Pride and Shame Encounter Jesus: The Gospel According to Luke - Luke 7:36-50

Well, we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and this morning is no different.

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We're so glad you're with us this morning.

Whether it's this morning or sometime through the week, and in the last week, we've had guests join us from Singapore, from Manila, Metro Manila in the Philippines, and here in the U.S.

from Kansas City, Missouri, go Chiefs from Loosedale.

I'm married into it.

My wife's from Kansas City, uh, Loosedale, Mississippi, and from the town of State College, Pennsylvania, home of Penn State University.

Welcome, y'all.

We're glad you're with us.

Well, as Kim said earlier, we're finishing out Luke chapter 7 this morning, and this is the last time we're gonna study Luke until 2025.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

Next year, next Sunday, Pastor Jim's gonna lead us in the Stir Up Sunday sermon, and then we are already in Advent right after that.

My goodness, the year has flown by.

Well, I'm calling our passage this morning, Pride and Shame Encounter Jesus.

In the setting for our story this morning, a Pharisee has invited Jesus to his house for a dinner party, and then this extremely awkward and uncomfortable situation arises, but it ends up being profoundly beautiful because Jesus extends mercy and grace to someone who desperately needs it, and he shows us what a forgiven person looks like.

You know, some awkward moments are just funny.

We get a good laugh at ourselves, you know, like if you're seeing somebody in a room waving at you, and you're you smile and you wave back, and then you realize they're actually waving at somebody behind you, and you just kind of wither and back up.

Or you're talking with somebody, they say something, and you start laughing out loud, and then you realize that wasn't a joke.

So awkward.

Or you finish a conversation with somebody, give them a hug or whatever, say goodbye, and then you turn to leave and you realize you're both walking in the same direction.

So it's just like, okay, what do you do now?

Some awkward moments are funny, but they have legs and they follow us around.

In high school, I had this buddy named Rob, and he and I both played trombone, and we kind of our our whole time in school together, we'd go back and forth.

One of us would be first chair, the other would be second, and then we'd switch.

Well, during Rob's senior year, during football season, we we both played this big solo every Friday night on the field with a marching band, and we would come down to the sideline at the middle of the field for our big moment.

Well, this one weekend, it was homecoming weekend, and the stadium was packed, and Rob and I are down here on the sideline doing our thing, and all of a sudden I hear this sound in the audience, and it sounds like people laughing, and I'm playing, trying to think what's going on.

And then I look at the drum major who's right in front of us, conducting the band from the sideline.

She's laughing so hard that tears are streaming down her cheeks, and I'm wondering, what is going on?

And so I look out of the corner of my eye, and over here is poor Rob holding his trombone with one hand and trying to pull his pants up, which are on the ground.

I guess he had taken his uniform to the cleaners before the game that Friday night, and they had broken the zipper, and he didn't realize it until that moment.

It was horrible.

And man, kudos to Rob.

I don't know how he did it, but he finished the entire halftime show marching, you know, with one hand holding his pants up and just holding his trombone, and he became famous.

Uh this was before internet, before cell phones, but gosh, this story made its way from West Texas like 700 miles to UT Austin.

People all over the state knew about the guy that lost his pants at the halftime show.

It was horrible.

Well, in our passage today, we have an awkward moment like this that is not funny, but it does have legs, if you will.

There is a woman that we'll read about that has this reputation.

She's well known in the town for who she is, and she has this reputation for how she lives her life, and this reputation follows her wherever she goes.

And so she's gonna come visit Jesus at this dinner party.

And what's interesting is it's not only her reputation that's at stake, it's Jesus' reputation at stake too, because of how he treats this woman doesn't fly with how the Pharisees should think a rabbi should treat a woman.

And as we move through our passage, I'd like for us to keep this verse in context.

Psalm 71:1, in you, O Lord, do I take refuge.

Psalms 71:1

Let me never be put to shame.

