Episcopal Church of Our Savior

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The Rev. Ajung Sojwal Our icons , Year C, Sunday June 17, 2007 Luke 7:36--50 A very happy fathers’ day to all our fathers! I hope that it will be a joyous day for every one and I pray that the spirit of honoring our fathers will continue for the rest of the year. In our Gospel passage today we have two very interesting characters besides Jesus, Simon the Pharisee and the woman who is identified first and foremost as a sinner. Simon is the host of the party and the woman is the gatecrasher to the party. Luke always has very interesting takes on his stories about Jesus and the people that come in contact with him. It is through Luke’s eyes that we see the compassion of Jesus toward the poor and the outcasts of society. Luke’s emphasis is not only on how Jesus touched the poor and the outcasts, but more importantly, Luke’s point is the good news of redemption and hope for those long rejected and forgotten by the larger society. Human society will always have those that are considered undesirable and beyond redemption even by God. In Jesus’ time, a sinful woman, who in all probability was a prostitute, would make the list of top five undesirables or sinners, people who had no hopes whatsoever of ever finding favor with God or ever living a righteous life. The sinners were the ones who were considered to contaminate or nullified rituals and lifestyles that were seen as holy and righteous. This particular story about the woman with her alabaster jar of ointment, who weeps at the feet of Jesus, is told in all the four Gospels. And Jesus himself says that, “wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Sure enough this story has become iconic in our Christian consciousness, but the irony here is that in this incident, Jesus is deliberately dismantling the then iconic perceptions of God and His ways. The perception was that the holiness of God can or could be protected and preserved by human actions and rituals and that the forgiveness and acceptance of God comes to those that are considered worthy in the first place. Now, for those that fell into the category of sinners, they really were beyond redemption in the sense that they could never hope to get anywhere near the temple or the Rabbi in order to go through the ritual and sacrament of confession and forgiveness. The iconic understanding of God is clearly represented in Simon’s thoughts, Luke writes that “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.”” The issue here for Simon is of ritual purity and therefore being seen as righteousness before God. There is much that we can draw from this story, but today I want us to look at how we may have allowed ourselves to paint certain icons of God in our minds. There are no villains and heroes in this story as far as I am concerned, rather both Simon and the woman are victims of their own preconceived notions about God and righteousness, and their place of importance before God. Simon considers himself righteous before God first and foremost because he is a Pharisee, and secondly because he follows all the rabbinical laws of keeping himself ritually clean. The woman on the other hand knows she will always be unclean, so she weeps profusely at the feet of Jesus, but does not ask for forgiveness. Now we have to understand that in that culture touching the feet of someone was a mark of tremendous humility and a sense of total unworthiness. If you remember, Jesus’ disciple Peter at first refuses to let Jesus wash his feet. He was horrified that his Teacher and Lord would stoop down to such a level of unworthiness. And also John the Baptist foretells the coming of Jesus as the one whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. So for this woman, the most that she can hope to do is touch and wash the feet of Jesus whose fame as a great teacher, healer and prophet has reached far and wide. She is so shackled by her unworthiness that she does not even bother to face Jesus, instead she stands behind his feet to anoint them with the ointment she had brought. First of all, both these people thought that the holiness of God and their own righteousness depended upon certain rules and rituals. Secondly, they thought that the forgiveness of God was limited to those that followed and lived by certain rules in life. Thirdly, because of their preconceived notions about God, their views about themselves were also distorted. Jesus sees and knows everything that is going on around him and immediately proceeds to tell a parable. Now, even the parable is not so much about the merciful creditor, or the debts that are forgiven, rather it is about the reaction or response of the debtors. The creditor is of course God and by nature He is merciful and the debts are forgiven, because it is God’s prerogative to forgive, so what is left for consideration is the response of the debtors. Like Simon and like the woman we too get caught up with the image of God as presented and preserved by our culture and tradition. We may not say it aloud, but in our attitudes and our relationship to the world, we categorize people into those that are better or worthier and those that are unworthy and beyond redemption. And yes, we too imagine that God cares and loves us better than some others who we consider unworthy, or often, we also imagine that God cannot possibly love us or forgive us because we are just too sinful. In many ways we think and act like credit card companies when it comes to sin and forgiveness, whether we place ourselves as the creditor or the borrowers. For credit card companies the people who are least able to pay back their debts in time are the ones burdened with the highest interest rates and the ones that have means to pay off their debts gets off with ridiculously low interest rates, often with no interest rate for a long period of time. Now how can anyone who already starts off with disadvantages ever hope to pay off their debts? In that same spirit, how can we who are born in sin ever hope to be righteous and holy before God by our own efforts? That is the reason why Jesus said that there were two debtors, not the more serious debtor and the less serious debtor. Let us remind ourselves that God is intrinsically different than who we are. He sees and judges at a level beyond any human can see or understand because He knows our true self. Before God, there is no such thing as too sinful or less sinful. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The good news of God is that forgiveness is for all, it is up to us to receive and realize it in our lives. We cannot by any stretch of the imagination preserve or maintain God’s holiness by our actions, rituals or lifestyle. The very essence of God is holiness and love and as such it is not holiness or love that is derived from what we do or don’t do or by how much we are able to pay back. The only thing we can do and hope to do is to reflect God’s holiness and love by how we choose to live our lives, by living a life of love, mercy, hope, peace and joy. Having told the parable, Jesus turns toward the woman, and he says to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” on the surface of it, it is quite a stupid question. Of course, there is no way not to see the woman and her shameful public display of emotions and immodesty. It is a rhetorical question addressed to both Simon and the woman. Jesus is not dealing with the appearances of things, in fact, persistently he has shown that he has no patience for appearances. He is drawing both Simon and the woman to look and examine beneath the surface, to hopefully make Simon understand that he is not really more righteous and holy just because he is a Pharisee and does the so called right things. In fact, if Simon was so concerned about doing the right things, he had already failed, because as a host he had not extended the customary welcome rituals shown toward guests of honor in that culture. And Jesus is also in effect telling the woman that she as a person is worthy and forgiven by God, that her worthiness before God is already assured because in faith she had offered to God the most precious offering, which is her broken heart and her contrite spirit. What is there beneath our surfaces and appearances? Do we harbor thoughts like Simon, wondering and questioning God’s ability and willingness to forgive, heal and embrace not only others but also us? Have we somehow allowed our minds and souls to keep God frozen in certain icons and rituals? Are we willing to hear the question that Jesus puts out for us every time we come into this sanctuary? Every time we are faced with a decision about others and ourselves? Do you see this woman? It is a totally ordinary question but profoundly investigative of our most secret thoughts. And if we are willing to really see that woman, maybe we will be able to see God without the confines of our limited icons. Amen.

