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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
A certain moneylender had two debtors, one owing ten times the other. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. So, which of them will love him more? Jesus’s story in today’s Gospel Reading is straightforward enough, and so are His question and its answer. Simon the Pharisee—who, apparently like other Pharisees criticized Jesus for being a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, maybe even had invited Jesus to eat with him after a Sabbath synagogue service in order to confirm his suspicions or otherwise to trap Jesus—Simon the Pharisee probably realized the trap he was in now and voiced the only and obvious answer: the debtor for whom the moneylender cancelled the larger debt would love the moneylender more. Then Jesus drew on the connection in Jewish thought between debt and sin (such as we find in St. Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Prayer, with “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”), and Jesus said explicitly that the sinful woman of that city—who had washed and dried, kissed, and anointed Jesus’s feet—loved much because she had been forgiven much. Our theme this Fourth Sunday after Pentecost is a paraphrase that statement of Jesus: “Those forgiven much love much”.
Let me repeat that theme: “Those forgiven much love much.” Now, let us ask ourselves: How much are you and I forgiven? And, how much do we love?
Later this morning as one of our Distribution Hymns, we will sing “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me”, a hymn by Augustus Montague Toplady. When he wrote that hymn, Toplady was serving in the Church of England, but at the time he also was editor of Gospel Magazine. In the magazine’s March 17‑76 issue, he published both an author’s essay suggesting that the British government could never repay its national debt and an essay he authored, similarly arguing that sinners could never repay their debts; Toplady’s four‑stanza hymn came at the conclusion of that essay. In his essay, Toplady progressed to the idea that people commit a sin every second of their lives, and so, he wrote, by the time they reach 80 years of age, they have committed a total of 2-billion, 522‑million, 880‑thousand sins. Whether or not we agree with Toplady’s premise that people commit a sin every second of their lives, we must admit both that we are sinful by nature and that our sinful natures lead us to commit countless actual sins of thought, word, and deed. Ultimately, whether or not we are aware of it, we all owe the same debt to God—whether we think we are like Simon the Pharisee, who may have thought he had lived a life free of sin, or whether we think we are like the sinful woman of that city, who everyone, including herself, knew had not lived a life free from sin.
Bible commentators debate quite a number of things about today’s Gospel Reading: how this event relates to similar anointings that the other Gospel accounts report, whether or not (as medieval tradition held) the sinful woman is to be identified with both Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, what kind of sin the woman had committed, what previous contact she had with Jesus, and just what Simon the Pharisee (as host) was obligated to do for Jesus. Regardless, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus clearly contrasts Simon the Pharisee with the here‑unnamed sinful woman. Simon had in some sense failed where the woman had excelled. Simon did not appreciate Who Jesus was and what Jesus had done for him, while the woman did. Simon reasoned falsely that Jesus was not a prophet, while the woman appreciated Jesus as her Savior.
In the Old Testament Reading (2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-14), the prophet Nathan used a parable to call King David to repent of his sin, and, when King David repented, Nathan absolved David: that is to say, Nathan on God’s behalf forgave David’s sin. Similarly, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus uses a parable to call Simon the Pharisee to repent of his sin, and the Holy Spirit uses the same parable to call us to repent of our sin. Though Jesus does not expressly say it, the condemnation Simon faced is clear: the little love Simon was showing to Jesus was evidence of the little (or lack of) forgiveness Simon was receiving from Jesus. The woman, on the other hand, loved much because she was forgiven. Her tears and kisses show that she was both sorry for her sin and believed Jesus forgave her sin, and He did forgive her. Likewise, when we combine sorrow and faith, God forgives our sin: for Jesus’s sake He forgives our original sin, and He forgives our countless actual sins, whatever those sin might be.
Those who were at table with Jesus and Simon asked among themselves Who Jesus was that He even forgives sins, after all, only God can forgive sins. The woman knew Who Jesus was: Jesus was and is God in human flesh. His beautiful feet brought the greatest of Good News (Isaiah 52:7; Romans 10:15). In Jesus, God first loved the sinful woman and all of us while we were still dead in our sins (Colossians 2:13). God is not trying to seek or otherwise gain favor with us by cancelling our debt; He loves us and paid our debt in full with the death of His Son Jesus on the cross, as Jesus’s resurrection from the dead shows. Whether or not the sinful woman mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel Reading is included among the women mentioned at its end, those women later witnessed Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection—all for them and for us. The sinful woman worshipped Jesus as God with the greatest‑possible worship: seeking from Him the forgiveness of her sins, and she received that forgiveness in faith. As with today’s Epistle Reading (Galatians 2:15-21; 3:10-14), the parable Jesus told and His statement to the woman rule out any false notion that human love results in God’s forgiveness. Faith in Jesus alone saves.
The sinful woman in the Gospel Reading was like the debtor who owed the moneylender the larger debt, and her being forgiven resulted in her loving much. “Those forgiven much love much.” For that reason, St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account may at this point mention Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and many others who were healed of evil spirits and infirmities and so provided for Jesus and the Twelve out of their means. Such good works are evidence of the faith that receives the forgiveness of sins as a gracious gift—just as the sinful woman’s worship by seeking forgiveness and her acts of thankfulness were the evidence of her faith, to which evidence Jesus pointed Simon the Pharisee. The existence of such good works produced according to our vocations can be of value to us as the Holy Spirit’s external testimony of our state of grace, but the lack of such good works, just as our continuing to sin, need not mean we are outside a state of grace. Our sin can may or may not have consequences for ourselves and others, as did David and Bathsheba’s sin in today’s Old Testament Reading. But, we must never fool ourselves into thinking that, even if others do not see our sin, that our sin is somehow hidden from God. Whether we feel we have a greater or lesser debt to forgive, we all are by nature sinful, before and after we come to faith. Ultimately our certainty that we are forgiven and in a state of grace come not from the good works that God produces in us but from the means through which He produces them.
The means through which God produces the good works in us that ultimately make us certain that we are forgiven and in a state of grace are His Word and Holy Sacraments. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus was going through the cities and villages of Galilee proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God, and similarly today the preaching of His Word proclaims and brings the good news of the kingdom of God. In the Gospel Reading, the sinful woman’s tears were water that cleansed Jesus’s feet, and similarly today in Holy Baptism water and the word cleanse us of our sin and makes us children of our Heavenly Father, He for whom all fatherhood is known. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus personally absolves the sinful woman, and similarly today in Holy Absolution, in Jesus’s place and at His command, pastors individually forgive those who privately confess the sins that trouble them most. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus has table fellowship with sinners, and similarly today in Holy Communion He is present with us and forgives us in bread that is His body and wine that is His blood. Whether or not we share the kiss of peace historically associated with Holy Communion, we are dismissed in peace. One who in faith receives forgiveness of sins through Word and Sacrament is justified and truly has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). We objectively possess that peace even though our feeling of that peace may at times come and go; as long as faith and salvation abide, so does that objective peace.
“Those forgiven much love much.” Live daily with sorrow over your sin and faith in that forgiveness. Remember that Jesus’s words to the sinful woman are also His words to you and to me: Your sins are forgiven … Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +