Could Someone Love Me?

David Orendorff · Luke 7:36-50 · June 17, 2007

A very nervous phone caller contacted my Administrative Assistant in Helena a number of years ago.

Hello.........

Is this the church where Mr. Orendorff is a preacher?......

May I speak to Mr. Orendorff, please?.....Thank you.

(a long, restless, pause)

Hello, Mr. Orendorff.  Oh, yes... David.  You probably don't remember me.  I was at Bob Smith’s funeral.  I know two and half years is a long time.  I liked what you said about Bob and about God.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately.  But you don't really want to hear all that and I don't really want to talk about it yet.

I don't really even know how to ask this.  I have never been to church before.  I was wondering how someone came to your church.  Is there someplace I can buy a ticket?  Do I need an invitation from a member?  Do I have to pass some kind test about the Bible?  Is there a morals test?  Is there assigned seating?  What if I sit in someone else's chair, will they make me move?  That would be awfully embarrassing.  Will I have to stand up and tell people who I am?  What do people wear to church?  I don't want to stand out too much.  Are there things I need to memorize?  How much money should I bring with me?  I hear you take money and I want to give the right amount.

This is hard.  You said God loved Bob.  I have done some things for which I am ashamed and I guess what I really want to know is does God love me?  Could anyone there love me?  Can you help me heal from this terrible pain in my stomach?  Can I grow into the love you talked about?

The phone caller above is not all that unusual.  The only thing unusual is that this caller, in only a couple of paragraphs, gets to the issue most callers spend two years working up to.  People don’t come to church for the quality pews.  They come because they are looking for a balm to heal their wounds, and wisdom to grow their souls, whether they know it or not, they are looking for holiness.

I pray when these callers come they find that they can be loved by God and by us, that they are forgiven the wounds and stupidities of their lives, and that they find the Holy Spirit guiding them to a holy life of peace and joy.

Luke's story of Jesus, Simon and "the woman" - notice she never does have a name - is a short parable of our spiritual way.  Luke introduces us to three very interesting people.  First there is Jesus who we previously know and who is a lover, a teacher and a healer of lives.

Then we meet Simon who is a Pharisee.  Simon is a good man.  He is committed to a disciplined life as taught by his synagogue (sort of like being a Methodist) and is committed to living his faith daily, in his family, in his politics, at his work.  Simon invites Jesus to his home for a sgmposium,  which was a special dinner of fine food and wine.  Its main purpose was for conversation and networking.  A sgmposium   was reserved for men (and not women) to eat, laugh and discuss topics of interest, like business, religion and local politics.  It was an event where decisions were informally made that would later be formalized.  If it were today it might be a power lunch, a round of golf, or a tall double skinny espresso at the local coffee shop.

Now we meet "the sinner woman of the city." She is most likely a prostitute who sells herself to men like Simon when they need her.  It is doubtful that she has chosen this career as a God given vocation.  It is more likely that she believes her temporary beauty is the one asset she has in her desperate need to survive.

Sometime earlier she heard from Jesus that God's love was for her, not just the Simon’s of the world, the well off and well connected.  And hearing this she sees herself in a new way.  She is no longer "the sinner woman of the city" as Simon sees her, but she is a sacred and beloved child of God.  Though she has done plenty of wrong in her life, she is not filth, she is grace.

Overwhelmed with gratitude for such an unexpected and undeserved gift, she crashes Simon's symposium to express her gratefulness in the best way she knows how.  She weeps in grateful joy and with her tears washes Jesus' feet, then kisses them and massages them with scented oil, soothing their weary aching.  She does what she would have done for her male clients, only this time it is not for pay, and it is not a cause for self degradation, but it is an outpouring of joy and pure thankfulness, for these are the feet of the traveler who has carried the word of God's unconditional love to her.

There are two reactions to her act of gratitude.  Simon reacts saying, "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."  Simon reacts negatively to the “sinner” whose touch, in his view, makes Jesus unclean before God.

Jesus reacts to Simon by telling a story, "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii (two years wages), and the other fifty (two months wages).  When they could not pay, he forgave them both.  Now which of them will love him more?"

Simon sees a sinner woman.  Jesus sees a profoundly grateful person.  And Jesus knows that gratitude is the beginning of healing and growth.  To know that no matter who we are or what we have done, we are still loved and sacred to God, is a good way to begin trusting God.  As long as "the woman" sees herself outside the mercy of God's grace, she cannot heal, and she cannot grow into love.  But when Jesus shifted her seeing, he shifted her life.  And she, with rightful and proper joy, in the way she knows best to please a man, says, "Thank you."  The woman Jesus sees is a very different woman than the one Simon sees.  And graciously, "the woman" has stopped seeing herself with the eyes of Simon, and begun to see herself with the eyes of Jesus.

It is then that Jesus turns to her and says, "Your sins are forgiven."  Notice, friends, that forgiveness follows gratitude.  When "the woman" knows God's love for her is unconditional then she is ready to know that she is forgiven.  When she is grateful for God's free love of her, then she is ready to accept the free healing forgiveness offers.

Here the scripture ends.  I want to know more.  Did she in fact accept the forgiveness offered?  Did she then come to know the pervading presence of God's Holy Spirit as her teacher and healer?  Did she cooperate in her life with the Holy Spirit's perfecting grace?  We are left to wonder what happens next.

Though I can’t tell you the end of this story, I can tell you the ongoing end of another woman’s life.  She was not a prostitute, but she was very lost.  She had been abused as a child and like every woman I know that has suffered this abuse; she took it on herself as her sin and saw herself not as the victim, but as the unclean sinner woman.

By a series a graceful accidents (are there really any pieces of grace that are accidental?) she found her way to a Walk to Emmaus, a spiritual renewal weekend.  There she was deeply and permanently moved by God's love for her as it was acted out by the team.  She was fed in body, mind and soul in ways that were a mystery to her.  She was very grateful and told me so repeatedly.

After the weekend she lived for a time on the high of it, but then the old ways of seeing herself returned and she drifted far from the experience of grace.  And at the end of six months she no longer felt lovable.  But her memory of the weekend of love haunted her until she came looking for that love again.

She called one day, much like the caller above, and asked how it was she could come to church and would we want her?  I answered her questions.  She came to worship and soon had her place in her pew.  She had a ravenous appetite for all things spiritual.  She attended a small study group and those folks became her family.  She learned to pray daily, and often several times a day.  She engaged in simple and powerful acts of compassion, teaching Sunday school, counseling a friend through a child's serious illness, working hard as a board member of a local relief operation.

Now she is not perfect in herself or in her relationships.  But she has come a long way on the path of healing.  And that healing continues today.  She has found joy in herself, and in her gift of love to others.  It is gratitude to God's love and a disciplined discipleship that leads her and heals her.

One of the things those of us who hang around church long enough love about being here is getting to be around when this love transforming stuff happens.  Those who lead or attend small groups, those who teach Sunday school, will tell you the same things, "Grace truly is amazing in the making holy of lives."  Never forget it. 

God loves each of us, no matter how or slight has been our wretchedness.  God loves us and in our gratitude for this love we discover forgiveness and healing.  And by this discovery and our cooperation with the Holy Spirit through worship, study and service, we are made holy and whole.  Praise be to God.  Shalom and Amen.