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Sunday, June 2, 2013

“Judging Rightly--Forgiving Rightly"

Sermon based upon Colossians 3:13; Luke 7:36-50
Dr. Charles J. Tomln, Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Pentecost 2, June 2, 2013

Judge not, lest you are judged.”  We all know that command from the Bible.   But at another time the Bible says: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”  (1Co 6:2 NRS).    Is the Bible contradicting itself?   Perhaps our text today will help sort this out. 

Today we continue our study in Christian virtues from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.   We have spoken of these ‘virtues’ and the new clothes of the Christian life, which include “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness (or meekness),   patience, and “bearing one another.”   Today we come to the next Christian virtue which says that we are to “forgive each other just as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also forgive.” (Colossians 3:13).  This could be a very good place for us to begin to ‘judge rightly’.  Just how much has the Lord forgiven us?   Can we measure it?   This story from Luke can help us figure whether the Lord has forgiven us a little or a lot?   If you’ve been forgiven a little, you might not make such a good judge.  If you’ve been forgiven a lot, you are probably much better judge than most.  Let me explain what I mean.

Jesus was invited to a Pharisees house for dinner.  During the meal, a street walker comes right off the street.   She has recognized Jesus and she enters the house uninvited and proceeds to wash Jesus’ feet with her hair and tears.   As a result, it’s not only woman who in trouble, but it’s also Jesus:  “If this guy was a true prophet he would know who’s this woman is!”   The implication is that Jesus’ is a poor judge of character.   This proves he’s not a very good preacher too, or so they say.   Who says, that’s always the main question, isn’t it?

Several years ago, a church wanted to get rid of their preacher.  So someone made a story that they came into the church office and the pastor’s hair was messed up.    They said he must have been with the secretary.  They didn’t mention that it was a windy day.   The preacher went and got a lawyer.  The lawyer called a conference and told the deacons that if that church ruined the preacher’s reputation, they would be paying his salary the rest of his life.   The preacher ended up leaving the church, but he did keep his reputation.   Years later I saw in the Biblical Recorder that the pastor had retired.   He was awarded by his congregation as being the most caring pastor they had ever had.   Funny, isn’t it?  One church called him a devil.  The other church called him an angel sent from God.   Isn’t it amazing how people can get their wires crossed?  Who do you think was judging rightly?

A JUDGMENT UPON JUDGMENTALISM
In this text today we see a great reversal.    The judgment that Simon the Pharisee makes about this woman is quickly questioned by Jesus.   Strangely enough, by the time we get to the end of the story it is this street-walker who seems to be in doing right, and it is Simon the Pharisee who ends up doing wrong.    In the end, it’s not the person who invites Jesus into his house who does the good thing, but it’s the one who invited herself to the party who ends doing rightly and being the ‘life of the party’.  Is this any way to explain the forgiving love of God?   What in the world is going on here?  What’s right about this street-walker?  What’s all wrong about Simon the religious man?

Well, the problem can be seen in a story James Moore told about some children running a lemonade stand.   A certain man was driving home from work one day when he saw a group of young children selling lemonade on a corner near his home. The kids had posted the typical Magic Marker sign over their lemonade stand:  “Lemonade – 10 cents”.    The man was impressed with the enterprising young children, so he pulled over to the curb to buy a cup of lemonade… and to give his support to the children’s financial effort.      A young boy approached his car and the man placed his order for one cup of lemonade… and he gave the boy a quarter.    After much deliberation, the children determined that the man had some change coming and they perused through their “cigar box cash register”… and finally came up with the correct amount.

The boy returned with the change with the man’s cup of lemonade. The boy then just stood there by the man’s car and stared at the man as he enjoyed his fresh lemonade. Finally, the boy asked the man if he were finished. “Just about,” the man said, “but why?” The little boy said, “That’s the only cup we have, and we need it back to stay in business.” It’s difficult to operate a lemonade business if you have only one cup!

That’s the problem with Simon.   He only has ‘one cup’ religion.   Simon loves people.  Simon loves God.  But he only loves the kind of people he thinks God would love.   He cannot love all the people God loves.   This is what blocks forgiveness.   We lose the ability to love the people God loves.

THE ONE WHO LOVES THE MOST
Brent Younger tells Vacation Bible School in a Southern Baptist Church in Mississippi.     He says that as a child, on Friday, they would skip the high tech missionary slide show, because it was ‘salvation’ day.  At the close of the assembly the pastor would explain the plan of salvation.  The four points were: God loves us; sin pushes us away from God; Jesus died for our sins; and if we believed this is true, we could be saved.  The pastor would say, "Raise your hand if you believe this."   You know how that goes.

