August 3, 2003
"Commitment"

In June 1990 there was a most unusual wedding reception at the Hyatt Hotel in Boston. A couple had booked a $13,000 wedding reception at the hotel, and had put down a $6,500 deposit. Then came the problem—the groom backed out of his commitment at the last minute. So the bride tried to cancel the reception and get her deposit back, except that the hotel would only refund $1,500 of the money. So rather than waste the rest of the money, this bride had a wild idea—go ahead with the party anyway.

You see, only 10 years before this woman had been living on the streets of Boston, a homeless person. She got back on her feet, gradually worked up to a good job, and found what she thought was a good man. So when she got stood up, she decided to do just what Christ told us to do when the invited guests won’t come to your party—ask the street people, the lonely senior citizens, the down and out. And so it happened. These bag ladies, vagrants, addicts who spent every other day rooting through dumpsters, chewing on half-eaten pizza, dined at one of the fanciest places in Boston, nibbling hors d’oeuvres, sipping champagne, eating chocolate wedding cake served by waiters in tuxedos.

There was only one alteration to the menu. In honor of the missing groom, the bride changed the entrée to boneless chicken.

Commitment is a difficult, chewy word for us to swallow. In our brave new 21^st Century world commitment has been turned magically into a four-letter word for some people—not all, thank God, but for many.

Yesterday I had the privilege of asking the questions as Fred and Janice committed themselves to each other and to a life of love. That’s all I did, ask the questions—they committed themselves, and God sanctified that bond.

But one reason why the divorce rate is so high in this country is that people weren’t really serious about making the commitment to merge two lives into one, to live for the other instead of for themselves. Some people won’t commit themselves so much as to watch the same TV show week after week, much less to a cause. Much less to their church, or their God. Much less to love. But that is exactly what this great story of a nameless sinful woman crashing a party is all about. She is committed 110 percent to love, and it shows in her actions.

President John Adams once wrote that there are only two kinds of people of worth in this life: Those who are committed, and those who require the commitment of others. This morning I want to talk about a woman who made the commitment, a man who withheld his own commitment, and the Jesus Christ who requires only that we return the love he lavishes on everyone. He seeks requited love.

High in the Colorado Rockies there sits a dome with a plaque marked the Great Divide. Rain falls often on this dome, but the same cloud will produce droplets that fall on the east side and the west side of the dome. If a drop of rain falls on the west slope, it joins in the stream of water that eventually will become the Colorado River and reach the Pacific Ocean. If on the east side, the rain drop will gradually stream into the Atlantic Ocean via the Gulf of Mexico. Though they fall in the same shower of rain, their destinies lie thousands of miles apart.

So it was with Simon the Pharisee and this nameless woman who crashes Simon’s party. One proud, well off, the other humble, ashamed of her life. They are two drops of water who fall onto the great divide that is the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and turn in opposite directions. One encounters Jesus and in spite of inviting him to his house for dinner acts so cold, so rude, that he violates basic laws of Jewish etiquette towards guests. The other encounters Jesus and his forgiveness, and responds with a lavish, spontaneous, uncontrollable outpouring of love.

One of the problems with love is that it is often unrequited. Unreturned. When love connects, there is no power stronger in heaven or on earth, but when one party fails to make the connection, the pain is almost more than one can bear. Anybody here ever experience unrequited love? If you have, you know what I’m talking about. Just like the Wizard of Oz explained to the Tin Man, hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. When your love comes back stamped “Return to sender,” it’s like your heart is not only broken, but shattered into millions of sharp edges that poke your insides and make you bleed.

And we’re not talking just romantic love, either. We’re talking about what happens when a friend is no longer a friend, or when a child turns against a parent, or even—when God’s beloved people turn their backs on him. Do you think it doesn’t break God’s heart when his beloved ignore him? Shun him? Deny his existence? Listen to this passage from the Book of Isaiah: “I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said ‘Here I am, Here I am,’ to a nation that did not call on my name.”

Outside a small town in New Mexico there sits a sign that reads, “Welcome to Portales, N.M., home of 12, 493 friendly folks and eight or 10 grouches.”

Simon, like many Pharisees, seems to have existed to be the town grouch. All the Pharisees, it seems, were exceptionally good at passing out disapproval. Simon reminds me of the story of a little boy who went out collecting bottles, going door to door in his neighborhood. He happened to stop at the home of a woman who was well known as the town grump. But the little boy didn’t know any of this. He knocked on the door and asked, “Lady, do you have any old coke bottles?” And the woman snapped, “No, I don’t have any coke bottles.”

“Well, do you have any old whiskey bottles?” “Young man, do I look like the sort that would have old whiskey bottles?” Well, the boy said, “Do you have an old vinegar bottles?” He was just telling it like it is.

Isn’t it true that whenever we invite someone to dinner there is always some motive behind it? It could be anything from just the desire to enjoy good fellowship to closing a business deal to a guy wanting to make a good impression on a first date, but there’s always something underlying the invitation. Now admittedly we don’t really know Simon’s motives, but the fact that Simon breaks all the rules of hospitality suggests that his motives weren’t pure—he probably wanted to get this Jesus into a good mood and lure him into spilling the beans—blabbing something that will expose himself as a charlatan.

But Jesus has a way of turning every meal, or at least every meal recorded in the Gospels, into something bigger, more meaningful. From the wedding feast at Cana to the Last Supper to breaking bread in Emmaus, he always has an agenda of his own. Into Simon’s little trap walks a prostitute who apparently has already encountered Jesus and experienced forgiveness, for she comes bearing a gift, with tears in her eyes.