Friends, we are living as beloved of God.

And pride and shame don't get the last word in the story.

Sin does not get the last word in the story.

And for that I'm profoundly grateful.

So let's pray and then we'll get into the into the passage.

Lord, as we come to you today to hear from your word and try and understand historical context and the beauty of your love and grace and mercy, which goes beyond context.

It goes beyond history.

Holy Spirit, you know where each one of us has a point of need this morning.

You know the areas where we run to Jesus, you know the areas where we uh are cautious and hold back.

And I pray for each one of us this morning that you would speak to us and help us run to Jesus.

And we lift this up in your name.

Amen.

So uh we've got a I've got a found a painting online from a French artist, James Tissot.

And that I believe it's called the Anointing of the Magdalene.

And you see, you kind of get an idea of what these courtyard and these low tables and and how people would recline on their couches.

And then at the bottom of the picture you see, you see the woman weeping at Jesus' feet and cleaning his feet with her hair.

And we're gonna we're gonna read all about that.

Well, if you remember last week, at the end of the passage that Pastor Tommy was teaching us through, you know, we read about the honest doubt of John the Baptist, and we read about the willful disbelief of the Pharisees, and Jesus was just excoriating in his critique of the Pharisees because of their willful disbelief.

And so it makes the first verse of our passage curious to me.

So we're at chapter 7, verse 36.

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, meaning Jesus, and he went into the Pharisees' house and reclined at table.

So we find ourselves, Jesus has just been so critical of the Pharisees, and then one of the Pharisees decides to invite Jesus to dinner.

Starts off just awkward.

Of course, Jesus goes.

We don't know the motives for the Pharisee.

It could have been just curious, wanting to get to know this new rabbi, this new teacher that was itinerant and had just come through town.

Maybe he wanted to get him alone privately to ask him questions, to test him, or just kind of get a notch in his belt for having the guy say yes to come to dinner at a house.

We don't really know, but in any case, Jesus goes to the house, and like in the painting we just saw, when they say recline at table, it's not the table height that we're used to these days in the West.

It would be a very low table, most likely out in a courtyard, and around the table would be cushions or low couches, and people would kind of lay or recline on these couches or cushions.

If they're right-handed, they'd lean on their left arm or left shoulder and eat at the table with their right hand, and their feet would be behind them, sticking off the couch.

So that's kind of the scene, if you will, of this dinner party.

Let's read the next couple of verses, verse 37.

Behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabascar flask of ointment.

It was a little flask that women would wear around their neck with perfume or ointment in it.

And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

Well, this woman is, we don't know her name.

Luke defines her in these two ways.

She was a woman of the city and a sinner.

Now, since the Bible teaches that we're all sinners, it's interesting that Luke would underscore this woman in that way.

And I think most likely it meant that she was a prostitute, that most people in town knew who she was, knew her reputation, knew what she did.

So they would have known who she was as she came into this house.

And even though we don't know a lot about her, she was once a little girl, right?

She was a daughter.

She was maybe a sister.

And we don't know what events or circumstances led her to choosing this lifestyle.

It could have been that she was abused as a child, or maybe her parents died early.

This was the only way she could earn money.

We don't know what brought her to this point, only that we know that she was here.

That's how she was making a living.

Exchanging her body for a little bit of money.

And it wasn't unusual to have uninvited guests come into these dinner parties.

As I said, the table most likely was out in a courtyard near the street, kind of open, open doors, if you will.

And it was customary for uninvited guests to just kind of come in and hang out on the periphery.

They'd like to maybe get a little bit of food.

Sometimes they'd like to listen into these conversations and try and hear what people were saying of these dignified guests.

Well, this woman comes in, she stands behind Jesus because his feet would be behind him, and she begins to weep so profusely.

Might have even surprised her how emotional the moment was.

And I think that's what she was experiencing at this moment when she was face to face with this man that she had been hearing about and had followed.

