Today is a regular Sunday – a strange and wonderful animal by First Church standards. – particularly after all of our celebrations during May and early June. Celebration Sundays are a special tradition here at First Church and wonderful opportunities to take different aspects of our congregational life, and experience them in worship, thanking God for guidance across the year, and for accompaniment in all the aspects of living our faith together.
But this morning’s service is not about a big celebration. Rather, it is first about a personal process and the challenges that we encounter in order to really be able to celebrate the lives God gives us, recognizing God’s love with us and for us, as we seek humanly and most imperfectly to be faithful and claim our birthright, each person, a child of God. Secondly, it is about bringing this new understanding into our daily living.
Our scripture lessons for this morning take up both aspects. Psalm 32, attributed to the shepherd boy, and later King, David, leads us to consider the personal struggle, and the triumph possible in faithful living. Our gospel lesson from Luke brings us into the challenge of living out God’s love in community. And as is true with the writings of scripture, we cannot help but see them addressing our world today.
I’d like to have us start by looking at our psalm. Psalm 32 was written as a hymn – for the Book of Psalms was the hymnal used by Israel in worship. It was also written by the master musician and poet, David. If you were to open your bibles, you would see, in most translations, beneath the title, Psalm 32, the subtitle, "The Joy of Forgiveness". Now I don’t know about you, but for me, those are not two words that I would immediately associate. When I feel guilty or regretful for some action or inaction on my part – or for a major blunder, the last thing I am thinking about is joy. Shame is much more my style. And when I feel I am in the wrong, I have a real need to go to the person involved and apologize, leaving the very possibility of forgiveness up to them. And even if they do forgive me, then it is another struggle to accept it.
But enough about me, let’s look to David. We all remember stories from our childhood of David the shepherd boy who played his harp on the hillside, and eventually before King Saul. We may even remember that he became Saul’s armor-bearer, but took off his armor when he went into battle against the Philistine giant, Goliath. There it was a slingshot and five smooth stones that he used to defeat and kill the giant. We also teach of David’s friendship with Saul’s son, Jonathan. All of these, beautiful heroic stories that we tell over and again, and that our children – and we - remember. What we do not teach our children, and what we do not preach enough about is David’s history of being a great military leader who used all his wiles to achieve success, nor do we teach about the shadow side of David, the side that committed adultery and even murder. And, by avoiding the hard aspects of this significant man, we also miss out on telling of his guilt suffering and exile, which were followed by his repentance before God, and eventually by his wise and long reign as king.
If anyone knew, David knew what it meant to feel beyond redemption. But despite that, he also believed in God, and loved God. And somehow, somehow, he was able to repent, receive God’s forgiveness, and then encounter the joy and hope that followed. And that "somehow" I think we can attribute to God’s grace.
As Tom Robbins put it, "People are never perfect, but love can be. That is the only way the mediocre and the vile can be transformed…"
It was a transforming grace that David found in his shame and then repentance, a transforming grace that brought him not only to be forgiven, but to know joy once more. A joy that went on to fuel his faith, and lead him to be a wise king, and a faithful man who would in time bring the ark to Jerusalem and transform Jerusalem into a great religious center.
Now, let’s move ahead a few centuries and look at Luke’s gospel. This is where personal struggle enters the realm of the relational. We have the familiar story of the woman coming into the home of a Pharisee, a respected man of faith, by label, who invited Jesus to dine with him, invited this questionable prophet, not only into his home, but to his table. And we have a woman, a known sinner, who upon learning Jesus was at the Pharisee’s house, came to Jesus bringing a jar of ointment. How many of us – would any of us - have dared to do the same – break through the mores of that time – enter a well-to-do person’s home and go directly to Jesus?
We should note that the woman came weeping. Biblically angels cry, God cries, and surely Adam and Eve must have had a good cry- as they set out to face the tribulations of the world. To be brought to tears, is a position through which many have moved from places of pain into places of healing. And so it was for the woman.
But let us stay close to the story. And let us remember that it is a story about grace-filled hospitality – but grace-filled for whom? A sinful woman broke through the traditions of correctness, to come to Jesus. There she bathed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Then she kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment.
