Our passage today focuses on the extravagant love that someone lavishes upon Jesus. It’s a wonderful example of where faith and gratitude can lead us – to finding the peace that we so desperately seek. Getting to the feet of Jesus often involves a difficult descent – but the joy of being lifted up is definitely worth the downward journey.

Our text takes us to a day similar to today. It’s the Sabbath. Worship had just ended. People are milling about the synagogue, enjoying fellowship (coffee hour). Some are heading back to their homes.

A woman is making her way through the dispersing congregation. We don’t know a lot about her, but scholars believe that she was probably a prostitute. She had hoped to find someone after the service. She has something that she really, really wants to give to him.

Then she overhears someone saying that he’s at Simon the Pharisee’s home for supper. Ah, Simon’s home – I imagine she had walked by that house many times, never before thinking that she’d ever enter it. Simon and the other Pharisees always made her feel so terrible about herself. There was no room for a “sinner” like herself in the religion of the Pharisees.

In the past when she walked these streets she usually kept her eyes on the ground, avoiding the cold stares, the harsh remarks. For so long she had felt like the dirt she walked upon. She knew what she had been doing was wrong, but it hurt that they didn’t understand what had caused her to fall into a life she hated. They didn’t know about all the pressures, the desperation she felt – and they didn’t seem to care enough to ask...

To a degree we all know that feeling – wondering if people really care to know what we’re struggling with. It’s hard when people ask how we’re doing to know just how much they really want to hear. Can they handle hearing about the messy places? Could they really help us deal with the insecurities that come when we’re not where we want to be in life?

• Maybe we don’t really want to talk about our lives because we feel dirty because we just can’t seem to clean up our act. We feel stuck in the same bad patterns...
  
  
• Or maybe we have had dirt thrown on us – we’ve received criticism from others, and are constantly feeling evaluated by outward appearances and accomplishments.
  
  
• Maybe we’re really struggling to forgive someone - and the pain of the past is like a huge dark stain on our hearts that we can’t get rid of...

But for the woman in our passage, those anxieties are behind her now. She feels like a new person. She has a new lease on life. I imagine that there is a bounce in her step. Indeed she seems to be floating along as she makes her way to Simon’s home. She can’t wait to find the one who had declared her free from her sin – who had made her clean.

As she walks along she might have been thinking of when she first met Jesus – how she immediately sensed something different about him. When he looked at her, he saw way beyond her physical appearance. It was like he saw straight through to her heart. He knew her pain and the terrible humiliation of letting herself be bought by strangers. He made her feel treasured and safe. He touched her in the purest way.

Jesus knew all about her and wanted her to tell him the truth so that she could start clean again. He told her that life didn’t have to be that way for her. Somehow she believed him – she had faith, and her life was changed forever.

So now she just wants to say thank you. She had collected all the money she could and bought a very expensive jar of ointment for him. As she nears Simon’s home, a new courage fills her. She isn’t so sure about the “religion” she heard from the Pharisees, but she loves what she knows about Jesus – and so she walks right into Simon’s home and goes straight to where Jesus is reclining at the table.
She had thought she would do as is customary and anoint his head with the ointment, but as soon as she approaches him, she’s overwhelmed by her emotions. Unable to speak, she simply cries and lets her tears wash Jesus’ feet. The tears keep coming and coming. The years of shame and dirt in her life are transformed into a cleansing stream of love. Washing the dirt off Jesus’ feet was the only way she can repay him for this new start in her life.

Meanwhile, Simon and the other guests are in shock, stunned that Jesus would allow this woman to touch him. Here she is kissing and anointing his feet with the much-too expensive ointment – and cleaning his feet with her tears and hair.

Had we been there too, I bet we would’ve been uncomfortable with this display of emotion. The woman was showing no restraint. It certainly wasn’t very sophisticated. It was embarrassing. How could she be so vulnerable like that in front of others?

As Simon watches this he thinks: surely he/Jesus couldn’t be a prophet – otherwise he would know who she was and what she did for a living. Jesus knows Simon’s thoughts and proceeds to point out to him how the woman’s love for him far exceeds what Simon had shown towards Jesus. Simon had been polite to invite him over to eat, but...