She gets down at Jesus' feet and the tears are still flowing, just unstoppable.

You know, we say the phrase, I'm ugly crying, and that's kind of what it was that she had no control over her emotions or her tears, and she reaches behind her and she lets her hair down, which even for a woman of her reputation, letting a woman letting her hair down in public in this culture was basically the same as taking off an article of clothing.

So she takes her hair down and she starts rubbing Jesus' feet, which feet was that was the mode of transportation back then.

His feet would have most likely been filthy, dirty, and she's weeping on his feet and rubbing his feet with her hair, and then she starts to kiss his feet, and then she takes that alabaster jar of ointment of perfume, and she breaks it open and pours it on his feet.

This would have been expensive.

It might have been, it might have been the only material item of value that she owned at this moment in her life.

I don't know where it came from.

Maybe it was a gift from her parents.

Maybe it was this gift years and years ago looking towards maybe her wedding night.

Maybe she even bought it with money she had earned working her trade as a prostitute.

But she breaks this open and she pours it out on Jesus' feet and begins to kiss his feet.

And I think at this moment, I'm thinking that that courtyard had gotten very, very quiet.

I think the dinner conversation had faded off, and people were aghast at what was going on.

And most likely the only sound would have been the sound of this woman weeping and the little this scritchy sound of her hair cleaning Jesus' feet and maybe these soft little kisses.

Everybody in the room had to have been so uncomfortable, except for two people.

The woman and Jesus doesn't faze him in the slightest.

Let's continue, verse 39.

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.

And he answered, Say it, teacher.

You know, Simon had to have been cringing at this moment.

When he sees the woman walk in, and when she starts doing this, he's got to be thinking, What is she doing here?

What in heaven's name is going on?

And when Jesus doesn't stop it and shun the woman, Simon the Pharisee has got to be saying, okay, if this guy really was a prophet, he would know who she is, he would know what she does.

There's no way he would let this go on.

Because a woman like that would have been considered unclean, and no prophet worth his salt would have allowed that to continue.

So Simon now is starting to question maybe this guy's not a prophet after all.

Simon was obsessed, wasn't he, with this woman's outward appearance and her reputation.

But Jesus goes way deeper than that.

He goes so deep into the hearts, into Simon's heart and the woman's heart.

And so now he says to Simon, because he's perceived what he's thinking, he says, Hey Simon, I've got a story I want to tell you.

And Simon says, Okay, let's hear it.

Verse 41.

A certain moneylender had two debtors, one owed 500 denarii and the other 50.

When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.

Now, which of them will love him more?

Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.

And Jesus said to him, You have judged rightly.

So in this story, the two debtors they owed an immense amount of money.

500 denarii, that was about equivalent to 20 months of salary, 20 months of wage, 50 denarii, that was about two months of a wage.

So I don't know what you all make per month, but you can just kind of add that up and do the math.

And it was a significant amount of money.

And what's curious is even though one amount of debt was 10 times smaller than the other one, neither man could repay.

So the issue at that point wasn't the size of the debt, the issue was their inability to repay the debt they owed.

And I think the next thing that was curious about this story was the response of the moneylender.

He didn't demand payment, he didn't try and set up a repayment plan.

He didn't threaten to take their assets, he didn't throw them in jail.

Instead, he forgave and canceled the debt of both of them.

That is unbelievable in that culture that that would have happened.

And so now Jesus deftily sets the hook of the story when he asks Simon, okay, who do you think would have loved the moneylender more?

Which that in itself is an odd question.

And Simon has to answer, I kind of think through gritted teeth, well, I suppose it's the one who had the larger debt.

And I think Jesus has chosen the perfect story for Simon, because it's all about a transactionally based account.

Simon is looking at religion and holiness and morality from a transactional basis.

Just like the woman, when she was a prostitute, treated her body as a transactional basis, you know, goods offered for money rendered.