During his last year as a student in Vacation Bible School a smart aleck child asked: "What about the Indians who were here before Columbus? Did they go to heaven?"
The pastor said, "The Bible says that you have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven."
The sixth grader replied: "But the Indians never even heard of Jesus. That’s not fair."
The pastor, a bit defensive, said, "We have to believe what the Bible says."
The sixth grader protested, "But the Indians didn’t have a Bible."
Finally my father said, "Brett, we’ll talk about this when we get home."  Huh Oh!  I know what happened to him when he got home.   It’s the same thing that happened to me when I once talked back to my mother.  Didn’t you hear me say I only did it once?

But there is something important about this question.   Some version of the question "What about the Indians?" has been around a long time, challenging everyone who takes God’s love seriously.  The question goes to the heart of our faith. Do we believe in having special knowledge or do we believe in saving grace?   Which do we believe really believe in?  Do we judge who gets in, or do we let God judge?

It doesn’t take a lot of thought to realize that if we had been born in India, we would be Hindus. If we had been born in Iraq, we would be Muslims. We wouldn’t know the four steps to being saved (Today it’s reduced to three: Admit, Believe, and Confess.).   Just by being born we would be lost.  Even if it’s not our fault, we are still lost.  Unless we do something God is going to get us. 

But ignoring the experience of billions of people might be just as big an insult to God as Simon insulted this street walker. The God who offers grace is certainly bigger than our version of religion, church or our own understanding of the ‘plan of salvation’.   If Salvation belongs to God, then it can never belong to any of us.  Remember Jesus didn’t say to those people who were healed, “Your Baptism by immersion saved you” or your “religion saved you”, or your “church saved you”, and Jesus didn’t even say, “I have save you”, but what Jesus actually said was: “Your faith has made you well”.   This is the same as saying “your faith in wanting to get well or be saved has healed or saved you”.   

What we need to understand is that ‘salvation’ can never been reduced to a 4 or 3 point plan, but salvation is the experience of God’s forgiveness and grace.   The greatest truth in this world is the love, grace, and forgiveness of God.   This is the information that can save anybody and everybody anytime and anyplace.      

This is exactly the information that ‘saved’ this street-walker.   She did not come to understand the 4 or 3 point plan of salvation, like we might explain it, but she came to understand it as Jesus himself explained it.  And this Jesus, if we really believe in the risen Lord, should still be the one who fully explains it---not us.   What Jesus explains to the soul is exactly what this woman experienced---that no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you’ve done, or what you haven’t done, this doesn’t matter if you will come to know in your heart right now that you are unconditionally loved.   And because of this love you can be a whole new person---and you can love that much too, when you bow down to worship the one who loves you without hesitation.    

Who knows how the full awareness of God’s unconditional love first hits people?   Every person who finds such love has their own story.  What’s your story?   This is the kind of story moment that makes life worth living and makes it worth having been born.  It’s the kind of moment that gets you laughing with those around you who also know that love until the tears run down your cheeks; or until you hear beautiful music together; or until you weep with somebody else’s in their own tragedy, fully realizing that because you are loved, you really can and do love someone in the same way.   Just as you are forgiven and are loved unconditionally, you are able to forgive and love unconditionally.   As Paul says, just as Jesus loves and forgives you, so you can forgive.

In a moment of love like this, God is trying to open up our lives to something bigger, better, greater and larger.  Frederick Buechner writes: "If you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to do business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. If you throw your arms around such a moment and hug it like crazy, it may save your soul."   (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 85).    Would you like to have your soul saved, even after you’ve invited Jesus into your house?   We need to give love, forgiveness and grace to other people, because no story about love, grace and forgiveness is far from our own, if it is real.

Can you see how desperate this woman was to see and worship Jesus?   Why else would a woman like her want to go into a Pharisee’s house?   She knows that Simon will not welcome her there, but Jesus will.  And now, because of God’s love, grace and forgiveness, which she has found in Jesus Christ, Jesus is all that matters.   She can love anyone and she is the one in this story who loves and forgives the most, because she knows she is loved and forgiven the most.    She is not thinking of her reputation.  She is not thinking of her failures.  She is not thinking about the repercussions.  She is only thinking about serving Jesus.   This is what a person does who really knows what it’s like to be forgiven.   They are able to love and forgive in return.

THE ONE WHO LOVES THE LEAST
At first, everything goes as the woman planned.  She makes her way to Jesus’ bruised, dusty, worn, working feet.   She gets out the perfume, and then after pouring on the perfume something happens that she didn’t plan.    She is overcome with a release of tears.  Not knowing what else to do, she lets down her hair to clean Jesus’ feet.  She isn’t thinking, but she is lost in loving, serving, and caring.

This is all more than Simon the Pharisee can stand.  How could Jesus let such a scandalous thing go on? Simon’s been gracious enough to invite Jesus to dinner—even though some of Simon’s friends disapprove.  Now this woman is falling all over Jesus, kissing his feet, and filling the room with the overpowering smell perfume and the overflowing of emotion and love.

