sinners

Forgiveness Finds a Place at Simon’s Table, Entry #36

/ Bryan Lowe / Leave a comment

“And Jesus answering said to him, 

“Simon, I have something to say to you.” 

And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

Luke 7:40, (context, 36-40)

This has to be one of my favorite passages of scripture. Simon, who is a Pharisee, has invited Jesus for dinner. I suppose he intends to impress Him, or at the very least he wants to Jesus to look more favorably on his religious sect. It’s simple PR work for him. (Maybe even tax deductible?)

But in comes this woman, and she spoils everything. The ESV translation describes her as a “sinner” and a “woman of the city,” (whatever that means?) She bursts into the dining room wielding an alabaster flask of ointment. She kneels and weeps, and uses the locks of her hair to rub the perfume on the dirty feet of Jesus.

She is crying, and I have to believe she’s very aware of her sin–nobody has to tell her that she has wasted her life. Simon, on the other hand, finds her behavior with Jesus quite objectionable. He’s obviously disturbed by her presence, and he only can only see her outside actions, his vision never really extends to see her broken heart.

And yet Jesus is quite aware of the tension that’s now developing. He’s spiritually sensitive to all that’s swirling around Him, and we see Him jumping at the chance to teach Simon (the Pharisee) a lesson on true forgiveness.

It seems that a certain moneylender had two men that owed him money. One was indebted with just a modest sum; the other was bound by a huge debt. It seems that both men couldn’t repay what they had borrowed. So inexplicably, the lender cancelled the debt of both of them, the little and the big. These men were now free. They owed nothing–not a red cent.

OK now. Who will “love him more?”

Jesus compares the responses of these ‘ex-debtors’ and takes it to a very logical conclusion. “Who will love him more?” Simon obviously understands this line of reasoning, and we hear him responding correctly to Jesus’ lesson on mercy and grace.

Simon realizes there are those out there who are terrible sinners, they are wicked and have walked in sin and darkness for a very long time. They’re irrevocably stained by their sin, it has shaped them to the point that their personalities have been altered. Sadly, they know all of this, and it breaks their heart in two. They tell no one, but God knows.

The schooling Simon receives is the Kingdom logic that corrects his definition of God’s mercy. The kindness that God bestows on us is proportional, those who “owe” much are forgiven much. And as a result they love much.

When you see a person weeping at the altar, overcome by their sense of sin and they seem terribly broken, you’ll understand the love they now have for Jesus. A tremendous debt has been forgiven, and they get up and walk away as free men and women. They now finally understand how to love. They have been forgiven.

“The truth is that there are such things as Christian tears, and too few of us ever weep them.”

― John Stott

A Definite Drunkard, Entry #34

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Please think about this image for a second

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Matthew 11:19, (context, vv. 16-19)

What part does excessive “eating and drinking” don’t we understand? It doesn’t seem entirely ‘religious,’ especially in the thinking of us who observe the life of a pastor or a shepherd. We demand a certain restraint, a standard of separateness from common sinners. That’s seems to be our personal view anyway.

Is gluttony wrong? Is getting a bit tipsy also unacceptable, especially when it comes to “true” religion? Quite often it seems, we have a pious approach toward what we think is ‘true’ faith. We often believe that truth equates to being an ascetic, separate from common sinners. We believe if we are truly holy we will segregate from the ungodly.

It seems that Jesus doesn’t relate to, or accept this viewpoint. He’s single-mindedly serving the Father, in perfect holiness and in true connection with Him. And yet we see Him cavorting with tax-collectors and sinners. We observe Him actually sitting with those we reject as ungodly or unholy.

I must say this before you start looking for rocks to stone me with!

Scripture clearly tells us that we’re to live holy lives. We’re to be wise and have self-control in everything. We should always remember our own ‘black hole’, and begin to see our new life as really incredible. We must allow the “fruits of the Spirit” to grow inside us. And lived rightly, it’s a place of real holiness; and certainly not the ‘pretend’ righteousness of the Pharisee.

Listen very carefully: The Pharisees reject and label those who seem to flaunt the religious norms, but broken believers will truly forgive others, like those who have been radically forgiven themselves. There is a stark difference.

But think about it, aren’t we all a tiny bit ungodly?

Don’t we somehow grade people by their outward appearance and the level of their attainment? It absolutely astounds me that Jesus seems far more comfortable with the outcasts than He does with the Pharisees of His day. He sits with them, and eats and drinks in a fashion that we would regard objectionable.

Jesus loves every person. He loves the unmade, and the unvarnished. He loves being with the ungodly. Yes, He does understand the awful nature of sin; the horrible damage it inflicts on a person’s soul. And yet I’ve come to the conclusion that all my righteous and holy religion is nothing but a very bad smell in God’s nostrils.

Jesus isn’t afraid that we will somehow taint Him by our words, conduct or behavior. He passionately loves those who we deem as outside the norm of our religion. Jesus loves being with ‘nasty’ people. I think He purposefully seeks out the wrong ones!

