Scandalous!

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
June 13, 2010; 3 Pentecost, Proper 6, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

    (Luke 7:26 - 8:3) – One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him-- that she is a sinner." Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "Teacher," he replied, "Speak." "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus 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 bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

    Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.  

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Simon the Pharisee invites Jesus to his home for a meal.  Such an act would have been a public declaration of Simon's openness to friendship and alliance with Jesus.  The meal would have been publically visible and accessible to the community, with guests reclining around a U-shaped table in the open courtyard of Simon's home.  Simon would have been correct and cautious in his hosting, observing all of the proprieties of cleanliness and purity that were characteristic of the Pharisees.  A proper meal.

Into this careful setting comes scandalous behavior.  A "woman in the city, who was a sinner" – one who did not practice the observance of the Pharisees' religious scruples and purity – presents herself uninvited and stands behind Jesus, weeping.  She brings a very valuable alabaster jar filled with oil, and she anoints Jesus' feet.  This is unheard of.  It was appropriate to anoint kings, priests and prophets on their heads.  Often the body would be anointed as an act of hospitality and daily care after a ritual bath.  To anoint only the feet was scandalous to social convention.  Anointing feet might be an act of intimate care for a husband or a father, or it might be something that happened in a brothel, but never would someone anoint another's feet with oil in public.  Never. 

Continuing to weep, she "began to bathe his feet with her tears..."  Very probably this unnamed woman brought with her another jar, a vase in which she had collected her tears.  It was a tradition in the Middle East for women to collect their tears in tear vases: sometimes a single vase for all tears, sometimes one vase for tears of sorrow and another for tears of joy.  These vases could become heirlooms, passed down from mother to daughter over generations.  Imagine this woman emptying her inherited tears of sorrow and joy upon the feet of the man Jesus.

The story tells us that she also began to dry his feet with her hair.  In the Middle East, no woman would display her hair to any man except her husband.  To show her hair in front of other men was comparable to bearing her breasts.  That scrupulous tradition continues with the head scarves worn by Muslim women and the hair bags of Orthodox Jewish women.  (1)

No wonder the Simon the Pharisee reacted negatively.  Anyone would have.  This woman had behaved indecently.  Simon knew what anyone else observing this scene would know – the man Jesus was no prophet; a prophet would not allow such unclean and scandalous behavior. 

Yet Jesus is unembarrassed and is not scandalized.  Unlike Simon, Jesus does not distance himself from her.  He sees the extravagant generosity and gratitude behind her act, and he accepts her with a divine pronouncement of forgiveness and affection.

There is a version of another legend of a woman's scandalous yet generous behavior.  It happened a thousand years after the story of the woman with the alabaster jar.  It also started at a dinner table, when a man that this latter-day woman loved, or at least had vowed to love, announced a new tax on the townspeople.  "My Lord," she urged, "can you not be generous?"  He flung his cold reply to her, "It is very easy to be generous with what is not yours."

It had been easy for her to give to the poor, for her husband was rich; easy to give away food, for her table was full; easy to nurse the sick when she lay on linen bedsheets; easy to ask for tax relief and be seen as a town's savior.  His words struck her like a fist: "You only give what is mine.  You never give what is yours."  It was true.  All that she had was his property; even her clothes.  The only thing that was truly hers, was her self.

There a bargain was struck.  He would take back the tax, if she would give what was hers, not his.

In the morning, she mounted her white mule, handed away the cloak that covered her, and began her ride, defended only by what was undeniably her own – her long hair, freed from its braids and flowing like the hair of a loose woman.  It was scant protection from the eyes that might see her.

With the pounding of her heart, she did not notice at first, the quiet.  But as her ride turned toward the market square, she heard the silence.  She raised her lowered head to find the street empty, every window-shutter closed, every door shut fast.  The people had given their gift to her, the only gift they had to give, in return for her extravagant gift of what was her own.

Humbled, grateful, Lady Godiva of Coventry rode home where her beloved stood, waiting with her cloak, seeing her anew.  Seeing how they loved her, he saw her with grateful, loving eyes which filled with tears as he helped her down, he repented of the new tax. (2)

There is a third story of shameless, naked, scandalous generosity.  It is the story of God's love for us – God's unqualified forgiveness and infinite love.

God invites us into the naked freedom of shameless love and scandalous generosity.  God pours out divine love and infinite forgiveness with extravagant abandon, recklessly loving sinner and Pharisee, outsider and insider alike.  God invites us not to be embarrassed, either by our own scruples and selfishness or by God's radical hospitality. 

