Love and Forgiveness
Download MP3Tonight's scripture comes from Luke chapter 7 verses 33 through 50. For John the Baptist has come, eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, he has a demon. The son of man has come eating and drinking, and you say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is justified by all her children. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the at a table in the pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment.
Speaker 1:Now when the pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say it, teacher. A certain money lender had 2 debtors, one owed 500 denarii, and the other 50. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both.
Speaker 1:Now, which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt, and he said to him, you have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
Speaker 1:You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this, who even forgives sins?
Speaker 1:And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. The word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to god. You may pray with me. Lord, I ask you would honor the very reading of your word that it would penetrate our hearts. Could penetrate our minds. Lord, I ask that you would come and you would speak now.
Joel Brooks:Give me clarity of thought. There's a lot here. Help me to know what to hold on to and what to let go of. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, let your words remain, May they change us.
Joel Brooks:I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I grew up in a church that you would never invite your friends to. Smelled old. It was chronically in conflict.
Joel Brooks:We went through at least 5 different pastors growing up, And, it was pretty legalistic. Yet, I remember the Lord used it in my life. I've had conversations with a lot of people over the years who who, you know, they hate their church that they grew up in grew up in, and they always look very, pessimistically at it. But yet, we probably shouldn't be so harsh because the Lord uses those things in our lives. And, we have to realize that every family is dysfunctional.
Joel Brooks:Most of you, once you moved out of your, blood relative household, and looking back you realize, wow. We were so dysfunctional. And it's the same with our Christian family. Every church home is dysfunctional. We're dysfunctional in here, and, and I thank God for my dysfunctional family growing up.
Joel Brooks:But it did have a lot of problems. You know, the the attendance it was slipping, the giving was down. You looked around and, we were probably about 10 funerals away from closing. And, and the worship was just so stagnant and stale. And, so our church tried to fix it.
Joel Brooks:Maybe you've been part of a church that's tried to fix those kind of problems, and and so they thought a lot about it and they came up with a great solution that this church was going to try to pull off a contemporary worship service, that met at 8:30 in the morning, which is another terrific idea. But I mean, some of the ideas that this church had, they they wouldn't make the visitors stand why the members sat when they welcomed them. And so they didn't have the best ideas. So they but they thought at 8:30 contemporary worship service, which what it meant was the pastor removed his tie and, and they brought a synthesizer in instead of a organ. And, I can remember the very first contemporary worship service, the song was, This is the Day, and my mom was playing the keyboard and I just wanted to die.
Joel Brooks:It didn't work, obviously. And so the church tried a new tactic. It said, well, what we need is a new sanctuary. And so they spent a ton of money and they they did new lights in the sanctuary, new paint, they redid the carpet, then they realized that their worship was just as stale and as stagnant as before. They tried a lot of things.
Joel Brooks:I don't think they ever got to what would work, and that's a greater understanding of the gospel. When we look at tonight, worship. What affects our worship? What should our worship look like? What do we do if we, if we've been having a lot of stale worship lately?
Joel Brooks:How does God want to change our hearts in this? And we've been going through the book of Luke and Luke, we mentioned a couple of weeks ago over and over again, the theme of Luke is faith. And he's just gonna keep telling stories about faith. And this is a story about faith that ends with your faith has saved you, go in peace. But it's also a story about worship.
Joel Brooks:And and I love it because Luke really slows down the story. It's very visual. It's almost like a movie as he's describing all the details. He wants you to focus in on this. It's also a very familiar story to us, and I like to ask that you try to hear this for the first time.
Joel Brooks:And because typically, if a story we've heard a lot, we just kind of shut off our minds, but try to hear this for the first time, and what it says about worship. This is a story about Jesus being a friend to sinners. He's invited to a home of a Pharisee for dinner. Now, to be invited over to somebody's house for dinner in this culture was a pretty big deal. It's not just dinner.
Joel Brooks:You're welcoming a person into your life. It's a very intimate thing to have somebody over for dinner. It's a way of showing acceptance. And so you see early on that this Pharisee, Simon, this Pharisee, he's very interested and he's very open to Jesus. He probably heard Jesus teaching.
Joel Brooks:He he probably, you know, right before this, Jesus had an explosion of miracles in response to John the Baptist question, and he's probably either saw those or he heard the reports of those, and he's he's really curious and he's open. And so he he wants Jesus to come over for dinner. A woman hears that Jesus is going over to this Pharisee's house for dinner, and so she rushes over there as fast as she can. Now, in this day, when a rabbi would come over to your house for dinner, you would you leave the doors open, you would invite the community to come in. And so, all the community would be able to come in if they wanted to, and they would stand along the walls, and they would be able to listen to the conversation that you would have with a rabbi.
