by that spoken word, the world is created. There is absolutely no discrepancy between word and action. Word and action are one.

So: let’s be doers of the word, and not merely believers! Let’s be the ambassadors of Christ that we are called to be, reaching out to a fragmented community with the wholeness and healing of God’s spirit.

In many ways, we are already doing that: as a church, we are inviting the community to get to know us this summer, by hosting concerts and movie nights and Vacation Bible School, with the hope that, in getting to know us, they’ll get to know God. As a church, we are doing this; as a member of the church and as a follower of Christ, you can do your part to invite someone, to extend a personal invitation to someone you know or even someone you don’t know, to join us.

As a church, we engage in several different ministries that bring wholeness to our community: local outreach through COA and Central Shalom, scouting, and all of our summer events; we also do global outreach through Disciples Mission Fund, Week of Compassion, Global Ministries and Reconciliation Ministry. We also continue our slow but sure efforts to make our worship services more accessible to those who are outside these walls, as opposed to something that only those on the inside are familiar with or understand, so that we may, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, welcome people from far away, those from the north and from the west and even from the farthest lands to the south – everyone, in other words, but especially those who, for whatever reason, are far from the church.

At Ben Eastman’s Eagle Scout Project two weeks ago, a young woman passing by saw all the work that was taking place to turn that ugly lot into a beautifully landscaped piece of land. She got out of the car with her young son and began asking how she could get her son involved in boy scouts.

I think it’s safe to say that it wasn’t the philosophy behind scouting that impressed her. Did she even know the scout oath? Could she recite the scout law? Probably not.

But she did see the values of the scout oath and law expressed in the work that was taking place. She saw the values of scouting in action, and it inspired her to get out of her car and get involved.

Another woman who lived nearby was so impressed by what was happening that she walked over to Ben to express her thanks to him for making the community more beautiful, and then she handed him $100 in cash to use towards the project’s costs. It wasn’t the scout oath or the law or any of the beliefs or values of scouting that impressed her; it was seeing those beliefs and values in action that motivated her to respond.

Our stewardship committee might want to take note of that. In fact, we all might want to take note of that. How can we continue to put our beliefs and values in action? How can we be doers of the word, and not merely hearers? How can we develop a faith that is real and alive? How can our belief in Jesus go beyond nodding our heads in agreement to doctrinal statements so that we may truly follow him in every aspect of our lives?

That’s the tactful way to put it. If it’s too tactful for you, … read the gospel.