Now to fully appreciate this scene, we need to understand that this was no happy hooker. This isn’t Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.” Prostitutes lived on the very fringes of Jewish society. They were banned from the synagogue, practically banned from the community. Decent people would have nothing to do with them, but this is the Jesus who also associated with lepers and tax collectors, so it would have been entirely in character for him to stop and talk to her and make her whole, make her understand that her sins were wiped clean. That would be why she’s weeping—in joy.

But Simon, the Pharisee, knows what kind of woman this is—or thinks he knows. He had people arranged in classes, with an entire set of rules to govern each class. This woman was a big-time sinner. Once that was established, then he was free to treat her like dirt. But Jesus has no rules. He treats everyone exactly the same: with love and compassion. When Jesus asks Simon, “Do you see this woman,” the true answer should have been “No,” he really doesn’t see her, only her category. He is preoccupied with applying contempt to those who “deserve” it.

But this woman is totally oblivious to Simon’s opinion of her. She only wanted to get close enough to present her gift, a jar of expensive ointment. Already weeping, she approaches Jesus from behind, the attitude of someone who doesn’t really think that she deserves to be there. But she is compelled to be there, to express her love. And what happens next seems to be spontaneous. Her tears wash the dirty, dusty feet that Simon refused to wash. She kneels to dry those feet with her long hair, and then she kisses his feet and cracks open the jar of perfume to pour it on them.

Here’s an interesting side note to this story: Luke is commenting on how all the norms of Jewish behavior are being thrown out the window in this story: Simon, who is rude enough to his guest to refuse him water to wash his feet, is the mirror opposite of a proper Jewish host. But this woman who lets down her hair to dry Jesus’ feet shocks the crowd literally like Lady Godiva. That was very immodest, the equivalent of going topless today. It was a completely indecent way for a woman to approach a man, and Simon is, not surprisingly, scandalized by it. He thinks, “If this Jesus is such a big-deal prophet, he should know what kind of a woman is touching him, making him unclean.” He doesn’t expect some supernatural understanding of who this woman is, just the same recoiling in disgust of any self-righteous religious person.

Jesus replies with a story, a story not just for Simon and this woman, but all in the dinner to hear. Two men turned to a moneylender—a loan shark, if you will—for cash. One borrowed 50 denarii, the other 500 denarii. Now a single denarus was a day’s wage for a working man, so to borrow 50 denarii was a huge sum, but 500 denarii was astronomical. The common denominator is that neither man can repay the debt. Yet the moneylender forgave both debts. He had no obligation to wipe the slate clean, but he did it. No strings attached. No settling for 10 cents on the dollar. No debtor’s prison. Just a bill marked “paid in full.”

That is exactly the picture of the action of God’s grace upon the world. Some of us are forgiven for quite a lot, others for quite a lot more, but the truth is that none of us can repay our debt to God. And that makes us all equal in the sight of God. His love is so infinite that he loves us in spite of our sin. He loved Simon and this sinful woman equally, but only one made the connection that unleashed the power of that love. Who should love God more? The one who has been forgiven more. But catch this—only the prostitute knew her own sin, so she could know the extent of her forgiveness. Simon, feeling his own sins were only minor, felt his forgiveness was only minor, so his love of God was just that—minor.

Everybody knows that love is a two-way street. To be healthy and mature in any form, love needs to be mutual and respectful, caring and open. To love one must be vulnerable, willing to reveal oneself to the other in ever-deepening degrees of honesty and emotion. The give and take of love is volatile and ongoing, as anybody who has ever been a spouse or a parent or a friend can tell you. But when you love, it’s okay to be giving. In fact, you need to be giving. Suddenly, it becomes your great privilege to give. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

Henri Nouwen, a great Christian writer of the 20^th Century, said that in order for us to grow spiritually, we must first open ourselves to the power of being loved by God. We Christians need to embrace our chosenness, not so we can feel superior to other people or set apart from others, but so that we can live in the peace and hope that God extends to us and all people. We need to remember that God chose us long before we ever thought about choosing him—he loves us as we are, where we are, how we are, with all our baggage.

Some people go through life dragging this horrible heavy burden around, thinking that their sin is so rotten, their life is so black, that it can never come clean again. Maybe that’s what this anonymous woman felt. She knew she was unclean. People surely told her so. Maybe she was disease-ridden, like many people Jesus encountered in that world. By human standards like Simon’s, she was, then, unforgivable, a woman who sold her body. She had no future.

Thank God we are not judged in heaven by human standards. When she looked into the eyes of Jesus, she understood that her assumptions about herself and her future were all wrong. It was possible to be forgiven. And zap!—Jesus’ love was requited.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the book “Love You Forever.” It’s often used to describe what happens in a mother-child relationship when parents age and the child must take over the role of care-giver. But the book starts with the young mother cradling her newborn son and looking at him lovingly, singing “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” The story continues through the stages of life repeating that song until at the end mom lies on her deathbed and her son cradles her in his own strong arms and sings, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”

That is so very much the love that God has for his people—unshakable, unbreakable, unbelievable, but absolutely true. At the instant of creation God had you in mind for this very moment in history, and he committed to loving you forever. He formed a bond with you, with your soul, that no power on earth, in heaven or in hell can break. That commitment ran so deep that he sent his only son Jesus Christ into the world for one reason only—so that he could die, and thus take all of our sins upon himself, and assure our redemption.

And in return, God seeks only requited love. He seeks your commitment to him. Today. This morning. What will your answer be?