Joel Brooks:It was a teachable moment. And so, I'm sure with Jesus being the guest of honor, that this place is packed, especially after he just raised a boy from the dead. He just did all those miracles. I mean, this place would have been packed to hear what Jesus had to say. Now, the woman who comes is not just any woman.
Joel Brooks:She's described as a woman of the city, a sinner. And this phrase, woman of the city, likely means that she was a prostitute. A very sexually immoral person at the very least. And yet, this prostitute has heard Jesus teaching. She's likely had some encounter with him because she's she has responded to him.
Joel Brooks:And now, she she's rushing to where she hears Jesus is because she wants to do something for him. She wants to worship him. She probably hadn't really thought things well out, you know, what she's going to do. She does have her perfume with her, and she she she probably has a mind, I want to anoint him. I'm certain that she didn't have in mind what she did.
Joel Brooks:You can't plan that. Well, she comes in and she sees Jesus reclining at the table, and she walks up behind him. For a banquet like this, the tables were like coffee tables, they're about knee high, and you'd recline on pillows, and, you'd extend your feet out behind you. And, so this woman, she would come in, and she she stood behind the feet of Jesus that were extending out to her. And she did 2, at least 2, astonishing things.
Joel Brooks:She kneels down behind the feet of Jesus, and she begins to cry. You know, there's there's pretty cries, and then there's ugly cries. You know, pretty cries you don't mind, you give somebody a really good present, and they're like, you're so sweet, and they kind of tear up or something like that, and that's a pretty cry. Weddings, pretty cry. This is one of those really ugly cries.
Joel Brooks:The word in verse 38, when it says that she began to wet his feet. That word for wet is pour. It's the word they would use to describe a downpour of rain. She is sobbing. This was making a scene.
Joel Brooks:I can remember being, in a very public setting with some guy and, I just I felt the spirit of Lord prompted me to say something to him, but I didn't know the reaction it would get. And he started crying, in front of all these people. There was hundreds of people around. And then, the the crying turned to sobbing. Deep sobbing.
Joel Brooks:Ugly, ugly crying, and everybody's looking at me. The entire place, they're looking. I'm like, I didn't do anything. I I I didn't know know what to do. He's just crying uncontrollably.
Joel Brooks:It's really uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for the person, it's uncomfortable for everybody around. It's an ugly scene here. It'd be awkward if it happened today at some dinner party, just as much as it was awkward there. And then she, she takes down her hair and she begins to to dry off all those tears that have fallen on his feet.
Joel Brooks:Now that that also would be pretty awkward if you saw that happening at a dinner party today, but even more so in this culture, because a woman's hair is her pride. It is her glory. You just simply didn't do this if you're a woman. And here she is. She's rubbing her pride and she's rubbing her glory into some dirty feet.
Joel Brooks:She's using her hair as a towel, and you just really can't get more undignified than this. The only story that we have close to this in the Bible is, you know, when King David was dancing before the ark of the Lord and he was kind of taking off his clothes at the same time while he's dancing, he comes home and his wife says, You made a fool of yourself today. Because, you know what? I was dancing before the Lord and I will become even more undignified than this. And that word undignified in Hebrew actually means lighter.
Joel Brooks:He says, I will become even lighter than this, which only makes sense if you understand the word for glory, which means heavy. God is seen as heavy, real, solid, and David says, in comparison to that, I'm gonna make myself light, un glorious. I don't care what people think about me. And here, this woman, she is rubbing her glory into the feet of Jesus. Not to actually let your hair down in public was grounds for divorce in this culture.
Joel Brooks:This is something you only did in the privacy of your home before your husband. And help me to to be crude, but I read this in a number of commentaries that it would be the equivalent to a woman exposing her breast in this culture. Something you just didn't do, very vulgar, very awkward. The people didn't know what to do in the room when this is happening. And Jesus is just letting it go.
Joel Brooks:Just letting it happen. Then, the woman, she she breaks open this flask of perfume, and she anoints Jesus's feet. Now, this alabaster flask, it would have been about the size of your thumb, or my thumb. I don't know what size thumbs you have. And it would have been worn around the neck.
Joel Brooks:It's, it would have been filled with some highly concentrated perfume, and then it would have been sealed at the top with just a teeny hole. So the perfume wouldn't spill out, but the aroma would. The aroma would come out and and some, some women who could afford it, this is what they would wear around their neck. And in this culture, this would have been a pretty highly valued item. I mean, once again, not to be gross, but they didn't have deodorant.