The woman with the alabaster jar somehow knew of this forgiveness and love, and she poured out her appreciation in an extravagant act of gratitude.  But Simon was too busy keeping score and justifying himself to understand, and to be equally forgiven, loved and free.

Lady Godiva's husband was also good at keeping score, monitoring what was his and what had not been earned and therefore might not be given.  His eyes could only be opened by the generous gifts given by those who had little to give but their love.

God invites us to let down our hair, pour out our tears, and strip off our inhibitions in order to let God love us with utter abandon, so that we might respond by loving the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. 

As we accept God's extravagant loving mercy toward us, so we turn and give God's extravagant loving mercy to others.

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1)  the information about tear vases and hair comes from my friend Paul McCracken who guided our tour of the Holy Land.  Paul writes a weekly commentary on the scripture for the Jerusalem Institute for Biblical Exploration. 

2)  from an adaptation by the Rev. Rosemary Beales of St. John's Episcopal Church, Ellicott City, MD, of the story published by Sara Maitland and Wendy Mulford in Virtuous Magic: Women Saints and Their Meanings (NY: Continuum Publ., 1998) p. 324-332; in Rosemary's sermon Do you SEE this Woman, 
http://www.goodpreacher.com/backissuesread.php?file=11326


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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church 
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
 
More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org 

Widows and Dead Sons

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
June 6, 2010; 2 Pentecost; Proper 5, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

    (1 Kings 17:8-24) – The word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you." So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." But she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
 
After this, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house at Zarephath, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again." The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, "See, your son is alive." So the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth."

    (Luke 7:11-17) – Soon after healing the centurion's slave, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!" This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
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We have two stories of widows and dead sons today.

In our first story from the Hebrew Scriptures, Ahab has just come to the throne as king, along with his Queen Jezebel.  They are powerful, wealthy and cosmopolitan.  Not since Solomon has Israel been such a power.  But they are greedy and unjust.  So God sends the prophet Elijah to announce a drought.

When the water dries up at the prophet's hiding place, God sends Elijah out of the country, to Zarephath in the neighboring Phoenician nation of Sidon.  God sends Elijah to a widow. 

In a patriarchal culture like the Middle East, a widow is particularly vulnerable.  A woman only has social standing and economic security through a male – her husband or father, an uncle, brother or brother-in-law.  Apparently this widow is struggling to stay alive without a male protector.  In a prosperous time, she would be dependent upon charity, and very vulnerable.  In a time of drought and the famine, her situation would be most precarious.  When Elijah meets her, she is gathering sticks to make a last, small cake of bread before her supplies are exhausted.  She is preparing to die.  She and her son – her hope; her future.

Let's leave that there and shift to the Gospel story.  Jesus has just healed a slave, a man who was the property of one of the foreign officers in the occupying Roman army.  Now Jesus approaches a village not far from his hometown Nazareth.  There is a funeral procession.  The dead person is the only son of a widow.  His death means her permanent marginalization and vulnerability. 

If a widow has a son, that son gives her a future.  He will have standing a soon as he becomes recognized as a man, around age twelve.  He will be able to earn income for their survival, and to represent their interests in the community, and to marry and continue the family.  A widow without a son is hopeless and vulnerable.  This would have been an extraordinarily tragic funeral procession.  The mourners know this widow's plight.  They would have assumed that she, or the young man, or their ancestors had done something very bad to deserve this kind of punishment from God.  The distancing from her would have already begun.

Look what Jesus does.  "When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, 'Do not weep.'  Then he came forward and touched the bier," he spoke to the corpse, and the young man was raised from death.

What Jesus did is inconceivable.  Few things are as unclean in ancient Jewish culture as a corpse, or anything connected with a corpse.  Jesus touched the bier, the frame on which the body is being carried for burial.  It is against the law of Torah to touch a bier.  One who does so becomes unclean.  Rabbis don't touch the unclean.  Jesus touches the bier.

Let's look at these two stories first as metaphors.  Let's internalize them. 

Within each of us is our internal widow – our experience of ourselves as contingent, dependent, weak, threatened, disowned.  Sometimes life presents us with challenges that leave us literally weak, threatened, dependent or disowned.  Even in the best of circumstances, we all have our vulnerabilities. 

