Luke 7:36-8:3

I was going through some stacks of books I hadn’t taken a look at in quite a while when I came across this little gem. It’s a spiral bound booklet, and I’d forgotten I had it. Even today, I can’t remember where I got it. Perhaps it was when Sandy and I visited the Holy Land back in the 1980’s. Or maybe I just picked it up at a yard sale somewhere. You know how yard sales can look like a lot of trash, and yet yield some true treasures? Well, this little spiral bound booklet is a good example.

You can’t see the detail from where you are, but many of you probably recognize this as one of those church pictorial directories. On its pages are the faces of many people, although the last several pages are missing. But even so, it’s an amazing book because this is the actual church pictorial directory - made by Olan Mills - for Jesus and his disciples!

I can tell you that, even after two-thousand years, the photographs are extraordinarily well-preserved. I think it’s kind of humorous that the picture of Jesus is on a page that bears the headline, “Our Church Staff”! But thinking about that, it strikes me that that goes along with his insistence that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

Then there are some wonderful pictures in the section titled, “Church Activities”. There’s a church fishing trip out on the Sea of Galilee, with all the church members tugging on these huge nets full of fish, and laughing about their good fortune. Then there’s what must have been a Father-Son banquet because there are only guys in the photo. They’re all seated on the same side of the supper table – almost like they’re posing for a DaVinci picture!

But the most interesting part of the whole thing – at least to me – is the section containing the pictures of all the people – “Our Church Family.” I think the reason I bought this booklet in the first place is because it dispels the myth that the very first church – Jesus and his followers – was comprised only of men. No, there are women there, too – lots of them - just like we read in the last verse of our Scripture reading today from Luke 7 and 8:

“After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases.”

And that’s the other thing striking about these photographs in the first church pictorial directory ever made – none of the people look very saintly! However idealistically you picture Jesus and his followers, they weren’t like that at all! I mean, just look! Rough fishermen! Lepers cleansed of their illness, but still bearing the disfigurement of lost feet and hands! People with the look of doubt on their face! And even people who could have been cast for parts in William Peter Blattey’s “The Exorcist.” I mean, look at the caption below the picture of Mary Magdalene. It says, “From whom seven demons had been cast out.” They could make a movie out of that!

Oh, it’s a wonderful little booklet that reveals so much about God’s grace and human imperfection. And I wish the last few pages weren’t missing. I wonder what other faces we’d see of those precious people Jesus gathered. And I especially wonder if we would see a picture of Simon.

Simon. The man who, in today’s lesson, invited Jesus to dinner.

Now, we don’t know a whole lot about Simon, except that he was a Pharisee. But even that tells us something because we know a lot about Pharisees.

In many ways, they were like the people who founded our country. Do you remember your history lessons about the Pilgrims? They were devoutly religious people who became upset with the way things were going in England. Their country was becoming more and more secularized, and the government was intruding on religion. I don’t know if they took prayers out of the schools, or tried to remove “one nation under God” from their Pledge of Allegiance, but I do know that the Pilgrims felt like their country no longer cared about God, and they were no longer free to worship God without going through the King. So they felt a need to separate themselves from the political and religious establishments that had become so unrighteous.

That’s why they called themselves Separatists. Eventually, they left England for Holland, but even Holland turned out to be too unrighteous. So they set sail for the New World, and in 1620 arrived on Cape Cod, establishing a colony at Plymouth. We know them as Pilgrims, but the name of their movement was Separatist because they wanted to be God’s separated people – the light of the world, living in a city set on a hill, as we have heard so much about this past week, beaming the light of God for all the world to see.

The Separatists. We call them the Pilgrims. Sixteen-hundred years earlier, they were called the Pharisees.

You see, the Semitic word for Separatist is…Pharisee.

Now, Simon was a Pharisee.

And he was righteous.

All Simon wanted to do was to give God God’s proper place in life. He loved his God. He loved his Country. He loved his Family.

Simon was a Pharisee. And he was righteous.

When you needed to find someone you could depend on, you called Simon. When you needed someone to help the kids buy Little League uniforms, you called Simon. When you needed someone to settle a dispute, or to serve on a community board, or give you advice about what the right thing was to do, you called on Simon.

Simon was a righteous man.

And that’s probably why, when Jesus came to town and all the other religious leaders spurned him, it was Simon who opened his heart. It was Simon who opened his home.

“Come, and have dinner at my house!”

And so Simon arranged a beautiful reception for Jesus, and made sure all the right people were there – even the ones who didn’t want to come. After all, hospitality is a commandment of God, and Simon was a righteous man.

And maybe you can picture the scene that night – perfectly laid out linen tablecloths and the finest silver - perfectly groomed waiters and waitresses in crisply pressed uniforms - perfectly chosen wines, none of which came out of a box – perfectly prepared hors d’oeuvres with not even a trace of those little cocktail sausages! I mean, Simon was a Pharisee, and Pharisees don’t eat a lot of pork.

Simon was a righteous man. The perfect host. And it was a perfect dinner party.

Until SHE showed up.