• he hadn’t greeted Jesus with a kiss,
• he hadn’t washed Jesus’ feet
• nor had Simon anointed Jesus’ head with oil.

Jesus points to the woman as a model of faith and of how we are to love him.

Oh, how often do we behave like Simon? We politely invite Jesus to our table – maybe stop to say a quick prayer of thanks. But we don’t go much out of our way to show him our appreciation for how much he’s done for us. Maybe we’re a little too preoccupied with what others around the table would think if we showed that kind of love to someone – if we got a little too excited about talking about our faith. Or maybe we’ve settled into a state of cautious skepticism – playing it cool, not quick to believe in God’s reality in our lives.

Our text is a classic example of the kind of contrast that is often painted in Scripture. In this case, the “unclean” one is held up as the clean one. And the text begs the question: Are we going to be like the woman, or like Simon?

But we might say, but it was different then – Jesus was physically present. We don’t have the opportunity to literally clean Jesus’ feet... Ah yes, this is a big challenge for our day-to-day life... knowing how to show our gratitude to Jesus. It’s pretty easy here in the sanctuary when we gather to sing and pray, but what about during the midst of our hectic week days...

I think one of the biggest challenges for many of us is that we don’t realize how much we have to be grateful for. The woman in the text had experienced a dramatic change in her life when Jesus forgave her. This is why Jesus used the parable of the creditor with the two debtors...

One owed the creditor 500 denari (a denari was a Roman coin which at that time was worth about a day’s wages for an agricultural laborer), and the other owed 50 denari. When the creditor forgave both their debts, who do you think was more grateful? Obvious answer: the one who owed 500 denari.

The one who was forgiven the 50 denari probably felt like he had been saved from a significant but most annoying amount of pain/burden in his life. The one who was forgiven the 500 denari probably felt as though the had been given back his life.

It’s exciting, don’t you think, to listen to those people who know that they have been saved from the clutches of death. The most recent example of being with someone like this for me came last week when the session met with Pastor Harvey Drake (founder of Emerald City Outreach Ministries, Pastor of Emerald City Bibld Fellowship). Pastor Harvey shared about how he grew up in poverty on welfare, how his mother died when he was still quite young, how he turned to all kinds of drugs and a crazy lifestyle...

And when he encountered Jesus, it changed him. He gave up the drugs and wild lifestyle pretty much cold turkey, and he started following Jesus with enthusiasm. You get the sense when you listen to him that he is a grateful man. He is quick to say that when he talks about Jesus, his faith is very real.

For Pastor Harvey, it was as though he was freed from the 500 denari debt. For the woman in our passage, it was as though she had been freed from the 500 denari debt.

For me – and I would venture to say for many of us – we can probably relate more to the one who was forgiven the 50 denari debt. I grew up in a very comfortable, protected environment. I was baptized when I was two weeks old (the sooner the better in the Catholic church). I can remember clearly the time when my faith came together for me – when I encountered Jesus and his grace in a new and deep way. I had been going to church all my life (going through the motions), was a pretty good kid , not very rebellious except for doing things like picking on my brother.

And then during a high school retreat with my friend’s church group, I remember when it all came together for me, and I realized that Jesus really cared about me very personally and that he was very approachable. I remember the tears streaming down my face...

But I wouldn’t say there wasn’t a huge change in my lifestyle. I had a new sense of confidence of who I was as a child of God – but I also was surrounded already by people who loved me and were looking out for me. So I would definitely put myself in what feels like the 50 denari forgiveness category.

We each could try to calculate the number of denari that we feel like we’ve been forgiven, but that’s not really the point. The point is that no matter what it feels like, we’ve been forgiven a huge debt! And it matters to Jesus that we express our gratitude. Jesus was much more pleased with how the woman showed her love and gratitude than by how Simon, the proper one, treated him.

When we have so much, I think we need to be extra careful to not fall into acting like Simon and taking Jesus for granted. I don’t think that I – and would venture to say many of us – really have even a fraction of an understanding of what it means to be forgiven – to be cleansed. And I don’t think we realize just how dirty we are. When it’s time for silent confession each Sunday, do our minds wander – or do we have a list of things that we’re ready to confess?