Joel Brooks:They didn't take daily showers. The, the smells of just common life in 1st century were pretty grotesque. And, so if you had one of these though, and you wore it around your neck, wherever you went, and whatever situation you went to, there was this aroma. People would turn their heads. They would look at you.
Joel Brooks:You'd be beautiful. They would notice you. And this is what she breaks. Now, for this woman here, a prostitute, this wasn't just a a desirable object to have. This was absolutely essential for her, if she wanted to remain a prostitute.
Joel Brooks:Absolutely. This was one of the tools of the trade. For when she would walk down the street and people would catch that smell and they would think, she is desirable. And what she's doing is, she's she's taking something that she would need desperately, if she were to live the and pouring it and pouring it at the feet of Jesus. And, she's doing it for free.
Joel Brooks:Something that she would have never done before. This is, this is so much more than just an expensive act of worship, and it is an expensive act of worship. What you're seeing here is a, a transfer of faith. We looked at that last week. How you you don't try to create more faith for Jesus.
Joel Brooks:What you need to do is transfer the faith that you're putting in things like your wealth, or your education, or your the the fact that you can work hard and how you place faith in this. What you need to do is transfer your faith away from that and place it onto Jesus, not just trying to muster up new faith, you need to actually transfer faith. And what she's doing here is transferring faith. She's saying, I'm no longer going to be this woman. I'm making myself unattractive.
Joel Brooks:I'm rubbing my hair in your feet. I'm breaking the one thing that would have been that aroma that people would have found desirable. I am no longer that person. She's not holding on to the things that she held on to so dearly before. Let me ask you a question.
Joel Brooks:Is this what proper worship looks like? Is this what your worship looks like? I've been thinking about that question a lot. Or is this let's look at Simon the Pharisee, what his worship looks like. Simon is thinking, as we probably all would be when this is happening, it's not a prophet if he knew what kind of woman this was.
Joel Brooks:He would never allow this to happen. Awkward, all these guests he had invited over there. This is happening in front of them all, and to Simon's credit, before you're just, you know, really just throw Simon out the window, he doesn't say these thoughts out loud. He keeps them to himself. He's well composed, and he even calls Jesus a respectful term later.
Joel Brooks:When Jesus says, Hey, Simon. I have something to say to you. He goes, Speak teacher. He still calls him teacher here. At least he's being respectful.
Joel Brooks:And there's a bit of irony here in that Simon is thinking that Jesus can't be a prophet because he doesn't know who this woman is, and Jesus is actually reading Simon's thoughts and says, well, let me answer your thoughts for you. And Simon would have been well aware, okay, he is a prophet. And he tells Simon a story. Look at verse 41. Says a certain money lender had 2 debtors, 1 owed 500 denarii and the other 50.
Joel Brooks:When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now, which of them will love him more? This is the equivalent of, owing money for a car versus owing money for a house. That's the equivalent. And, the money lender forgives both of those debts, and Jesus's point is this, okay.
Joel Brooks:One has a greater debt and then the other, but you know what? Neither one can pay. They're both in the same boat. Neither can pay, but the money lender has canceled the debt. And the larger that person is aware that their debt was and the more has been canceled, the more they are appreciative and thankful.
Joel Brooks:And, Jesus then compares this story to Simon and the woman that is before him. I love verse 44. Jesus, he dramatically turns and and he looks at the woman. This has been the first time because remember, Jesus is reclining at the table, his feet are behind him. Everybody else is looking at the woman, Jesus hasn't.
Joel Brooks:But now, Jesus, he turns and he looks at the woman. And he says, Do you see this woman? Duh. I mean, everybody. She's the elephant in the room.
Joel Brooks:Everybody's been staring at this woman. Everybody knows what's going on. Jesus isn't asking, Hey, did you know, did you happen to see the woman come behind here? He's saying, look at her. Don't just judge her.
Joel Brooks:Look at what's really going on. And, this is very, very rare in scripture. I challenge you to find any times like this, when Jesus points at somebody and he tells a group, look at this person. You're saying, take a close look because what she is doing is admirable. You need to do this.