We then find the Pharisee, first interpreting what was going on, by concluding with his own agenda, that Jesus could not really be a prophet, for certainly he would have known this woman was a sinner, and would not have permitted her ministrations. But then Jesus uses the intrusion as an opportunity to tell a story – his favorite, most disarming way of teaching the woman, the Pharisee –and us. He spoke of two debtors, both forgiven their debts by a certain creditor, and spoke of the love held for the creditor as being greater from the one forgiven the greater debt, than from the one who had been forgiven little.
Now you may be wondering about this story. After all, what is this faith Christianity all about – if we can sin flagrantly – and then simply go to God and repent? Robert Farrar in his book Between Noon and Three has written about this.
"You’re worried about permissiveness – about the way the preaching of grace that seems to say it’s okay to do all kinds of terrible things as long as you just walk in afterward and take the free gift of God’s forgiveness…While you and I maybe worried about seeming to give permission, Jesus apparently was not. He wasn’t afraid of giving the prodigal son a kiss instead of a lecture, a party instead of probation; and he proved that by bringing in the elder son at the end of the story and having him raise pretty much the same objections you do. He’s angry about the party. He complains that his father is lowering standards and ignoring virtue - that music, dancing, and a fatted calf are, in effect, just so many permissions to break the law. And to that Jesus has his father say only one thing: "Cut that out! We’re not playing good boys and bad boys anymore. Your brother was dead and he’s alive. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping."
When things look their blackest – the possibility of joy comes forth.
Jesus forgave the woman all and brought that contrite weeping woman to her feet – can’t you just see him, taking her by the arms and standing her tall – looking her in the eyes and telling her to "Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace." What a gift – a gift of grace for the woman, grace-filled hospitality. She had been received, not rejected, and had had her life profoundly touched by God’s grace and was transformed.
But so had Jesus and the Pharisee. Jesus been graced in his receiving her, as she afforded him the opportunity to teach about God’s extravagant welcome and unfettered forgiveness. And the Pharisee was also present for the teaching. The theology of resurrection was enacted in his presence and he also was called to take this learning – into his living.
It has been said that "Grace must find its expression in life, otherwise it is not grace." Also that “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves that we find in them."
Eugene Debbs explains this a bit more fully.
"Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago (in Jesus’ time) the questions was asked; "Am I my brother’s keeper?" That question has never been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
I would say "Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think of me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death?"
Debbs was addressing the pain of inhospitality.
Our lesson today, shows everything changes – when touched by grace. A rare commodity? I think not. If you look for acts of grace in scripture, they are everywhere. That Joseph should marry Mary who was with child. That a Good Samaritan, despised by his countrymen, should come and help one of them who was attacked and beaten. That Isaac should be spared from sacrifice by his father, Abraham. That the 5000 had enough to eat. That Noah built an ark – much less made it through the flood. …I think you see where I am going.
Scripture which is so very much about life in biblical times, is replete with grace. So can our lives be.
Let’s move nearly two thousand years ahead in history, as I share a story, and then I have a proposition for us.
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII. He was called the "Little Flower" by adoring New Yorkers because he was only five foot four inches tall and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who used to ride the NY fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, and he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935 he turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.
Within a few minutes a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. "It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor," the man told the mayor. "She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson." LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said "I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions—ten dollars or ten days in jail." But even as he pronounced the sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a ten dollar bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant. So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, with traffic violations and attending policemen each of whom just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation."
So how is it that we can experience grace-filled hospitality? And, how is it that we can make real grace-filled hospitality happen in our time? Actually, I don’t really think that it is we who will make it happen, but I think we are the arms and legs and voices that are part of the process. For I believe God is calling us and guiding us to an inclusivity such as we have not yet imagined - the valuing all - not fearing the stranger – and really loving our neighbor. For those of us who do not feel worthy or able to participate in such a process, David wrote today’s psalm - believing and wanting us to know that our God is a loving God and a forgiving God, who protects and defends all, who would come.
I would like to challenge us this week, to intentionally be people of faith, who welcome all, who find comfort as others are comforted, who know pleasure others finds pleasure, and who experience justice and peace, as others finds justice and peace. Then we will be people who know grace-filled hospitality.
How will we do this? God knows?
God knows.
Amen.
Benediction
For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Amen.