You know, it’s easy for the layers of dirt to collect on us because we don’t think we’re really doing much that needs God’s forgiveness (a little gossip here, a little cheating on our work hours there, a little entertaining of vengeful thoughts, a little overspending...) .

And my goodness, the media tells us over and over that we deserve more than what we already have – better hair, better food.... (blah, blah, blah) You don’t hear much from marketing of “What you really deserve is death/hell... so clean up your act and your life will be better.” Most of the messages we receive involve ways we can get ahead, ways to make life easier...

But faith requires humility – a descent from pride. Faith requires letting go of our self-sufficiency and putting our trust in the One who alone can make life truly good.

The woman in the passage had already been humbled by being know around town as a “sinner.” She was already weak. So when Christ forgave her and lifted her up, she was overjoyed. That’s how she could be so bold as to crash Simon’s party.

Her courage came from believing that Jesus truly valued her and wanted the best for her. Her boldness came from finding her worth in her relationship to Christ – from really believing the one who declared that her sins were forgiven. She was able to recognize Jesus as the one who told the truth to her about herself.

Whereas Simon the Pharisee “the clean one” seemed to have things all together – he had the position, the respect of the community, a decent income. He didn’t seem to realize how much in need of a Savior he truly was.

Are we like the woman – or like Simon? How grateful are we?

Can you imagine what it would be like if we lived our lives are truly grateful people? What would that look like? On the outside it can take on many shapes, forms. We’re all going to express our gratitude in different ways.

When Pastor Harvey was here, he was talking about cultural differences, and he asked Pastor Dan if he sings... during his sermons... Dan said something like, “Not usually...” I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a white Presbyterian sing while preaching (And I don’t think what I just did counts as singing!).

Anyway... I don’t believe the outward expression is what’s most important. I believe what God is most concerned about is our inward posture. If God looks into our hearts, will he find us our knees in gratitude?

How do we go to the feet of Jesus to show our love and to thank him – on a day-to-day basis – especially when he’s not physically present?

One way is to go to Scripture each day... Jesus is the Word incarnate. Scripture is the written Word. We can come to Scripture, to the Word, with a grateful heart – looking for areas in our life that need to be scrubbed clean – and then showing God our gratitude by living by his Word.

Another way is to be intentional about showing our love for Jesus is by loving those in need. Jesus said in Matthew 25, When you feed the hungry, offer the thirsty something to drink, clothe the poor, welcome the stranger, visit those in prison... “when you do this to one of the least of these, you do it to me.”

We also can show Jesus our gratitude by inviting others to understand and experience the cleansing touch of Jesus. There are many, many people in the world who don’t know that Jesus offers forgiveness and a new lease on life to them. This would be lifting others up from their hopelessness – just like we’ve been lifted up.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people all over the world started tapping into the power of forgiveness instead of focusing on retribution?

Which leads me to one more way for us to show Jesus our love – and this is often the hardest way to show Jesus our gratitude. At the risk of oversimplification (because this could be the topic of a whole sermon), I’d say another great way to show Jesus our love is to forgive others – to let go (and the surrendering might need to happen over and over again), and to let God deal with the dirt in other people’s lives and bring justice.

Simon wasn’t interested in giving the woman another chance. He thought Jesus was wrong to let her touch him. Simon wasn’t willing to lower himself to her level. His arrogance held him captive. And for many, the pain can hold us captive. Forgiving others – as difficult as it can be – can lead to freedom and peace that passes understanding, that only God can give.

The humbling journey down to the feet of Jesus can be difficult, but being lifted up by Jesus is the greatest gift anyone can ever receive. Jesus has given us the priceless gift of forgiveness. We each need to keep asking ourselves, "How does my life demonstrate my gratitude?"

Let us pray... Loving Lord, thank you for making us clean. We are overwhelmed by the depth of your love for us – and for the price you paid to show us that love. Help us to live by faith, to daily fall at your feet as we return our thanks, and to show extravagant love to you by loving others. Amen.