Sunday: The 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Luke 7:36-8:3
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

Our gospel reading from Luke got me thinking about a wonderful scene in the musical "Les Miserables." It is a scene that combines hospitality and forgiveness. The paroled prisoner Valjean has taken advantage of the hospitality extended to him by the local Bishop and has stolen the silver. The cops show up eager to throw this scoundrel back into the labor gangs. All they need is a word from the Bishop and Valjean will be back to splitting rocks with a sledgehammer. To the shock of the authorities, the Bishop covers for Valjean, even giving him another set of silver candlesticks. "But my friend you left so early," he says, "surely something slipped your mind, you forgot I gave these also, would you leave the best behind?" This forgiveness forces Valjean into self-reflection. He realizes that the Bishop has given him his freedom. He sings that the Bishop has given him a soul. "[W]hy did I allow that man to touch my soul and teach me love? He treated me like any other. He gave me his trust. He called me brother. My life he claims for God above." The forgiveness that the Bishop gives to Valjean was totally free and yet it asked for everything. Valjean responds in kind, living his life graciously for the sake of the world. To find out exactly how you will have to watch the musical, or I guess you could read that book by Hugo.

In this Seventh chapter of Luke, Jesus once again has the opportunity to teach about hospitality. Like all the other times when Jesus offers hospitality, he does it at someone else's table. Jesus didn't seem to own a table. Jesus was invited by a Pharisee to what must have been quite a posh party. But it was not the host, the Pharisee, who showed great hospitality. He didn't give Jesus a hug or a handshake, didn't invite Jesus to take a chair, and didn't get him a drink. Or to put it in the conventions of that day, the Pharisee did not wash Jesus' feet dirty from wearing sandals on the road, did not anoint his head or give him a kiss. The host did not give hospitality. But it is not really Jesus either. It was the woman, a prostitute maybe, definitely someone who everyone knew was morally questionable. Don't think she had to bust down the door and then crawl under the table to wash Jesus feet. The way houses were constructed back then, women would have been able to walk right in and people dined reclining. Jesus allows her stay, but she is really the one who models hospitality. She does bathe Jesus' feet. She does give him a kiss. She anoints Jesus with oil.

Why? What fuels her hospitality? What empowered her to burst out of her social position, crash a party, and be so generous in her hospitality that it feels awkwardly sexual? Forgiveness. She, the woman, was forgiven. Now to follow the logic of this text we have to look closely at one verse. "Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love." The key word? Hence. Her sins have been forgiven her, hence she showed great love. The forgiveness came first. The love was a response. While Jesus makes sure she knows her sins are forgiven in our scene, there must have been some previous experience of forgiveness. Like Valjean changing his ways after the Bishop forgave, our woman responds to Jesus' words of forgiveness.

Both the Bishop and Jesus speak the words of forgiveness but it is God's grace they offer. What makes God's forgiveness so powerful is that it is not just, "Eh, we're cool. No big deal." God's grace says, "I know what you did. I know it is wrong. And I forgive you." That is what the woman in our story experienced. When God has forgiven, that which is forgiven is no longer there. As the service of confession has it, "The Lord has put away all your sins." So different from a married couple "burying the hatchet long enough to raise the kids" or a "I love you anyway." Humans never forget where they buried the hatchet. God does. The woman in our story is no longer the prostitute. Jesus had forgiven her, put away her sins, and in that freedom empowered her to be love in the world.

As the theologian Paul Tillich put it in his great sermon on this passage, "Forgiveness creates repentance-this is declared in our story and this is the experience of those who have been forgiven." [1] It can be uncomfortable to talk about forgiveness because the very idea of forgiveness assumes that we, I, do something wrong. None of us are too keen to talk about our problems. Jesus was not so circumspect. He was not afraid of calling things by their name. Jesus does not make an argument that the social structures of the day forced this woman into prostitution and therefore she needs liberation and the structures need reform. Of course, we know a great deal more about the negative power of social structures than Jesus did. And these structures need attention. But to quote Tillich again, "[O]ur immensely increased insight into the conditions of human existence should not undercut our courage to call wrong wrong. In story and parable the sinners are seriously called sinners." That unyielding approach allows for uncompromising forgiveness. God forgives you. Are you a selfish SOB? You're forgiven. Adulterer? Forgiven. Does your consumption of oil make you complicit in the oil spill? You are forgiven. Did you curse at your child last night? Forgiven. Do you find racial stereotypes difficult to erase from your mind? Forgiven. We do not need to present ourselves before God as righteous. We are forgiven.

It's free and yet it asks for everything. In the last verse of the chapter Jesus says to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." Salvation in Luke is accepting forgiveness and then acting out of the transformation that that forgiveness wrought. Guess what? We will not be able to live out our vision of modeling the radical hospitality of Jesus if we don't allow ourselves to be forgiven. We need a "hence." SPR's sins have been forgiven them, hence they show great love. It's not easy. I was talking to someone this week about his experience in AA. It is not easy to admit powerlessness, not easy to believe that a Power greater than me could restore me, not easy to receive forgiveness. Admitting I need forgiveness forces me to admit that I am like other people. But the power of receiving it is incredible, life giving.

It makes me wonder how the Bishop that communicated God's forgiveness to Valjean knew forgiveness. What was his story? It makes me all the more committed to welcoming everybody through those doors. If Jesus had not allowed that woman in, he would not have experienced grace. It makes me want to know forgiveness as fully as the woman in our story, that I too might act boldly on the side of love and hospitality.

[1] Read Tillich's sermon here: http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=14