The Rev. Ajung Sojwal

Our icons , Year C, Sunday June 17, 2007
Luke 7:36--50

A very happy fathers’ day to all our fathers! I hope that it will be a joyous day for every one and I pray that the spirit of honoring our fathers will continue for the rest of the year.

In our Gospel passage today we have two very interesting characters besides Jesus, Simon the Pharisee and the woman who is identified first and foremost as a sinner. Simon is the host of the party and the woman is the gatecrasher to the party. Luke always has very interesting takes on his stories about Jesus and the people that come in contact with him. It is through Luke’s eyes that we see the compassion of Jesus toward the poor and the outcasts of society. Luke’s emphasis is not only on how Jesus touched the poor and the outcasts, but more importantly, Luke’s point is the good news of redemption and hope for those long rejected and forgotten by the larger society. Human society will always have those that are considered undesirable and beyond redemption even by God.

In Jesus’ time, a sinful woman, who in all probability was a prostitute, would make the list of top five undesirables or sinners, people who had no hopes whatsoever of ever finding favor with God or ever living a righteous life. The sinners were the ones who were considered to contaminate or nullified rituals and lifestyles that were seen as holy and righteous. This particular story about the woman with her alabaster jar of ointment, who weeps at the feet of Jesus, is told in all the four Gospels. And Jesus himself says that, “wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Sure enough this story has become iconic in our Christian consciousness, but the irony here is that in this incident, Jesus is deliberately dismantling the then iconic perceptions of God and His ways. The perception was that the holiness of God can or could be protected and preserved by human actions and rituals and that the forgiveness and acceptance of God comes to those that are considered worthy in the first place. Now, for those that fell into the category of sinners, they really were beyond redemption in the sense that they could never hope to get anywhere near the temple or the Rabbi in order to go through the ritual and sacrament of confession and forgiveness. The iconic understanding of God is clearly represented in Simon’s thoughts, Luke writes that “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.”” The issue here for Simon is of ritual purity and therefore being seen as righteousness before God.

