Let me tell you just a word about why I'm here. A number of years ago I had a really bad day. And on this particular bad day my wife and one of my children, and my mother were all killed in an automobile accident. And I would classify that as a really bad day.

A number of months later, Todd moved into our home. My kids were really young at the time and I just needed some extra help. I mean, I couldn't even walk outside to go jogging. You know, you can't do that when you have a two year old. At least, I didn't do that when I had a two year old. I'm probably a much more conscientious parent than the rest of you.

Anyway, about the same time, Monica became our part-time nanny for my kids. And you worked for us for what? Five, Six years? And they also fell in love in my home and got married. And obviously, they've had two boys - Chad and Jonathan - and then went to Fuller, deserting us. And Todd served down there and came up here.

So obviously, our ties to them run very deep. We have an unusually close relationship. Dan mentioned that I've may mentored them, they've done far more in mentoring my children. And we are profoundly indebted to them for the investment they made in the lives of three very young, and very traumatized children at the time.

Since then, they've become more traumatized by having me as a parent. And fortunately the last has now escaped me and is a freshman at SPU. So any of you working at SPU, I hold you directly and personally responsible for what happens to my son from here on out. I'm trusting that you'll be able to repair the damage that I did to them, especially John.

And my second that just graduated from Whitworth - he's a theology major going on to seminary, probably. And my oldest is serving as a bilingual teacher at a school in Bogota, Columbia. And last year she traveled through Central America with Bethany Dearborn, who's here - daughter of Tim & Kerry. And she's been a fantastic friend of my daughter's. So lots of ties here, lots of connections, and a very grateful heart.

The word of God comes to us from Luke 7, beginning at verse 36. It's an unusual passage. And especially an unusual passage for an installation service. And I hope over the course of this short message to persuade you to see the relevance of this passage for Todd's installation. Because it's a gospel reading, I ask you to rise if you're able.

Reading: Luke 7:36-50

Todd, one of your most important responsibilities at this church is to ask the right question. This is going to take him courage and wisdom to ask the right question. And it's going to take you courage to allow him to ask the right question. And courage to follow through by searching for the right answer.

Now I heard about a student just a few days ago - a former Whitworth student who is going through the ordination process, too. I think she's an inquirer, something like that. I won't mention the Presbytery she went before or the committee, Presbytery committee. But one of the pastors on this committee, the Candidate Committee, asked her this question: "What can we do for you to keep you from becoming like us?"

That's an astonishing question to ask. Very insightful, very perceptive, very wrenching in a way. I think children ask some of the best questions. Those of you who are parents here can you recall an incident or two, especially when your child was young, that they asked a question that cut right to the real issue.

I have an example and I'm going to ask you for an example as well. The one I'm thinking of is a nephew. This is a nephew. This was years ago, in the 70's, shortly after the Vietnam War came to an end. And we were sitting in a public restaurant, and he blurted out really loud when someone came in, "Why doesn't that man have a leg?"

Ow. It was so uncomfortable. But, you know, when you think about it, it was a really good question to ask, wasn't it? He was a Vietnam veteran.

Now can you think of a question or two that a child has asked that has cut right to the heart of the issue? It's an honest question that I'm asking right now. Can you think of any?

A very similar one along the same lines. One of the neighbors across the street is a diabetic and has lost both of his legs. He has artificial legs. And my daughter looked at him and said, "What's wrong with his legs?"

It makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?

Well, it was a good question because I'm a diabetic as well.

Another example? No one. You must have really boring children! (laughs)

We have a daughter who, when she was (I think) three or four, she said, "Does God love me as high as I can count?"

Oh, what a wonderful question. She asked, "Does God love me as high as I can count?"

Or as high as the numbers go.

Wonderful. Lovely. I mean, it's really a question about the providence, the sovereignty, of God. How big is God, and how big is His love?

Here's one.

"Why are you crabby all the time?"

Chad has probably asked this of his mother a number of times! (laughs)

Why do you and mommy fight all the time?

Spouses can ask that sometimes of their partners, their spouse. I remember when Linda (this is shortly after we were married), she said,

"Why should I be responsible for all the things that happen in our home? Do I have some sort of genetic predisposition that makes me more competent to mop the floors and fold the wash, for example?"

I immediately said, "Of course you do!"

No, I did not say that. I'm not that dumb!

Churches need to have the courage to ask the right question.

• Why is our attendance dropping?
• Why is our giving dropping?
• Why aren't people coming?

Sometimes students ask just the right question. Maybe a question like, "So what?" You're dealing with all these great theories, but "so what?" What does this have to do with us, our lives, and all the rest.