It fascinates me that Jesus is never afraid that the leper will corrupt or defile Him. He isn’t fearful that somehow He will be contaminated. That’s exactly what the Pharisees thought. But instead it’s the reverse with Jesus. He heals us, and it’s always a one-way current. He touches us, but we’ll never ‘poison’ Him!

Just maybe our awful failure in evangelism is due to our inability to really relate with the lost. We withdraw and then wonder why the unsaved don’t understand the things of God. Have we become so religious that sinners don’t feel comfortable with us, or Him? Could it be that we’re a bit off course? Are we really filled with His Spirit?

“The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.”

-Billy Graham

Eating With Sinners, # 20

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Courtesy of Holy Spirit Catholic Church

“And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, 

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 9:11-13 (context vv. 10-13)

God is not against us because of our sin. He is with us against our sin. We barely believe this. It doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s one of those pure and unadulterated grace ideas and somehow that just might confuse us. It’s counter-intuitive to everything we know; and it’s the tragic way of the religious world.

Jesus is now sitting and eating with sinners!

Can we even grasp how amazing this is? His guests at the table were the awful–the nasty dregs of a nice proper society. Tax collectors who had renounced Judaism for Rome. There were the sinners who were the unacceptable. (Even the whores and the drunks showed up!) Can’t He do any better than this?

It seems to me we’re living in this world ‘blind and dumb’ to what grace really is. Our legal analysis seems right on, but we have to admit we’ll sometimes operate under certain dictates of a ‘comfortable’ propriety instead. “What can we do to merit God’s love and become acceptable?” How can we truly fellowship with a God who is completely holy?

We see (or read) of the Lord who chooses to fellowship with the ungodly rather than the religious. That shakes us to the core, as it should. He loves associating with unacceptable people. That alone should floor us-and maybe scare us too.

The religious Pharisees found ‘grace’ to be unacceptable. They walked and breathed legalism. Keeping the Law was their way to be acceptable in God’s eyes. And they were now angry, or maybe somewhat mystified, by Jesus’ incredible desire to associate with evil people. But they’re misunderstanding the grace and mercy that resides in God’s heart.

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.

–Anne Lamott

Do we seriously understand the kindness and grace of Jesus? Does it ‘saturate’ your mind and heart? Are you completely ‘marinated’ in God’s outrageous love for you, the ugly? Think about this; ‘Could it be that pharisees are still alive and well today?’

Eating with sinners. We read that the Pharisees objected. It strikes me that these guys were trying to attack Jesus by ‘splitting’ the disciples from Him. They wanted them to question His actions. This is Satan’s strategy.”Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ‘Why’ seems to be the voice of the disbelieving and ‘ungraceful.’

Mercy is always better that any “sacrifice” we can make. Does this bother you? (It should.)

The ‘healthy’ don’t need any help. No doctor’s appointments are necessary. And yet Jesus chooses out the sinners” instead. You need to understand this, to be called like this is the ultimate gift. Grace for the ungraceful is unreal. It seems oddly unnatural. And yet the Father’s grace is now waiting for you. You must believe this.

What are you struggling with?

What ‘distracts you? What are you trying to do to be ‘righteous’ in God’s eyes? Do you really believe that He desperately wants to sit down and have a meal with you, just as you are?

“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.“

-Anne Lamott

Quenching Our Thirst, Entry #13

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“Jesus answered her, 

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

John 4:10, (context 4:7-42)

A rusty pail and a very old well. A woman comes to draw out some water from a well dug by Jacob, a patriarch from the pages of Genesis. I believe she was a ‘scarred’ person, she had been married to five men, and she really hadn’t decided to marry #6.

Noon wasn’t the norm, it seems she purposefully waited until the coast was clear. She avoided any contact with others. She would go in the heat of the day. But really deep down, she was ashamed of herself, and grieved over how she had destroyed her life.

She didn’t count on meeting someone at the well, much less a Jewish man who was tired and weary and waiting for a cool drink. She was even more surprised when Jesus spoke to her, that wasn’t proper. A Samaritan woman with a checkered past conversing with a holy Jewish teacher. On heard of.

Jesus waited for her to come, she has an appointment to keep with the second person of the Trinity who was waiting by this well.

“Living water,” how quickly we zoom through this phrase. We seldom stop to consider that what Jesus was offering her was ‘alive.’ It was water infused with life itself. It was water with eternal vitality over sickness, sin or death. When He talks about “living water,” Jesus is referring to Himself.

This particular incident with the woman at the well became the entry point for the ‘good news’ to come to the entire village. Living water would quench the thirst of this backwater Samaritan town.

“People pay attention when they see that God actually changes persons and sets them free. When a new Christian stands up and tells how God has revolutionized his or her life, no one dozes off. When someone is healed or released from a life-controlling bondage, everyone takes notice.”

-Jim Cymbala