Joel Brooks:Look at her. And then Jesus makes a comparison between Simon and the woman. And this is when things get really, really interesting in this story. This is where in the past, years past, I've just kind of read through this, and just really slowing down and reading this over and over and over again. I I really feel like, maybe for the first time, I started getting some understanding.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, he tells Simon, you know, when I entered your house, you didn't wash my feet. You didn't wash my feet. That was a common courtesy. You know, you had a guest over, you would either wash
Jeffrey Heine:your feet, or you get your servant
Joel Brooks:to wash your feet. And at the very, very least, you'd put a bowl of water there to where they could wash their own feet. And he says, you didn't do that. And you didn't kiss me for a greeting. 2 very common courtesies.
Joel Brooks:The first was, you know, pretty necessary because 1st century Palestine, you know, they wore sandals, the roads were in horrible condition, they were just dusty. So when you traveled, your feet would be filthy when he came to a home. Much Much like when, you know, when my kids, they never wear shoes, they go outside and anytime they're about to run-in, I always go, stop, stop, stop, wash your feet. I don't want your dirt all over the house. Except, you know, they were supposed to say that in a nice way.
Joel Brooks:And, but you would wash your guests feet before they came in. It's also common courtesy to offer the kiss, which is the equivalent of, you know, shaking somebody's hand and saying, welcome. Come in, welcome. Jesus was denied both of these things. And good manners, I mean, they they dictated you were supposed to do this.
Joel Brooks:Now, here's the problem in the text. The difficulty in the story, I should say. It's not a problem. You have on the one hand, you have Simon the Pharisee. He cares enough about Jesus to invite him over.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, come to my house. Be my honored guest. I'm going to have a banquet in your honor. He cares enough about where he still calls them respectful terms. Teacher, that's a that's a term where of humility.
Joel Brooks:And then, you have Simon the pharisee on the other hand, when Jesus comes, he denies them the most common of courtesies and he shames him. It's almost like you have 2 Simons. You have, you have one welcoming Jesus in. Hosting a banquet in his honor. Then he had the other Simon, denying Jesus of common courtesies.
Joel Brooks:What's what's going on here? I'll tell you what I think happened. And I can't say this concretely, But I think there is enough evidence in the text here to support it. I think when Simon invited Jesus over, he was inviting Jesus over. He was expecting Jesus.
Joel Brooks:When Jesus came, Jesus came with his friends. Tax collectors and sinners. And so, all of a sudden, Simon opens the door and there's a bunch of sinners coming to his house. Look at verse 45. Jesus says, you gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
Joel Brooks:Jesus says, the moment I got here, this woman was here and she hasn't stopped kissing my feet. Now look at verse 37. Says, and behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. These two verses seem to somewhat be at odds. You know, one says that Jesus went, he reclined, he's having dinner, a woman hears about it and she comes, and then you have Jesus explaining.
Joel Brooks:It says, from the moment I came here, this woman hasn't stopped doing this. And so, it seems to be 2 different things. 1, the woman coming later into 2 Jesus saying, no, she was there when I got there. And it's, it's really hard to to interpret and to translate. There are several Aramaic idiomatic statements in there.
Joel Brooks:Basically, the point is, the woman probably arrived at the same time as Jesus, Or maybe immediately afterwards, when Jesus got there. She couldn't have got there early because if Simon saw
Jeffrey Heine:a prostitute trying to come, he would have said,
Joel Brooks:no way. He would have Absolutely. She would have defiled his entire house. He would have turned her away. She couldn't come before.
Joel Brooks:So she likely either comes with Jesus or immediately afterwards. And and so here picture picture this. Simon is having a party. Looking forward to Jesus coming. He's he's got his guests, invited guests there, and he opens the door and there's Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And now all of a sudden he sees sinners. And maybe this woman is there in his midst and his mood changes. So this is how it's going to be. Friend of tax collectors and sinners. Why wash your feet when you're just gonna defile my house anyway?
Joel Brooks:Why give you a kiss when it would say, I accept what is happening? And so you see mood, the mood changing here. Even if Jesus just came with his disciples, one of his disciples is a tax collector who Simon would have despised. And so, as Jesus comes in and he is not given these courtesies and he kneels down, this woman sees Jesus dishonored. Even if she didn't actually see Simon shunning him, the moment Jesus would have sat down and put his feet back, she would have seen the feet and she would have known Jesus has been dishonored.
Joel Brooks:And she's like, no. I came here so Jesus would be adored. Jesus is supposed to have all honor. And so, this is why she begins falling down and she's just balding. She begins washing his feet, giving him the honor that was refused him.
Joel Brooks:And she had to be aware of, it's because of me, and because of people like me, that Jesus is treated with such dishonor. And therefore, it breaks her heart. You know, she understood the the love and the forgiveness that Jesus had offered her early. She's now getting a picture of how it is costing him. It cost him dearly.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus, he says the same thing when he says, when he tells the parable about the 2 debtors, and he says your debts are forgiven. What happens to the debts? I mean, do they just kind of, you know, float off into the air and they're gone? You know, we just remove debts. All right.
