Proper 6C - A sinner forgiven...

1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a and Psalm 5:1-8
or
2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15 and Psalm 32
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

 

I like a good story.  Maybe it’s in a movie or in a book - Maybe its those scary horror types that have you on the edge of the seat telling the pretty girl not to go back into the house (they always do).  Maybe it’s the romantic one where you just wish the two would realize they were falling in love and kiss each other already.  Or perhaps the action one that ends with the atomic bomb that will destroy the whole world on a count down with five seconds to go and our hero cuts the blue wire… and saves the day!

*  *  *

Each of us sitting here today has a story, a unique story, a story known only to themselves and God… for some it’s an action story, for some a romance, for some a horror.  In some of our stories we’re a blundering idiot who goes from mistake to mistake to mistake… (a bit of a comedy if you were watching from the outside - but a drama if you’re the lead actor.)

*  *  *

The Bible tells us the story of God’s love affair with the people he has created - it tells us - with a kind of gritty honesty - how people turn to God and turn away from God - how they get God so wrong, and occasionally -  how they get God so right.

*  *  *

The first scene from the great story which we visited today: 

David and Bathsheba:

David had seen a beautiful woman bathing on the roof of her house… against his good sense (she was married) he invites her round and sleeps with her.

(Days of our lives)

She gets pregnant…  One thing leads to another and David because of the choice he made in the first part of the story makes another choice he sends Bathsheba’s husband Uriah to the front lines so that he will be killed…

What a story - every reader sits head in hands:  David what have you done?!

*  *  *

This sin doesn’t just affect David - it affects David’s family and in turn the whole nation of Israel!

David’s so busy sweeping the evidence under the carpet that he doesn’t seem to notice the gravity of his mistakes - the sins that he is committing…

Nathan helps him to see by telling him the story in a way he will understand…

*  *  *

…a rich man and a poor man lived in a city… the rich man had many sheep but the poor man had just one lamb (it was like a daughter to him.  He shared his food with this sheep, it drank from his own cup; lay in his bosom (like a pet.))

A traveller came to stay with the rich man - and the rich man instead of killing one of his own sheep - takes the poor man’s only and beloved sheep (the family pet), slaughters it and feeds it to the traveller.

*  *  *

The story makes David mad!  How could someone do such an awful thing?

*  *  *

Nathan explains that David has lived the same story - only in a different way:  His sleeping with Bathsheba, his murder of her husband… are all tantamount to the same sort of injustice.

He has gone and done something that all his principles (had he been thinking straight) told him he shouldn’t… but he didn’t seem to notice - he seemed to think that he could hide what he was doing from God - he seemed to think he could get away with no consequences.

David is like us - we are so good at telling ourselves why it’s OK to do something we know Jesus would frown at… 

We drink too much and drive - endangering other people’s lives (everybody else does it).

We’re less than honest in business (you have to be to survive in this cutthroat world).

Or maybe we simply don’t recognize that what we’re doing is wrong at all - our eyes conveniently focused on what we do right.

*  *  *

In the story of David, David simply responds to Nathan - “I have sinned against the Lord” immediately Nathan tells him the good news: “The Lord has put your sins away - you will not die.”  Just like that - God offers David grace.

Even though God forgives David - what David has done still has consequences for him, and for the whole nation of Israel…

Sin is never personal - it always has a stream of consequences that follow.

*  *  *

In the gospel - Jesus is eating with Simon the Pharisee.  A woman, who Luke tells us was a well known sinner comes into the room where they are dining…

She weeps at the feet of Jesus; wiping the tears with her hair.

A sign of humility - a symbol of repentance, a plea for mercy.

*  *  *

The people at the meal talk about Jesus: “If he were prophet he would know what ‘kind of woman’ is touching him!”

They criticize him for allowing this woman to touch him - I wonder if most of them would have just told her to get lost or pushed her away violently.

*  *  *

The thing is - before she even begins - Jesus is a prophet - he does know her story and he offers her grace and forgiveness.

Jesus, unlike the Pharisee seems to know that everybody has a story and God offers mercy to people as they have need.

*  *  *

Simon the Pharisee - obsessed with righteousness and law keeping doesn’t like what he has just seen.  In his eyes - according to his faith - his picture of God - God doesn’t like sinners like this woman...

Jesus tells him a parable which flips his idea of righteousness over:

Two people owe money to a moneylender - one owes R6000 the other owes R60000 and the moneylender cancelled the debts of both which one will love him more?

The one who owed the most - is Simon’s answer!

*  *  *

Later Jesus says to the woman - your faith has saved you…  Your picture of God is the right picture of God, God who can forgive a sinner who comes knowing they can be forgiven…

Jesus points out that the woman responds with so much more love than Simon did because she knows how generously she can be forgiven!

*  *  *

The more you have sinned - the more God can forgive you!

For Simon the Pharisee this is a crazy idea - keeping the law was the way to score points with God… (Some of us are like that… If I give 10% will you bless me?) 

Later on in this gospel (chapter 11) Jesus will criticize the Pharisees harshly for keeping all the little laws that they can find - but neglecting justice and the love of God…

*  *  *

They - like us - think they can earn the love and grace of God…

Jesus is saying God loves you and wants to bless you already - as you are - if you want to know how much God loves you stop all this pretence, stop counting your righteousness and look how much you’ve sinned!

*  *  *

The greater your sin - the more forgiveness God can offer - the more God has loved you!

It is so ironic it’s ridiculous - but that is why the cross is called a scandal! 

Without being so cruel that we could crucify the son of God we would never know how deep his love runs for us.

It is ironic because it is not something you can boast about either…

Oh you could quite easily drop a hint at a dinner party about how good you are - how you care for the poor - how you pay your staff and treat them so justly - how you observe the laws of scripture, how you pray until your pants are worn out at the knees… (people would be impressed (a little irritated - but impressed))

But you definitely won’t be popular if you go to a dinner party and tell them your sins will you?

If you boasted about your racism; if you told people how you sometimes kick the dog - if you told them those thoughts you have which are better kept to yourself… 

You would never be invited to a party again - you’d probably have to leave town!

*  *  *

The story of the sinful woman reminds us how God’s grace is such a wonderful gift - the more we need the more we receive… the more we have been forgiven - the more we can boast.

The David story reminds us that even when we are forgiven - sin still has consequences, our wrongs often harm others.

We live in tension (by the grace of God) - with so much grace, comes so much responsibility…

As we remembered youth day yesterday - let us not forget how sin multiplies… a sinful idea - the idea of apartheid - leaves a country divided and millions of people still struggling to recover from the trauma that it all caused… and continues to cause.  Even in spite of truth and reconciliation - miraculous tales of forgiveness - the scar remains.

As a grace filled community it’s not up to us to look for people to blame.  It is up to us to look for ways to help.  To work for justice - to take responsibility with all of our fellow sinners for the wrongs of the past and work to change the way things are. 

*  *  *

I began this sermon with the idea of a story, our lives as stories.  I imagine that God reads / or watches our stories as we write them - I imagine that God waits with baited breath for us to make the right decisions…  I imagine God’s rejoicing when that woman realized that he loved her - that she could come to him with all her sins and be embraced…

I imagine that God waits for us every day to make that decision… to turn to him in faith.  To live as he has called us to live, to realize that all of his children have a story - even those whom we count as the worst sinners… and they are loved by him.

*  *  *

When we realize this - when we learn to live like this in constant awareness of God’s grace and not our own righteousness - then we will begin to see the Kingdom of God in this place.