How she got in, nobody knows, but all of a sudden, there she was, looking like trouble and smelling like the streets. With head bowed down, and tears causing her mascara to run in black streaks down her face, she stumbles to wear Jesus is seated. Her knees buckle and she collapses in a crumpled heap behind him, her tears wetting his feet, her dirty hands taking her own hair and using it to tenderly wipe them dry. And then, without so much as a word, she reaches into the folds of her coat and retrieves a very expensive alabaster jar of even more expensive perfume – a gift, obviously, from one of the men who pays her for sex.

And gently, she pours out the perfume – every last priceless drop of it - on Jesus’ feet.

And you know the rest of the story. Simon explodes in righteous indignation! He is furious about this sinful woman invading his party for Jesus. And he is furious with Jesus for allowing her to touch him, making him – and the whole house – unclean according to the law of Moses.

And he confronts Jesus with the sin. “If you were really who people say you are – a righteous prophet of God – you would know who is touching you – a sinner!”

And as the story draws to a conclusion, a stark contrast is painted before us.

On the one hand, there is Simon – a righteous man standing up for what’s right. And on the other, there is this unrighteous prostitute pouring out her love for Jesus.

And we are left to ponder the question: “Which of the two is the kind of person I want to be?”

And we would do well before answering to consider which of the two Jesus would have us be. Without any question, it is the woman! Why do you suppose that is?

I believe that one of the fundamental mistakes we make when we think about religion is the notion that faith is mostly about “being right.” Believing the right things. Worshipping the right way. Following the right path. Belonging to the right religion. Standing up for the right.

But when you listen to Jesus, you hear a different gospel. Faith is not about being RIGHT. In fact, the Bible teaches that no one is righteous, no not one! No, faith is not about being RIGHT, but faith is about becoming GOOD, and pouring out that goodness upon everyone you meet! And in this story about Simon and the woman, we see an interesting flow of events. Simon starts out as a righteous man, but becomes unrighteous at the end of the story because of his inability to do good to either the woman or Jesus. And the woman starts out as an unrighteous prostitute, but becomes righteous as she pours out her love at the feet of Jesus.

Faith is about receiving the gift of God’s goodness, and then giving it away!

Last Sunday, I gave Sarah Emory a call because I knew she was mourning the death of President Reagan. Sarah worked as Chief Records Clerk in the White House for many years, serving six of our presidents from President Nixon to President Clinton. President Reagan was her favorite.

What’s interesting to me is that when you talk with Sarah about President Reagan, she does not talk about the rightness or wrongness of political principles. She talks about Ronald Reagan’s goodness. He was a truly good man, Sarah says.

During the memorial service at the National Cathedral, I was struck by how often that same theme was sounded. And nowhere more eloquently than through the lips of Margaret Thatcher who noted President Reagan’s political accomplishments, but then went beyond them. Quoting British writer and poet Arnold Bennett, Lady Thatcher raised the question some of the President’s critics ask – “What great cause is he identified with?” And then Mrs. Thatcher responded with the words of the poet: “He’s identified with the great cause of cheering us all up!”

People may argue about the rightness or wrongness of tax cuts, Star Wars, big government or small. But I dare say that what made Ronald Reagan a great leader was his ability to cheer us all up. And at a time when the nation was on its knees, suffering a series of great and depressing misfortunes, he stood up and told us that we are good people, founded to be a city on a hill, and that America’s best days were yet to come. And historians note with some amazement, almost overnight it seemed, the American people rose up, and went to work, and made the world a better place.

It is not being RIGHT that changes either the world or people. It is being GOOD.

A number of years ago, I was with a group of kids on a backwards Progressive Supper. Do you know what that is? It’s a Progressive Supper, but you start with dessert and end with appetizers. Anyways, we were at the house where the main course was being served, and as we chowed down on American Chop Suey, someone switched on a TV. The nightly news was on, and the story being covered was about AIDS. A well-known American religious leader was shown in the pulpit, very angrily denouncing those who suffer from AIDS, and letting us all know in no uncertain terms the right and wrong of it all. The kids were transfixed by the tirade. One of the girls said, “Boy, he’s a bundle of joy!”

Then, in the next scene, the nuns of Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity were shown caring for an AIDS patient. They treated the man like he was Christ himself, washing him, whispering to him, gently ministering love. The very same girl said, “I like them.”

It is GOODNESS that inspires people to greatness and to faith.

And if you are asking today how you can get this goodness into your life, I have to tell you that it can’t be learned, and it’s not genetically transmitted! No, the GOODNESS of which we are speaking is a gift that comes only from God.

And the most amazing thing about it is that God seems pleased to pour out his goodness into the lives of those who call upon him.

As Jesus brings the story to a close, he notes that the best lovers of all are those who themselves have received God’s love. So let’s begin there today. Would you come with me into the presence of God? Would you admit your weakness and ask for his help? Would you confess your sin, and seek his forgiveness? Would you yield to him your need to be right, and ask instead for the gift of being good? Would you let yourself be loved, and then go and love the world?

This woman, it is inferred in the passage today, joined up with Jesus’ little band of followers as they went on through the towns and villages preaching the good news of the kingdom.

But Simon? Well, we don’t know about Simon. Maybe he came around eventually, and had his picture added to the pictorial directory of the followers of Jesus. Maybe his picture would be found in one of those missing pages.

I suppose we’ll never know until we get to heaven. But the most important thing today is not really whether or not Simon’s picture is in the book of the ragtag followers of Jesus.

The most important question is, “Is your’s?”