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“Christ, Who Loved Me”
1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14) 15-21a; Psalm 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time -
Father's Day - Men of the Church
June 17, 2007
Prayer: O Lord, open our
ears, our hearts, that we might hear and feel your Holy Spirit move upon us
and within us to understand; that in understanding we may come to believe
and be justified by our faith in Your Son, Jesus Christ. AMEN.
It’s hard, isn’t it, as Paul
states (Gal. 2:21), to nullify the
wonderful grace of God that is given to us; perhaps and probably because it’s
free. In numerous ways we may remember times when unmerited favor is bestowed
upon us for no reason whatever; it’s indeed a kind of special grace expressing
God’s goodness to us and for us. As many know, I received a kind of grace this
past week that I didn’t expect nor probably deserve in any way, shape, or
manner.
Last Sunday I have to admit that I
was not feeling good inside; I had just had my car stolen from home a few days
before (Thursday), and the timing was such that I was not a happy camper. I knew
I would be traveling to church daily for being with families and for a member’s
memorial services. I live in my car as many of you know; I carry extra clothing
for changing for sports or exercise, have favorite musical CDs and tapes of
seasonal tunes I sing often while driving, and a small but treasured KJV of the
scriptures for home-visits near church and at the hospitals. All I could think
of was losing tens of thousands of dollars in a careless mistake, or two, of
mine which could have proved costly. I left our garage door open, and I always,
always leave my keys in the car, so I don’t forget where they are. I left church
last Sunday ‘lower than a snake’s belly’, as they say.
But then, through a tipster the
next day, and through communication with the Madison police, and through, I
admit, unceasing prayer on my part, and perhaps others who knew, my car was
found, is in the hospital now, and soon I will be a happy camper again. But what
I want you to know about this event is when we were at the roadside in the
darkness, getting the car on Monday evening, the police asked if I wanted to
talk to the offender; a fifteen year-old male. I had planned my response earlier
in my meditations alone thinking what to say to him or her, if given the chance.
In the backseat of the police car, I told him I hoped we both learned from this
event; I told him I forgive you for what you have done to me; I told him I hoped
he would not do it again, and that I was also careless in my actions. Now, I
truly believe it was through the grace of God that I was to have my car again. I
learned valuable lessons in a very short period of time concerning the law, my
faith, and God’s grace in our actions.
In pondering these meaningful
texts for us today, I found myself returning to the extravagant love that God
has for us, and how hard it is to admit our being consumed by our own
self-centered ness, that we miss what God’s intentions are for us–to love and
nurture us to be loving and forgiving of one another. For me, these texts have
these intentions. I admit that it’s hard, I think, when we take something of
scripture out of context and then try to put the pieces together again; what has
happened, what is happening, and like a mystery sometimes, what’s the outcome,
the point of the entire event. Here, in these texts, perhaps there is no income
or outcome for us, at least in an obvious way.
We have been in the formation of
the early Christian church in our lectionary passages in Galatians, in Acts, and
now in Luke, and as can happen, all things that begin anew can involve and
usually do involve dissension in the ranks; new beliefs, truths, concepts,
challenges, and always questions. These Jewish Christians were not acting
consistently or faithfully with the truth of the gospel, and Paul boldly pointed
it out to them. Paul, the Pharisee is seemingly telling the Galatians, ‘Take it
from a guy who knows!’ He begins forcefully by his own experience, like I did
telling ashamedly on myself this morning; Paul’s experience gets them between
the eyes, or as we say, ‘right in the face’ with his personal pronouns
( almost a dozen, v. 18-21) in defending
his own faith in Christ, ‘so I might live to God.’. He died to the law and now
Christ lives in him, not in his works but in his faith; it’s not how many laws
(rules) that a person obeys that determines God’s love for us, but by faith, as
Christians. In knowing God loves us despite our flaws, our missteps, our
failings, maybe mostly in our weaknesses, we have life in Christ.
