When The Story Is About Us- A Sermon

Luke 7


I am imagining a common scene, played out across dining tables everywhere. The mother offers a piece of difficult but necessary wisdom to the teenager. The teenager sits quietly, pondering, absorbing. The father, unaware of the dynamic, offers what he believes to be encouragement. “I believe what your mother is saying is…..” but he never finishes. The teenager looks up with a growl and says, “I KNOW what she is saying!”

And such is the preacher’s lot with texts such as this. And there are many texts such as this. Texts we call parables, or simply the narrative story itself, wherein the interaction of character and dialogue is meant to stand as sufficient, self evident. What more is there to say to Jesus’ words about love and forgiveness? How does the preacher avoid being the one who says, “I think what Jesus is trying to say is….” To a congregation that knows what Jesus says. Silence, not sermons, may be the more appropriate response to texts such as this.

And yet I will take the risk and say something, even if to only shine a spotlight even more brightly on Jesus’ words and Luke’s story. The situation is straightforward enough. One of the Pharisees has invited Jesus to dinner. This is a common strategy which we see played out on the 24 hour cable news channels all the time. Whoever is the hot ticket, whoever has the buzz, that is the one we want as a guest. We want to be associated with him. We want the people to think of us as a pair. Jesus is the latest thing, especially after that resurrection trick he pulled at Nain. Or, perhaps, there is another explanation. Remember the adage—keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Whatever the reason, Jesus is at table with the Pharisee who is distinguished by a trait few Pharisees share in the Gospel. He has a name. Simon.

So Simon the Pharisee and Jesus the Christ are at table together. No other is mentioned until the end of the story save the woman, the woman from the city, the woman who is a sinner, the woman who is a problem. The woman is behind Jesus, in view of Simon, washing and anointing his feet. We need to make a careful note of the language here. The Pharisee, Simon, said disparaging things about the woman to himself. Not out loud. There is no direct challenge to Jesus here. This foreshadows a similar scene later in the Gospel around the time of the story of the prodigal in chapter 15. At that time the “sinners and tax collectors” were coming near to Jesus and the Pharisees were grumbling, saying to themselves “this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” And Jesus’ response is also the same—he anticipates the objection and has a direct response to it.

And as is Jesus’ way, he tells a story. Two debtors, one creditor. One owes a great deal, one owes little. The creditor forgives both debts. Who will be more grateful? The answer seems obvious to Simon. The one who was forgiven more, he says, no doubt wondering what the relevance is. Just so, Jesus says.
When David decided to borrow Bathsheba from her husband while her husband was fighting David’s war, he did so without much thought to consequence. He was king, after all. It was after Bathsheba disclosed her pregnancy that David decided he had to take preventive measures. After failing to entice Uriah, her husband, to spend the night with her, he tried to have him killed. He succeeded in this and his problem was solved. That is until Nathan, his court “story-teller” came to him with a story.

There was a poor man who had a sheep. He loved the sheep as one loves a child. The rich man had many sheep and, when one was needed for a lavish banquet, the rich man did not want to take from his own flock and instead took the poor man’s dear sheep and served it up with mint jelly. David, upon hearing of this towering injustice, was filled with rage. As I am king, he proclaimed, such a man as this deserves death. Let him repay four times the loss.

David’s indignation is encouraging, but his sensitivity is still lacking. After all, this was not a property issue, this was a love issue. In Nathan’s story the poor man clearly loved the sheep and had no intention of ever serving it to anyone. David sees the injustice, but he doesn’t see the emotional import. He doesn’t understand that there are some things more important that property, assets, and privilege.

Which is why, perhaps, we still need sermons on stories. When David heard the story, he knew what it was about, except the part that was about him. When Simon heard the story, it was tiresomely obvious, except that part which indicted him. This is the joy and sorrow of story. Story opens to us levels of awareness that rational argument cannot penetrate. Jesus, and Nathan, understood one of the first rules of engaging the audience—emotional response.

Those of you with children. Did you ever call your parents to complain about your child? You would not believe the words that come out of that child’s mouth! All she does is complain! He just will not clean his room! And your parent listens patiently on the other end before saying, calmly and plainly, you are the man. (or the woman). You were the same way. Or have you ever caught yourself complaining to another person about all the gossipy people while in the process of gossiping about them? When we hear stories that engage our sense of right and wrong, our “common” sense, the moral seems self evident. But it is a common characteristic of such stories that it is easier to apply its lessons elsewhere, or not apply it at all. Simon understood well enough that if one is forgiven one hundred and another ten, the one forgiven one hundred will likely feel more relieved. David understood well enough that you should not raid someone else’s house for what you should supply yourself. What neither understood was that the story was about them.
The bible stories are not just history and they are not just stories. They do not all have the feel good impact of the children’s bible. They are deep and penetrating examinations of what it means to be a human being, good and bad, in the presence of God. This is the power of all stories that matter, that endure. Stories serve not as windows on the past but as mirrors for the present. Stories that matter have the power to change us in ways that argument and lecture and a mountain of facts never can. So Jesus told stories—stories designed to sneak up on us with their truth so that we end up inviting them in before we know what they have to say to us. Had Nathan simply told David he had done a bad thing, David could have denied and excused and evaded. Had Jesus told Simon straight out that this woman was forgiven and therefore loved he would have gotten lost with the others in the argument about forgiveness and who can forgive and when. No. Nathan invited David to self-discovery and Jesus does the same for Simon and for us. In our debt encumbered culture we can surely relate to Jesus’ question to Simon. So can we see, by extension, the truth about love?

Jesus’ story is the story within the larger story that Luke is telling. In Luke’s story we note that the “others” at the table argue about forgiveness. Who does he think he is that he can forgive. But Jesus never forgives the woman. He merely observes that she is forgiven. And this is what explains her actions, her love, her compassion. Does Simon understand? We are not told. We hear only the bickering of the ones Jesus was not directly addressing. Maybe Simon gets it, as David did. You are the man, Simon. You love little, because you are forgiven little. You love little, hence little do you forgive.

Paul Tillich, a wonderful theologian and preacher, offered a sermon on this text. Why, he asked, do so many turn away from their righteous parents, their righteous pastors? Do escape judgment? That is surely some of it. But, Tillich speculates, more often it is because they seek a love that is rooted in forgiveness, and this the righteous ones cannot give. There was a pastor in North Platte many years ago who mentioned once to Amy Jo that it was getting harder and harder to find people to be on the church’s board. “There are just not enough righteous people,” he complained. Is it easier to fill a board with forgiven people?

Tillich concluded his sermon with these words. “The Church would be more the Church of Christ if it joined Jesus and not Simon in its encounter with those judged unacceptable. Each of us who strives for righteousness would be more Christian if more were forgiven him, if he loved more and if he could better resist the temptation to present himself as acceptable to god by his own righteousness.