Now, the passage that we're looking at tonight pivots on a question. It's an unusual question as we'll see as we go through it. Jesus is asking the question and he's asking it of Simon the Pharisee - not to be confused with Simon his disciple. It sends the conversation in a whole new direction.

Now this passage, like many passages in the Gospel accounts, is great theater. There is delicious detail here, which I'll point out as we go along.

Now Simon, the Pharisee, had asked Jesus to dine with him at his table. The passage doesn't tell us anything about the man's motives. Why did he invite Jesus? A Pharisee, asking this sort of troubling radical teacher - the teacher of some new ideas - into his home. Was it to show hospitality? I don't think so.

I think it's because Jesus was sort of a novelty. Maybe it was going to enhance Simon's reputation that he had the courage to invite this radical teacher into his home. It doesn't tell us what the number of guests were. But we know that there were several people there by the way they respond at the end of the story.

Now during that particular time the homes of wealthier people had a kind of open courtyard, or atrium, and that's where they often dined when the weather was good. And when they ate, they didn't actually sit at table. They rested on their side, with their head facing the table and their feet poking out - sort of like spokes of a wheel with their head at the helm.

And because the servants were buzzing around and attending to the needs of the guests and bringing food and this sort of this thing, it would not be particularly unusual that a woman would sneak in and begin to offer this unusual service to Jesus during the dinner hour. Which is exactly what she did.

The text tells us that she was a woman of the street and a "sinner," which means she was probably a prostitute. What an unusual act of devotion, to do this to Jesus. She begins to weep at his feet and dry them with her hair. (Just so sensual, isn't it? So beautiful.) And then to anoint them with oil and kiss them - kiss his feet.

What's even more astonishing is that Jesus doesn't seem to react. He doesn't pull his feet away. He doesn't look at her. He doesn't say anything to her. He continues the table conversation as if nothing is happening at all. There's a kind of nonchalance in his response that I find unusual and unsettling.

It must have been unsettling to the other people sitting at table. It's as if Jesus were responding to this woman as a normal act - as if people did this every day. And he continues in his conversation as if nothing were happening at all.

Well, everyone else does react to this woman's act. Simon immediately begins to say to himself, as if carrying on a conversation in his own heart. "If this man were a prophet," he says to himself, "he would know what sort of woman this was."

So he thinks Jesus is a prophet. And by prophet, he means that Jesus would have the kind of impressions to know what this woman was, where she came from, what sort of person she was. And, because - being a prophet - he would recoil from this and reject her. Pass some sort of judgment because she is a sinner.

He probably comes to the conclusion that Jesus is, therefore, not a prophet. Something lesser than a prophet because he, obviously, doesn't know who this woman is.

It doesn't occur to him that Jesus might be more than a prophet. That he might know very well what is going on, but as the Son of God would receive her act of devotion as a gift and forgive her for the sins that she had committed. He thought less of Jesus. He's going to discover soon enough that Jesus is more.

Jesus responds to the kind of thinking that Simon the Pharisee is doing by asking him a question. Now, when you think about it, Jesus could have done a lot of things. He could have said, "Well of course this woman should be doing this. After all I'm the Son of God. I deserve this kind of attention." Or he could have rebuked Simon.

Instead, he tells Simon a little story, followed by a very poignant question. He says,

There was a man who had two debtors. One owed him $500. Another owed him $50. Now, out of the generosity of his heart he forgave both of them their debt.

"Which person," he asks, "will love him more?"

I think it's an odd question. Why would he say the word "love"?
Be grateful, I suppose. Feel indebted to? But he uses the word "love."

How much we love, he seems to be implying, is determined by our awareness of how much we have received. How much we love is determined by our awareness of how much we have received.

Simon's response is properly guarded. He knows by know that he's being backed into a corner.

"The one," I suppose, "who owed him more."

I love that "I suppose." Of course Simon knows it's the one who's in greater debt. But the I suppose suggests that he's trying to back-pedal just a little bit.

Now the theater begins. It's terrific theater. And the detail here is delicious, in my opinion.

Jesus turns his head toward the woman.

That means, he takes his eyes off the people around the table and he turns and looks back the woman as she is weeping at his feet, drying them with her hair, anointing his feet with oil, and kissing them. But he continues to talk to Simon.

Now you know very well every other head turns toward her. And he says to Simon,

"Simon, since I came into this home, you did not kiss me. You did not anoint my head with oil. You didn't wash my feet, or dry them. But this woman - this "sinner" - she has done nothing but wash my feet with her tears, and dry them with her hair. She's done nothing but wipe my feet with oil (with ointment) and kiss them."