God comes to us in our weakness.  When life is dry and tasteless, in times of emotional drought and famine, depression or fear – God visits us to feed us with the nourishing food of unqualified forgiveness and infinite love.  When our future seems cut off and possibilities disappear, Jesus touches our dead ends with resurrection power and brings new life and hope.  That is what God does. 

So bring to God today your fears and your vulnerabilities.  Bring God your disappointments and insecurities.  Feed from the bread of life and cup of salvation.  Be touched and embraced back to life and freedom.  God comes to us most especially in our weakness.  God forgives us and accepts us fully into new life.  God loves us with an unqualified and unquenchable love.  This church mediates that every week through our prayer and through this Eucharist.

But, these two stories of widows and sons are not only metaphors, they are also stories about God's intention for our human community.  God shows special attention and particular compassion toward anyone in our world who is marginalized, weak, dependent, or disowned, toward anyone whose future is threatened and who lives with fear and vulnerability.  The prophet and the Christ care, and they expect us to share the divine agenda for compassion and generosity.

I met a young woman here the other day.  She is seventeen; I'll call her Christina.  Christina's family moved to Springdale when she was three.  They came here legally from Mexico on a visitor's visa, but they stayed illegally after her father was offered a good job.  They filed papers through an agency that promised to help them secure permanent worker status and citizenship.  But the agency was a con.  Preying on vulnerable immigrants, stealing their money and some of their brief window of opportunity for gaining status.  Predators know that they can take advantage of people like Christina's family, because they know undocumented people are afraid to report villains to the police.

Christina has grown up here from age three.  When she talks, she sounds just like you and me.  She's bright and energetic.  She'll graduate from Springdale High School next year with good grades.  She plans to go to college.  Christina got a learner's permit to drive when she was 14.  It expired last year.  She can't get a driver's license.  She drives as rarely as she can, and when she does, she is very careful to obey all laws.  Her mother telephones her if she hasn't heard from Christina by the time she should have reached wherever she was going.  If Christina is pulled over, it could threaten her whole family.  She says won't drive in Rogers where it is said people are pulled over without cause.  In fact, she avoids Benton County if at all possible.

As she spoke, I remembered the "sundown towns," some with signs telling black people they'd better not be in this town when the sun goes down.  A leading researcher counts 94 suspected sundown towns and counties in Arkansas' past. 

Christina says she lives very carefully.  She watches her words in the classroom.  If people talk about illegal immigrants, she keeps silent.  She's careful about the friends she makes.  A small disagreement between friends could lead to a phone call that might bring the authorities to her door.

Her brother Jose is 21.  He'll graduate from the University next year with a double major in Civil Engineering and Economics.  He's been here since he was eight.  He doubts he can get a job in the U.S. after he graduates.  Unless the laws are changed, he'll probably move to Mexico, where he has few connections.  All of his friends and family are here.

Everyone in Christina and Jose's family lives with the fear that at any moment one or all of them could be seized, detained, and deported.  They know of the stories of Mamas who didn't show up at school to pick up their child, of Papas who lost job, home, and family in a moment.

I have a friend who got stopped in his car in Benton County the other day because the light on his tag was out.  He had been at a fund-raiser in a prominent home, and he had consumed four glasses of wine.  He failed the breathalyzer and ended up in jail.  They treated him nicely; he was obviously some kind of professional.  In the cell with him was an Hispanic man who had been walking home after having some beers with some friends.  He had been picked up and charged with public intoxication.  My friend is now back at work and talking to a lawyer who might get him off.  The man in his cell with him will be deported to Mexico.  "I wonder about his family," said my friend.

Maybe you remember Jesus' first sermon, in his home synagogue in Nazareth.  Jesus mentioned this story about Elijah and the widow.  Jesus told his hometown and family, "The truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zaraphath in Sidon."  Jesus' sermon was not well received.

It's easier to hear a sermon about how God comes to us in our weaknesses and touches us with forgiveness and love.  It's a little harder to hear a sermon about God's expectation that we do the same for others.  Especially when it involves foreigners or the unclean. 

Jesus was willing to get his hands dirty to touch something unclean and controversial for the sake of the weak and vulnerable.  The synagogue didn't like it.  Elijah befriended a foreigner in her time of weakness and danger.  Ahab and Jezebel didn't like it. 

God is here for us in our weakness and need.  Will we be present for others in their weakness and need?  If we want to cooperate with God's agenda, we will, with God's help.

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For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org