+ + + 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 + + +
