"You're Safe!"
Dr. George Sinclair, Pastor
1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14) 15-21a; Ps. 5:1-8; Gal. 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3
June 13, 2010
If football is a game of inches, baseball is a game of judgments. If that’s true, I hope God loves baseball.
On June 2, facing the Cleveland Indians, Detroit pitcher Armando Galarrage was one out away from a perfect game—no walks, no hits, no errors, no hit batters, no one on base—27 up 27 down—a feat so rare you can count perfect games on your fingers and toes. Since 1876, nearly 400,000 pro games have been played. Put simply, perfect games are history making.
Jim Joyce, a respected nineteen year veteran umpire, was calling first base the night Armando was on the mound. Jason Donald came to bat for the Indians. Jason represented the final out—the 27th batter Armando faced. Jason dinged a grounder between first and second. Detroit’s first baseman made the play with Armando covering first. Armando caught the ball, touched the bag and, with a big smile, looked up to Joyce for confirmation of what everybody watching knew: Armando had pitched the 21st perfect game in history—the 21st out of 400,000—he’d go down in the record books. But Joyce, who was in perfect position to make the perfect call concluding the perfect game, waved Jason “safe.” Even Indian fans knew the call was wrong. Everybody knew—Jason was out, game over. Perfect game. But no, Joyce didn’t see it that way. Jason was safe. Armando would face a 28th batter thus ending his perfect game.
Unlike football with instant replay, baseball judgments are final. Umpires rule and that’s that. There are rules and there are judges. And in baseball, judges rule.
Seven chapters into Luke’s gospel, things heat up between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees are major league rule keepers. There are laws and the Law should be followed. God is the Law Giver so Law rules. Jesus, meanwhile, is “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Because of the company he keeps, the Pharisees label Jesus “a glutton and drunkard.” One Pharisee, a man named Simon, sympathic or not to Jesus, invites Jesus to Sunday lunch. Jesus accepts and sits at table in Simon’s house. “Sit” may not be the exact word. Unlike your grandmother’s, dining tables in first century Palestine were low to the floor, often U-shape, permitting both service and conversation. So Jesus is not exactly “sitting” at Simon’s table, “reclining” is more like it. Dinner guests in Palestine reclined on pillows. Since they ate with their right hands, they reclined on their left side leaving their feet angled behind them.
First century dining rooms likewise were not like your grandmother’s. Palestinian homes opened to crowded narrow streets. With no clearly distinguished front yard or long sidewalk, the line between public and private was thin. One thing in Palestine was like your grandmother’s—front doors were unlocked or open.
Simon The Rule Keeper had Jesus over for dinner. We have no reason to suspect a trap set up by Simon but with Jesus there were always surprises and on this night the surprise was “a woman of the city” who entered Simon’s house uninvited. The unnamed woman does not speak but she does act. When she enters Simon’s house she weeps, she baths Jesus’ feet with her tears, she dries his feet with her hair, she kisses his feet and anoints them with oil. The unnamed woman is not supposed to be there. Everybody knows she’s not supposed to be there. Simon knows. The narrator knows. And we know. She is “a woman of the city.”
The fact that the unnamed city woman is a sinner is underscored three times: by Simon, by the narrator and by Jesus. We may not know the woman’s name but we know she is “a sinner,” just the kind of person Jesus has spent time with—“a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Was the woman a prostitute? Luke does not say. Clearly, the word is in Luke’s vocabulary but he does not apply it to her. Instead, he uses a generic term which Peter applies to himself when he witnesses the great catch of fish, the day he left everything to follow Jesus, the day he was called; “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
The woman “in the city . . .was” a sinner.
If the “woman in the city” was a sinner and if Simon Peter was a sinner, what was Simon the Pharisee? Was Simon a sinner? What does it take to be a sinner? Do you have to get your name in the paper; say, for drunk driving, marijuana possession, weapon charges, spousal abuse? Does that make you a real sinner as opposed to being somewhat less of “a sinner” or not “a sinner?” Was Simon the Pharisee a sinner? Did he not know he was a sinner? Like Saul of Tarsus, was Simon “blameless?” What does it take to be “a sinner?”
When Simon saw the woman of the city bathing Jesus feet with her tears, “carrying on” as we might say in the South, he thought to himself, “If Jesus were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.”