Joel Brooks:That's fine. What happens is the money lender has to absorb the debt. He loses all the money. It doesn't just go away, debt just doesn't disappear. The money lender now has to pay for it.
Joel Brooks:There's a cost. And Jesus, his forgiveness that he gives us cost him dearly. It cost him his very life as payment. Now, I've talked to a lot of people over the years. I have this very vague view of God and of the love of God.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps you're you're one of them here that, you know, you you do believe in God, and you believe that God, you know, he loves everybody, and he forgives everybody, and and that's about as much as you've thought about it, but you're comfortable with that. Let me just say, in all of my years, I have never known a person who believed in a vague God with a vague love. I've never seen that person move to worship, ever. Ever. It can't.
Joel Brooks:You've got to have an understanding of a God who sacrifices. It's when you see, sacrificial love it moves you to worship. When you see that the love of God for you cost him something. His forgiveness forgiveness of you cost him something. That moves you, but not just this vague God who loves everybody, forgives everybody, and there's no penalty, there's no cost, no payment.
Joel Brooks:Jesus tells us here that our worship is in proportion to our understanding of our forgiveness. It's in proportion to our understanding of our forgiveness. And so, we should ask God to give us an awareness of sin. You know, more than any other thing, this leads you into worship, asking God to give you an awareness of sin. As a pastor, especially starting a new church, I get all of this promotional mail, you know, with all these conferences, and I get these CDs and free books, and, they all have the same phrase or some form of it have more dynamic.
Joel Brooks:For some reason, churches love the word dynamic, Have more dynamic worship at your church. And it's all full of stuff, you know, about lighting the paint, you know, the carpet or, or the, you know, all these different things you can try. I haven't read one that said, hey, you want more dynamic worship at your church? Preach the gospel. Point people to the sacrifice of Jesus that they have sinned, and yet there is a God who has paid for that sin at such a dear cost to himself.
Joel Brooks:That leads to worship. That leads to true worship. It might not lead, you know, to the most happy feeling or get excited or you know, being wowed when you walk into a place. I know a number of you are wowed when you walk into here. I told you, if you can't worship in here, you can't worship in a cathedral.
Joel Brooks:You can't. It's not the building. It's your heart. See, awareness of the gospel. You know, earlier, we sang the great hymn, Amazing Grace, which I'm not sure if you're aware, it was written by a former slave trader.
Joel Brooks:John Newton used to buy and sell slaves. And when the grace of God hit him, when he understood the gospel, he realized how horrible he was, and how great of a price God had paid to forgive him. And it turned into beautiful worship. Saint Augustine was a sex addict for over 10 years, and then God freed him of that. And when he realized his forgiveness, his sin and his forgiveness and what it cost his God, it moved him into incredible worship.
Joel Brooks:You have Paul, who in 1st Timothy says, I am the foremost of all sinners. I love what he says. He goes, Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am foremost, and he uses present tense. Not I was foremost. He says, I am the worst of all sinners.
Joel Brooks:Present tense. Because the closer Paul got to the Lord, the more he saw his sins. The more became painfully aware of his sin. And the more or the greater he was aware of his sin and his debt, the greater the sacrifice of Jesus became. The greater he saw his Lord, and the more it moved him into worship.
Joel Brooks:What does your worship look like? Is it proper? Or does it more closely resemble a good
Jeffrey Heine:moral
Joel Brooks:Simon who respected Jesus, wanted to have a good theological dialogue with Jesus? Or does it resemble the prostitute at Jesus' feet? Listen to Jesus' words when he says, look at her. Look
Jeffrey Heine:at her.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord, I love this story. I could just see it playing out in my mind. You can you can smell the smells. You can smell the perfume filling a room.
Joel Brooks:You can hear the sound of the, the flask breaking, the uncontrollable sobbing, the gasp of people when they see what's going on in front of them. I can see Simon squirming in his seat, silent, not knowing what to do. The penetrating eyes of Jesus looking at Simon and then saying, look at this woman, look at her. The words of Jesus saying, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.
Joel Brooks:Lord, may your spirit come breathe life into the words we have just read and looked at and scribe them on our heart. And I ask now that through the power of your spirit, you would show us our sinfulness, not in a vague way, but bring to mind all the ways we have fallen short So that it will magnify the cross, which will then magnify our worship. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
