Who is worthy?

It's an odd little story that comes from the Gospel of Luke and it asks many questions.  Here is where I want to start:  Who is worthy of Jesus?  Who is worthy of Jesus' life giving forgiveness?  Who is worthy of the transformation that comes from the love of Jesus?  [I know, that comes to 3 questions, but they are all really just versions of one another.]


She is a known sinner.  No one ever explains that because it seems to everyone who reads the story (I'm talking really knowledgeable biblical scholars here) that what she does to make her a 'sinner' is fairly obvious.  She is a woman who sells herself: she is her own commodity.  Sex for money.

Now I think it is important to point out that women who take this path  have few if any other options open to them.  They need money in order to survive.  There is no man: husband, son, even father, who will take her into their household and protect and provide for her.  She has few options for making the money she needs to survive.  You need to understand her cultural context before you go making assumptions.

She functions in a culture which values her for her fertility.  Without the ability to bear children, she has no value.  She may be able to give pleasure, but she is not valued as a person.  If she is lucky/blessed, she has given several children to a husband before she grows old.  If she is really blessed she has given her husband a son.  If God is looking favorably upon her, her husband has actual affection for her.  If all the stars align right, she will die before her husband so she isn't faced with the possibility of having no son who will include her in their family.  Daughters don't count.

So, on about 6 different counts, this anonymous woman has no value; she is a known sinner.

Is she worthy of Jesus' attention?  forgiveness?  love?  inclusion into his social circle?  By the standard rules of society, Jesus owes her nothing.  Nothing.  At. All.

Yet, there she is, touching !!!!! him in a gathering of important men (for who else would the Pharisee have invited to a dinner that had Jesus as a guest?)  She is making a regular spectacle of herself, crying and washing his feet and anointing him and kissing !!!! his feet.  Too much drama by half.

Then the story gets itself all twisted up.  She has shown great love because she has received great forgiveness.........that's what Jesus says.  But then Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven.  Your faith has saved you."  So were her sins forgiven before she began this dinner outing or did she anticipate the forgiveness of sins or did she bring the ointment so that Jesus would forgive her?  What exactly is the sequence here?

What if I said the answer to all those questions is "Yes?"  She was forgiven before she arrived whether she had seen or heard Jesus or not.  She was forgiven as she anointed Jesus.  She was forgiven after she anointed Jesus.

Here's the key:  she was forgiven.  A child of God.  Worthy of Jesus' love, attention, and life giving forgiveness.  She was worthy: with or without the ointment and the tears and the uncertain Pharisee.  She was forgiven because Jesus was/ is in the forgiveness business.  She is forgiven because Jesus is forgiveness, and at some moment she knew this to be true.  It moved her to tears.  

I'm not surprised.

John the Baptist .....who is this guy?

We welcome Bishop John Macholz today as he reflects on John the Baptist and his appearance in Luke's story.  Luke 3.1-6 John has always been an odd ball character to me. If one reads through the first chapter of Luke and the song of Zechariah which brings it to a close, one discovers that after Zech is done singing, John disappears into the wilderness and  "he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel." Was he alone? What was he doing? Did he have any physical contact with anyone? How many years did he spend there? All questions without answers.  But then he arrives on the scene, in the same wilderness, and begins to proclaim a baptism of repentance; a turning away from sin and turning toward God. We'll hear more from him next week and his language will become a bit, well, abrasive and more personally focused. And therein lies my concern, he seems to be speaking directly to me. In fact, he seems to know me a bit too well! Maybe he doesn't know my sins specifically, but it's pretty clear that he knows I'm a sinner and in that, I am convicted.  When I was growing up, Advent was purple in color and penitential in nature. Sometime, long ago, it seems, it shifted in color and somewhat in nature but not completely; there is still that call to repentance that reminds me who I am and what I have done as John calls me back to the recognition that I am, plain and simple, a sinner in need of changing. And then I realize I cannot do that alone, by myself, left to my own devices.  Which is when the hope and promise of the season arise and arrive as I realize that I can't do it on my own but, the Dawn from on High that breaks upon us can! John is preparing a way for the Coming One by preparing our hearts to recognize that we are desperately in need of this One promised long, long ago. And in that moment of recognition, forgiveness, mercy and hope flood into the darkness of life and bring with it the brightness of a new light and the hope we so desperately need.  John is still a bit odd in my mind but then again, it often takes 'odd' to get me to recognize what is right before my eyes-the need for this Savior and his love and life. Prepare the way!  Many thanks to our guest blogger Pr. John Macholz

Sex and the Sinner, part 2

Penn State removed the statue of Joe Paterno from the entrance to their football stadium.  They pried the brass plaques off the wall which listed his winning seasons. 

The one often referred to as "Joe Pa" proved to be a flawed individual who was anything but a responsible Pa to the young men being abused in the Penn State locker room.

His was a sin of omission; a failure to do what needed to be done.  It was a failure to protect the powerless, and for a person of faith, a failure to live an ethical life.

Both the university and the NCAA took away from Joe Paterno, now deceased, that which he apparently valued more than the lives of those young men: his record as a football coach, and with it his place in history and his reputation.  Of course his family is devastated; they will be carrying the shame he has avoided. 

In the story of David and Bathsheba, the child born of David's power grab of Uriah's wife, was struck ill and died.  At least that young man was spared the humiliation of forever being known as 'the one' - the living example of David's sinfulness.  His life was cut short but he was spared the shame that would have been his. 

David repents wholeheartedly, apparently.  But the damage was done.  A life was taken.

The irony of having the David and Bathsheba story on the week when Penn State begins to bear the consequences of its shameful behavior is not lost on me.

Neither is the fact that lives were taken - and all for the sake of football.  Sex and the Sinner, a modern saga.