I remember author and monk, Henri
Nouwen, in The Wounded Healer, said once, ‘make my own weakness a source
of creativity.’ Paul is telling us that God’s goodness and grace are with us,
and the reason we’re justified, or ‘right’ with God, is by our faith in Christ;
BECAUSE God loved us first and still loves us and gave God’s Son to die for us
(v.20).
God’s saving grace is Christ in us!
Luke is in the middle of
confrontation and controversy as well with Jesus and those Pharisees, those
supposed experts of the Law. You see, these early judgmental teachers or
‘separatists’, as they were called, accused Jesus of being drunk and a glutton,
a friend of sinners. Remember last week when we heard of Jesus’ healing, and his
raising the widow’s son from the dead; also eating with tax collectors and
women. In Jesus’ day there was extremism as we know it today; enthusiastic
support and adoration, or downright rejection. The sinners, we remember, were
those Gentiles who hadn’t experienced God’s Law and so how, the Pharisees asked
with prudence, could Jesus, the prophet, be a friend of sinners–being with,
eating, speaking with such lowliness?
But our entire story here is about
loving lots and forgiving lots! It has at least three things coming about in
Jesus’ attempt to confront and conform these Pharisees, and Jesus does it in a
rather cool and calm manner. In coming to know God in Christ as LOVE for
us all, Jesus allowed the woman to get near, even touch him. We are told the
woman is probably a prostitute, a sinner in the city, and we also are told she’s
weeping at Jesus’ feet. She is bathing, drying, kissing, and anointing his feet.
The opinionated Pharisee, Simon the disciple, does observe all of this, but
can’t you just see him in disgust; Jesus having physical contact with unclean
sinners was never a part of Jewish and any lawful Pharisee experience.
In God’s GRACE in all of us
we are forgiven and set free; Jesus allows the Pharisee to observe and take in
all of this freedom of God’s grace on the woman and to think for himself what
the ramifications are of Jesus’ love for all people, and in forgiving them. What
happened but this woman showed her great love deeply and freely for Christ in
her actions. Jesus asked Simon, ‘Do you see this woman?
(v.44).’
Jesus was asking if Simon had any hospitality in him, in his own home, to
receive a guest, like the woman sinner did! Did he have it in his heart to not
be judgmental, or prove her guilty of anything or something he didn’t like; it
didn’t seem to bother Jesus, did it, this city sinner of a woman? Jesus the
Teacher spoke, and Simon the Pharisee received an earful, an eyeful of God’s
truth and grace.
In knowing of God’s extravagant
love and forgiveness of us, we can be justified through Christ and go
in PEACE! You and I can’t do anything to make God love us more.
Christ Jesus in us allows us to be saved through our faith and we can be free
and at peace. In accepting this, we might ask, is the Pharisee Simon, or is it
us? Are we, as disciples of Christ, forgiven, and yet we love little? Really,
Jesus is asking Simon, us, to look in the mirror; our own mirror of honesty of
love and forgiveness. Is it possible to allow judgments of others to Jesus
Christ, and not burden ourselves?
The last part of our text
indicates the amazing grace accompanying Jesus in those persons of faithfulness,
love, and genuine forgiveness of others, who are not of the most distinguished
or powerful in society; women as Mary Magdalene and her demons, Joanna and
Suzanna, with evil spirits and infirmities, and the disciples, and others. Like
Paul the apostle, they got personal with their being justified in God’s love
towards them in Christ Jesus. Through their own experiences of belief and truth,
love, and forgiveness, they were able to help spread the good news of Christ’s
gospel.
The good news of the gospel for us
is the heart-felt experiences of Christ in our life through unknown,
sometimes undeserved grace, and where we can be transformed anew and
continuously by God’s grace and love and forgiveness. For we are what God has
made us, enough so that we might tell others of our good news–in allowing Christ
in our lives, we are free to love and to forgive others as Christ has so freely
loved and forgiven us.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN.
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