There is much that we can draw from this story, but today I want us to look at how we may have allowed ourselves to paint certain icons of God in our minds. There are no villains and heroes in this story as far as I am concerned, rather both Simon and the woman are victims of their own preconceived notions about God and righteousness, and their place of importance before God. Simon considers himself righteous before God first and foremost because he is a Pharisee, and secondly because he follows all the rabbinical laws of keeping himself ritually clean. The woman on the other hand knows she will always be unclean, so she weeps profusely at the feet of Jesus, but does not ask for forgiveness. Now we have to understand that in that culture touching the feet of someone was a mark of tremendous humility and a sense of total unworthiness. If you remember, Jesus’ disciple Peter at first refuses to let Jesus wash his feet. He was horrified that his Teacher and Lord would stoop down to such a level of unworthiness. And also John the Baptist foretells the coming of Jesus as the one whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. So for this woman, the most that she can hope to do is touch and wash the feet of Jesus whose fame as a great teacher, healer and prophet has reached far and wide. She is so shackled by her unworthiness that she does not even bother to face Jesus, instead she stands behind his feet to anoint them with the ointment she had brought.

First of all, both these people thought that the holiness of God and their own righteousness depended upon certain rules and rituals. Secondly, they thought that the forgiveness of God was limited to those that followed and lived by certain rules in life. Thirdly, because of their preconceived notions about God, their views about themselves were also distorted. Jesus sees and knows everything that is going on around him and immediately proceeds to tell a parable. Now, even the parable is not so much about the merciful creditor, or the debts that are forgiven, rather it is about the reaction or response of the debtors. The creditor is of course God and by nature He is merciful and the debts are forgiven, because it is God’s prerogative to forgive, so what is left for consideration is the response of the debtors.

Like Simon and like the woman we too get caught up with the image of God as presented and preserved by our culture and tradition. We may not say it aloud, but in our attitudes and our relationship to the world, we categorize people into those that are better or worthier and those that are unworthy and beyond redemption. And yes, we too imagine that God cares and loves us better than some others who we consider unworthy, or often, we also imagine that God cannot possibly love us or forgive us because we are just too sinful. In many ways we think and act like credit card companies when it comes to sin and forgiveness, whether we place ourselves as the creditor or the borrowers. For credit card companies the people who are least able to pay back their debts in time are the ones burdened with the highest interest rates and the ones that have means to pay off their debts gets off with ridiculously low interest rates, often with no interest rate for a long period of time. Now how can anyone who already starts off with disadvantages ever hope to pay off their debts? In that same spirit, how can we who are born in sin ever hope to be righteous and holy before God by our own efforts? That is the reason why Jesus said that there were two debtors, not the more serious debtor and the less serious debtor. Let us remind ourselves that God is intrinsically different than who we are. He sees and judges at a level beyond any human can see or understand because He knows our true self. Before God, there is no such thing as too sinful or less sinful. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The good news of God is that forgiveness is for all, it is up to us to receive and realize it in our lives. We cannot by any stretch of the imagination preserve or maintain God’s holiness by our actions, rituals or lifestyle. The very essence of God is holiness and love and as such it is not holiness or love that is derived from what we do or don’t do or by how much we are able to pay back. The only thing we can do and hope to do is to reflect God’s holiness and love by how we choose to live our lives, by living a life of love, mercy, hope, peace and joy.

Having told the parable, Jesus turns toward the woman, and he says to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” on the surface of it, it is quite a stupid question. Of course, there is no way not to see the woman and her shameful public display of emotions and immodesty. It is a rhetorical question addressed to both Simon and the woman. Jesus is not dealing with the appearances of things, in fact, persistently he has shown that he has no patience for appearances. He is drawing both Simon and the woman to look and examine beneath the surface, to hopefully make Simon understand that he is not really more righteous and holy just because he is a Pharisee and does the so called right things. In fact, if Simon was so concerned about doing the right things, he had already failed, because as a host he had not extended the customary welcome rituals shown toward guests of honor in that culture. And Jesus is also in effect telling the woman that she as a person is worthy and forgiven by God, that her worthiness before God is already assured because in faith she had offered to God the most precious offering, which is her broken heart and her contrite spirit.

What is there beneath our surfaces and appearances? Do we harbor thoughts like Simon, wondering and questioning God’s ability and willingness to forgive, heal and embrace not only others but also us? Have we somehow allowed our minds and souls to keep God frozen in certain icons and rituals? Are we willing to hear the question that Jesus puts out for us every time we come into this sanctuary? Every time we are faced with a decision about others and ourselves? Do you see this woman? It is a totally ordinary question but profoundly investigative of our most secret thoughts. And if we are willing to really see that woman, maybe we will be able to see God without the confines of our limited icons. Amen.