And then he delivers the punchline. It's a devastating punchline. (It's often the case, by the way, in Gospel accounts. There's always a punchline.)

"Therefore I tell you," he says to Simon. "Her sins - which are many - are forgiven. For she loved much, but the one who is forgiven little loves little."

Now there are a couple of unusual things about this:

Why the quantification of sin?

Loved much.

Forgiven much.

Counting seems to miss the point, doesn't it? Very seldom does the New Testament ever quantify sin. And the reason why is because we're all big, fat sinners and if we counted them we'd all get really depressed. Because we're in serious debt. We're in a hole so deep we're never going to be able to climb out of it. So who really cares about how many if, no matter how big we count, it's always too much.

Counting misses the point. Why then is Jesus counting? He doesn't count in other places.

Well, I want to suggest to you that Jesus is counting here because Simon is counting, wasn't he? He looked at this woman as a sinner. Simon was a Pharisee, a man of righteousness. He followed the law to the "T." If he thought about quantity of sin, she came out the loser. He came out the winner. She's a much bigger sinner than he is.

And what's so surprising is that Jesus actually agrees with him. Of course. She's a huge sinner.

But then he turns the equation upside down.

How much sin really misses the point. What really matters is how much we love. She may be the bigger sinner. So what? She's also the bigger lover.

Why?

Because she is aware of the fact that she has been forgiven more. And her love was a kind of measure of how much she knows she was forgiven.

The degree to which we love God and other people is a direct reflection of the degree to which we know we have been forgiven for our sins by God.

It's really an issue of awareness, isn't it? It's awareness.

But there's still more. Jesus, in this passage, makes an explicit claim that this woman has actually been forgiven.

Now, again. We're too used to passages like this. But I ask you, how does he know this? I mean, the fact that she was a sinner was really obvious. She was a prostitute. Everyone would have looked at her as a sinner. As marginal. As despicable. As the kind of people you'd never welcome into your home.

He knows that.

She knows that.

They know that.

But Jesus knows something else, too. Something else that isn't obvious. In fact, no one would have believed. She's forgiven. She's been forgiven by God.

Well, how does Jesus do that?

Because he has done the forgiving.

Now everyone around that table is a Jew. Jews were strictly monotheistic. And they knew that there is only one being in the entire universe that has the authority to truly forgive - that is, to effect forgiveness.

I mean, we can all say, "I forgive you." Doesn't matter. We can say whatever we want to. But I'm talking about saying in such a way that we can actually forgive someone in space and time. That is, that we have the power and the authority, the presence to actually forgive - to effect forgiveness.

By saying to this woman, "Your sins are forgiven," Jesus is in fact claiming what?

That he's divine.

That he is God.

That he has that authority.

An authority that belonged, according to Jews, only to the one God whom they worshipped as almighty, as Yahweh.

No wonder the guests say, at the end of our passage, "Who is this man!" Because he has the authority to forgive.

The one who is forgiven little loves little. The one who is forgiven much loves much.

Again, it's so odd. Who among us would ever say we've been forgiven little? That would be just an incredibly audacious thing to say. We're all very big sinners. We all need God's help immensely. Jesus said this because Simon thought it. And so do we.

• We do in fact calculate some of guilt.
• We create a hierarchy of sinners.
• We label some as worse than others.

I think all of us do, often unknowingly.

In other words, there's a little streak of self-righteousness than runs through all of us. We create in-groups and out-groups, you know.

• They don't have our level of education.
• They don't belong to our particular party.
• They don't have our psychological profile.
• They don't share our background.
• If they don't use our language, they don't belong to our club.
• If they don't follow our rules, they are somehow lesser than us.

It's not the amount of sin that matters. It's the amount of love.

If we love it shows that we know our need for God - that we've received forgiveness. That we know to whom we belong. That we feel security in that relationship. And we will love much.

So if we're going to do any calculating at all, our calculating should be, "How much am I loving God and other human beings?"
I find that to be a terribly unsettling question to ask.

Now Todd's going to have a lot of responsibility. He's going to want a lot of have a lot of people come to Sunday School and small groups. And he's going to want his high school and junior high ministry to grow, and the college ministry, and all the rest. But ultimately the measuring stick that you should apply is -

Are these people learning to love God more?

Are they loving people more?

Are they loving the world more?

And of course, it's a question that we should ask of ourselves. It's a haunting question. It's the right question.

Let's pray.