The whole spectacle leads Simon to say to himself—just loud enough for everyone at the table to hear him—"If this man were a real prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is."  We’ve all said things like that about people, sometimes thinking, and other times without thinking!    Knowing what Simon is thinking, Jesus tells a story: "Two men were in debt to a certain bank. One owed five thousand dollars, the other five hundred. When neither of them could pay, the president of the bank wrote off both debts." (Anyone who has dealt with a bank knows that this is a only a parable.) "Which of the two will be more grateful?"

Simon scratches his head nervously, "I suppose the one forgiven the greater debt."  "YOU SUPPOSE? Of course, the one who was forgiven more will be more grateful."   Then Jesus turns on Simon, comparing his puny hospitality to that of the woman who has lovingly kissed Jesus’ feet.    Simon already thinks he is so righteous that he sees little need to be forgiven, thus he has little reason to be grateful, and has little ability to be gracious and to forgive.   In God’s eyes, it the righteous, not the sinners who need to repent and be forgiven.  The sinners realize that they are sinners and already know how to repent, love and forgive.   They are one step ahead of righteous people Simon, the Pharisee.

Don’t miss the point: The difference between Simon and the Woman is that Simon’s selfish pride must be worse to God than the woman’s sexual sins.  The sinful woman knows more forgiveness because she feels more need for grace, not because her sin is worse.   Robert Capon writes: "The difference between those in heaven and those in hell is that the people in heaven celebrate God’s forgetfulness of their sin and the people in hell are like raccoons trying to pry off the lid of the can, so they can fling it open so the sin of those they think shouldn’t be in heaven will fling out everywhere."    Jesus doesn’t want Simon be like a raging raccoon, so Jesus turns to him and asks, "Do you see this woman?"   What Jesus means is do you see what she did that you didn’t do, can’t do, and don’t have?  She has forgiveness and she knows how to forgive?  Do we see this woman, too?

I know that I’ve told you about the German Bartender and German Lutheran pastor who changed places.  For one month, the Bartender became a pastor of a church, and for one month the Lutheran pastor became a Bartender.  (You can do that and keep your job only in Germany).  After one month, the Bartender was so frustrated that he wanted to quickly get back to his job as Bartender.  He never wanted to ever go in a church again.   The Pastor resigned his job and became a Bartender because he said the people loved each other more in the bar than they do in the church.  He had not realized how loving and forgiving people could be and he wanted to spend the rest of his days in ministry counseling people as a Bartender in a bar.  Now that’s just as much a scandal, and worse, it’s true.    Who has ever heard of such a thing, where people in the church forget how to be a church; and people in the bar know much better how to be Christians?  Could it happen today, as it did 2000 years ago?  Could being a saved sinner teach a person how to be a saved Christian?

Fred Craddock tells of visiting a small church and being surprised at the appearance of a large pastor—6’4" and 300 pounds. The pastor’s most noticeable feature was his stumbling, lumbering gait. He was awkward, almost falling, with long, useless arms at his sides, like they were awaiting further instruction. His head was misshapen. His hair was askew. He stumbled up the steps to get to the pulpit. "When he turned to face us, " Craddock says, "I saw the thick glasses, and through them I could see milky film over his eyes, one of his eyes going out, nothing coming in to the other. When he read, he held the book near his nose. When he spoke, the muscles in his neck worked with such vigor as he pushed out the words, as if he had learned to speak as an adult. But I lost all consciousness of that after a while. He read 1 Corinthians 13 and spoke on the greatness of love. He wasn’t poetic or prophetic, but was warm and affectionate. The relationship between those people, the love that he extended as he preached, and the love that came back from those people who sat quietly, leaning forward, was captivating and I was captured. How could this grotesque creature be so full of love? I didn’t understand. I started remembering those stories about how people who have grotesque features are sometimes granted a special quality of affection, Beauty and the Beast or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I thought of children with Down’s syndrome, how they have the capacity to grab you and hug you and kiss you, when other children stand at a distance. Is this what I’m seeing? Is this the providence of God that grants people who lack attractiveness on the outside to have that quality on the inside?"

"After the service, I lingered at the door and listened to the greetings and little words of pastoral care and comfort between him and the members. One woman I would guess to be seventy shook his hand at the door. She said, ‘I wish I could know your mother.’ She was having the same trouble I was. She didn’t understand the source of this love and thought maybe, ‘I wish I knew your mother.’ He said, ‘My mother’s name is Grace.’"

A few minutes later, Craddock remarked: "That was an unusual response you gave to that woman, ‘My mother’s name is Grace.’"   The pastor explained: "When I was born I was put up for adoption at the Department of Family Services. As you can guess, nobody wanted to adopt me. So I went from foster home to foster home, and when I was about seventeen, I saw some young people going into a church. I so wanted some friends, so I went in, and there I met grace—the grace of God."  (Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, (St. Louis: Chalice, 2001, 49-50).

"Sometimes a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you. Do not seek for anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted’"  (Paul Tillich).

So, how do we forgive?   We forgive as we understand how we have been loved and forgiven.   So now you know how you can forgive, don't you?  Amen.

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