Advent Lutheran Church

"Do You See This Woman?"

Selam!!

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            When you come across biblical stories that you have heard or read many times, it takes the whole amount of energy to be engaged with the story to get a new message out of it.  In fact, one of our challenges is approaching the Bible with our presumptions as if we know what it means. You can imagine how that would be more challenging to pastors and preachers who preach on the same Bible story many times.

            Here is my secret to how I face this challenge:  I try to set aside my presumptions and pray that the Holy Spirit may help me to hear a new voice, a new message out of the same story that I assume I know.  If you would like to try my secret, please join me in prayer now.  Let us pray:  Holy Spirit, you are the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of Knowledge and fear of the Lord. We come into your presence in humbleness. Open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our hearts to listen for a new voice and live your word.  In Jesus name, we pray.   Amen

            When you hear the word, “Pharisee,” what comes to your mind?  Honestly, we often think, the group of people who are always against Jesus. Pharisees are a group of people who in their own way try to please God by keeping the law, and think they are good people.  When you hear the words “sinful woman” what comes to your mind?  Often times it is easy to be mislead and lift up the definition of sin as a social stigma.  Therefore, unless we are so careful in our reading and listening, even in reading the Bible, we might fall into the trap of playing by a stereotype. 

            Defining an individual or a group of people with a stereotype situation is dangerous, because it leads to isolation and segregation.  Unless it is matter of context and volume, no society on earth is clean from this type of sin.  I do not know about America, but in Africa, there is a high volume of stigmatization on people who are affected by HIV/AIDS or leprosy.  Following the stigmatization, there is tremendous isolation and segregation.  In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia there is a village called “Zenebe Work” that is the official name of that place. Because people who are affected by leprosy are living there, this village is the most segregated place.

Instead of calling the place by its official name, society gave it an informal name, “Yekomtoch sefer,”  Translation? “Village of Amputated People.”  It is a typical stereotype labeling of people.

            I hope you all know Nelson Mandela the former South Africa President and winner of Nobel prizes. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in Robben Island where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison.  Robben Island was not only a place of imprisonment but it was also a place of isolation and segregation. It was a place where people who were affected by leprosy were kept isolated from the society.  For a moment, let us put ourselves in Simon’s place and imagine how would we feel when an uninvited person messes up our dinner party?

            So if you imagine yourself as Simon, who would be the stereotypic person that would disturb your dinner party if they show up and get the attention of one of your distinguished guests?  Would that bother you at all?  I think it is very natural to react to that type of situation.

The irony though, is that Simon does not seem to be bothered at all.  He was more focused on who Jesus was than what the woman was doing around his dinner table. For Simon, the priority was finding out whether Jesus was the Prophet or not.  Jesus, after proving his prophetic office in action he challenged Simon by telling him a parable. At the conclusion of the parable and beginning of its meaning on verse 44, we read “then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?”  Jesus is asking an interesting question. “Do you see this woman?”

             We do not hear Simon answering the question either by nodding his head or by saying a word.  I do not think that Jesus was assuming that Simon might have not seen the women. Rather Jesus was asking Simon “Do you recognize what she is doing? Do you acknowledge her ministry? Not only Simon but also the people who were dining at the table did not pay attention to the woman’s ministry. 

            My friends, ministry is all about responding to the love of God that we have received and continue to receive. That ministry can be expressed in many ways but has one core element, doing it from your heart and giving all yourself.  She used her own tears as water, her hair as a towel and her own ointment as oil. Her expression of hospitality was better received by Jesus than the formal hospitality of Simon. Why, because she did it from her heart, acknowledging God’s love in her life.

            Imagine, there is washing of feet, drying, anointing and kissing going on. In other words, worship was going on in that place. A huge response for the love of Christ was going on. However, no one was acknowledging that ministry, including Simon the host.  The question is Why? Why?  Because, they all see a stereotype, “woman.”  Not only a “woman” but a “sinful” woman. It is another stereotype definition.  What good can come out of a sinful woman for those men?  Like Simon, we hear our society echoing this attitude by saying, what good can come out of a child? or male, female, Jew, Gentile, young, old, white, black, Hispanic, etc. 

            Though none of them recognized the love, worship and self-giving that was coming out of her, Christ did and responded to her ministry.  This woman - thanks be to God that her name and sins were not specified so that she may represent the whole humanity - because her many sins have been forgiven, therefore she has shown more love.  But her forgiveness was not only in the past and private.  Her forgiveness is happening now in the present and in public and will be continuing in the future.

            Brothers and Sisters, the question for us is where do we want to see ourselves in the story?  Do we see ourselves like Simon, who was engaged in his own individual quest and stereotype definition that led him not to see, acknowledge or recognize the ministry of others that was going on in his sight?  Do we see ourselves like the woman who paid all the necessary price to show her love for God whom loved and forgave her sins to the extent of attending a dinner party in which she was not invited and welcomed?  Do we see ourselves like Jesus, no matter where he is, he is willing to forgive people even in the midst of prestige’s moment that does not seem need to be interrupted? 

            Wherever you see yourself in this story, ultimately as the body of Christ we are called to imitate Christ. We are called to live the lifestyle of Christ. That life style is love and forgiveness.

In this story Jesus has proven himself that he is greater than a prophet by saying “your sins are forgiven.”  In the same way he expects his church, his people to prove that we are not a people of religion but a people of relationship founded on forgiveness.  Remember, the sixteenth line of the Apostles Creed says “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” That means we believe in need of forgiveness for our sins from God and in also in forgiving others sins. Do you remember in our Lord’s prayer the line that says, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.

            When we gather for confession, the pastor begins with the words:  Let us confess our sins in the presence of God and one another.  In the same way, “let us receive our forgiveness in the presence of God and one another.” “Let us forgive those who sin against us in the presence of God and one another.”

 

 Amen.