What kind of man was Simon? What was he like on the inside? At the very least, we know Simon was a man who “thought to himself.” “Thinking to ourselves” is what we do when we don’t want others to know what we’re thinking. We keep our thoughts to ourselves and some are better at “thought-keeping” than others. Simon may have been an expert or at least he thought he was: “If Jesus only knew. Of course I know. I’ve seen this woman in action. Not that I’ve seen her in action personally. But I’ve heard. And my buddies at the Pharisee House know. Everybody knows about her. She is a sinner,” Simon thought to himself.
Be careful what you think because Jesus hears our thoughts, “Simon, I’ve got something to say to you.”
“Teacher, speak.”
“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarius and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both. Now which of them will love him more?”
“I suppose,” Simon answered, “the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.”
Why doesn’t Simon just come out with it? Why must he “suppose?” Why the caution? Does Simon suspect a trap, some legal wizardry, some quid pro quo, a legal angle he hasn’t thought about? “I don’t know, Jesus. Let me think about it. I can imagine a situation where somebody might love more when they were forgiven less. And I’ve seen some who were forgiven much but cared less. So it’s possible someone might love less even when they are forgiven more. People get away with murder, say they’re sorry and go right back and do it again. This woman weeping at your feet, she’s like that. I’ve heard her sorrys before. The world’s full of people like her.”
But Simon doesn’t say that, at least not out loud, but he’s thinking it. So he says, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.”
“You have judged rightly, Simon. You get it. I don’t know that you “get it” but you at least get what everybody else gets—“when you’re let off a very big hook, you give a very big thank-you.” Actually, Jesus used the word love. “When you’re let off a very big hook, you love.”
Funny he chooses love and not gratitude. People whose debts are forgiven are normally thankful. Jesus says they “love.” Aren’t love and gratitude the same? Close perhaps, but not the same. Gratitude can leave you feeling indebted; even if you’re off the hook, while love leaves you more than “off the hook.” Love leaves you feeling not that you got away with one, not that you “owe” anyone anything but your heart bursts with joy because the canceled debt has done something you can’t do; namely, pay the debt you owe. And love like that changes you. There are debts you and I can’t pay. There are debts for which checks can’t be written. And when debts like that are canceled love without resentment is created, love that’s not about “paying back” spills out, often in tears, because tears are all we’ve got.
“You see this woman (Simon)? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.”
Why does Simon love so little? Is he that great, that good, that without need? Simon strikes me like many “older brothers,” “older sisters,” first-borns who are always in the Father’s house and who have everything the Father has to give, but never really believe it. In some secret part of their supposing hearts, despite sometime vocal protests otherwise, they keep one eye on the God who keeps score, a god who follows the rules. And they, of all people, don’t want to be ruled out. They know the Judge’s verdict is final. There is no arguing the call. And the possibility of being called “out” by the Rule-Maker is more than they can bear. So, they live by the rules. They play by the rules. And they die by the rules. The Judge’s verdict is Final. There are no replays—only judgments. And judgments are final, unchangeable, irreversible.
Simon loves little because Simon’s God is too small and not only small but bound by rules. Simon loves little because he’s never stood before the Creator who is also Redeemer, the One present when “the morning stars sang together.” Simon’s god pales in comparison to the One “who measures the waters in the hollow of his hand . . . and the hills in a balance.” Simon loves little because his god is too small and more than small, Simon’s god, like Simon, is a rule-keeper.
In the 2003 movie Luther, an early scene portrays the reformer wrestling with God’s character and intention. Luther is troubled by God’s justice. He’s not sure God is just. So he asks his mentor, an elder monk: “Have you ever dared to think that God is not just? He has us born tainted by sin, then he’s angry with us all our lives for our faults, this righteous Judge who damns us, threatening us with the fires of hell!”
“Martin, what is it you seek?” the old monk asks.
“A merciful God! A God whom I can love. A God who loves me.”
Luther sought a God who loves. Luther, like Simon Peter, like the “woman in the city,” ultimately discovered such a God, a God who loves, a God whose judgments are final. Luther, like Peter and the “woman in the city,” discovered or rather was found by God’s final verdict in Jesus Christ. And the verdict is “Safe!” That verdict is rendered not because we beat the throw or kept the rules but because Jesus is our Judge. And the Judge’s ruling is final.
If that sounds arbitrary, and it does, so be it. God is not subject to the Law. God is subject to God: “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?” Thank God, God’s verdict is “safe.” Thank God, God’s verdict is final. Thank God, God’s verdict is Jesus Christ our Redeemer and Judge, “friend of sinners” and friend to rule-keepers who love more when they confess: “Lord, save me. I am a sinner.” Amen.