In the same sense, Simon is regarding morality and holiness as a transaction, meaning I've got these rules to follow, and if I disobey, oh, I've got these remedies.

I've got a checklist of rules, I've got a checklist of remedies, and if I disobey, if I sin, I just check the boxes on the remedies, and then holiness and forgiveness are owed me.

They are due me.

That's the way he was treating morality.

And Jesus is turning all of this up on his head, and he's suggesting no forgiveness, it's not a transaction based on a checklist.

It's based on relationship.

And he shows that the moneylender forgives the two debtors not because of any other reason other than their inability to pay, and he cares for these men and wants to relieve them of their debt.

Jesus does tell Simon that he has chosen the right response.

So let's cons let's continue on.

Verse 44.

So then turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon, Do you see this woman?

I entered your house.

You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.

Jesus continues to turn things upside down for Simon.

He says, Do you see this woman?

Well, of course we know Simon Tsar went right when she entered in because he knew who she was, because he judges everything on the outside.

A prostitute in first century Israel would have been invisible except for the fact that she was a sinner.

And in Roman society, prostitutes were seen as almost worthless.

The price for a prostitute was about the price of a loaf of bread.

Just literally almost worthless.

And here Jesus is getting ready to give this woman respect and honor, and he tells Simon that this woman has shown him so much more love than Simon has.

Typically, in that society, in that culture, when a guest came, you would have a servant wash their feet to wash the filth of the road off their feet.

You would give them that, you know, embrace, you'd kiss them on either cheek, and sometimes you would even get a little bit of oil or perfume to anoint their head with.

Simon has shown Jesus none of this hospitality, but this woman who he is now honoring has shown him that love and affection and hospitality.

And then to top it off, Jesus tells Simon that her sins, which he acknowledges as many, her sins are many, he says, her sins are forgiven.

And we realize that the woman's actions are not the cause of, but the result of her forgiveness.

So let's finish out the chapter.

Verse 48, and he said to her, Your sins are forgiven.

And then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, Who is this that even forgives sins?

And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you.

Go in peace.

Well, once again, Jesus looks at this woman.

He sees her.

He treats her with the utmost tender care and love and respect and honor.

And he tells her that her sins are forgiven.

And then we hear about a few people at the dinner table that are remarking about that very thing.

Who has the power to forgive sins?

Well, we know only God has the power and the prerogative to forgive sins.

And Jesus is making that point very clear here.

And then the last verse where he says, Your faith has saved you, it's not her works.

It's not the beautiful thing that she's just done.

It is not the quality of her faith, but it's the object of her faith that has saved her.

Ephesians 2 tells us, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God.

And then he gives the woman this last parting gift.

He says, Go in peace.

And boy, what a beautiful gift to give that woman who has known no peace for so many years.

And now she has peace, peace of mind, peace of body, peace of heart and soul, because of the forgiveness she has found in Jesus.

Man, what a great passage.

In her book, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women, Rebecca McLaughlin gives us a great summary of the parable that Jesus told Simon.

She says, Jesus is the moneylender to whom both the Pharisee and the notorious woman owed a debt.

Her extravagant love is the result of his extravagant forgiveness.

Simon the Pharisee may think he has less debt to pay God than this woman does.

Jesus doesn't fight him on that.

Instead, he shows him through this woman what a forgiven person looks like.

Man.

Well, what's our takeaway?

What can we learn?

What's from this passage?

What's our faith response?

This week, this theme has been running around in my head, this theme of our inner narrative.

You know, what narrative are we living into right now?

What story are we believing about ourselves?

And the first thought I had, I think about this when I think of Simon the Pharisee, and that is pride wants to convince us that we don't need Jesus.

And honestly, you know, Simon was probably living a more moral life than the woman was, right?

But that moral life, performance-oriented, transaction-based, was actually preventing him from grasping his deep need for the forgiveness of sins, his inability to pay the debt of sin that he owed.

We tend to think, I think, at least I do, uh, when I think of someone who's struggling with pride, we might tend to think of somebody who's haughty and arrogant, but that's not always the case.

You know, someone, maybe someone who's living a pretty decent life, but that pretty decent life is camouflaging their need to come to Jesus.

Whenever I meet with someone at the church for a coffee or a meal or something, which by the way, I love doing, if you didn't know, um, but whenever I meet with someone and I ask the question, hey, how's it going?

And that the answer, sometimes, praise God, is a beautiful answer.

Like, you know, things are going pretty good right now.

The job's good, our marriage is good, health is good, kids are good, faith is wrong.

You know, things are pretty good.

And praise God for that answer.

But I would also encourage us that being in that moment, in that season, in that peak, can sometimes cause us to drift into unintentionally like pride and self-sufficiency, like we just God's not in the foremost of our thoughts at that moment.

In his book Screwtape Letters, which we've been studying down in that watershed Sunday class, and Pastor Jim's leading it this morning.

If you're not familiar with the book, C.S.

Lewis has written this book where there is this elder devil, Screwtape, who's writing to his nephew Wormwood to encourage Wormwood in his working on his human subject, the patient, they call it.

And Lewis or Screwtape says this.

He says, Do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy.

And the enemy, capitalized, means God.

God is intent on reconciling all of creation back to Him, to bring as many sons and daughters to glory as possible.

The intent of the devil is to try and separate us from the one who loves us.

And so my question regarding this first thought is are we living humbly with our eyes on Jesus?

Or is it possible that we might be allowing ourselves to drift into that pride of self-sufficiency where we start to lose sight of our dependence on Christ?

John Stott says it this way: he says, Pride is your greatest enemy.

Humility is your greatest friend.

That's a really solid statement.

So, what kind of tools can we use to prevent drift, to prevent falling into that pride?

Well, I there's three that come to mind quickly.

Community, right?

If we're part of the body, it helps us remember that we're not self-sufficient little islands, that we actually need each other.

We need God, we need each other.

And the word, if we are steeped in the word, it's really helpful because when we're not steeped in the word, all of a sudden God's voice starts to sound kind of like our voice, right?

God likes who I like.

He wants me to vote for, you know, he's gonna vote for who I vote for, that kind of thing.

When we're steeped in the word, we don't fall into that.

And then lastly, accountability, being accountable to others helps us avoid becoming our own little g gods, doesn't it?

When we're surrounded by solid people, they can notice when we're starting to drift and they can call us on it.

Stott also said, but this is not a quote, one of the clearest signs that we have been forgiven is our readiness to forgive others.

I think there's truth in that.

The more we realize the extent to which we have been shown grace and mercy, we relax into being more gracious and merciful to others, especially those that we don't agree with.

Well, on the other end of the spectrum from pride is our foe shame.

And that's the second thought I had this morning.

If pride seeks to convince us we don't need to come to Jesus, shame wants to convince us that we can't come to Jesus.

And in my opinion, shame's even more insidious than pride.

Because shame tries to convince us that we are too broken for Jesus.

Which is an utter lie, isn't it?

That's why I love this passage so much.

The woman who had been so broken, so full of sin, so full of shame, experienced the love and forgiveness of Jesus, and she knew that she was able to come to him.

Kurt Thompson, in his, he has an excellent book called The Soul of Shame, says this about shame.

Shame bends and twists our narratives into painful storylines.

It is ubiquitous, seeping into every nook and cranny of life.

It is not just a consequence of something our first parents did in the Garden of Eden.

It is the emotional weapon that evil uses to corrupt our relationships with God and each other and disintegrate any and all gifts of vocational vision and creativity.

So good.

Shame seeks to isolate us, puts us in a pit of despair, and then tells us the lie that we're so worthless we don't deserve to get out of the pit, that we can't get out of the pit.

But Jesus climbs down into the pit with us, tells us he loves us right where we are, comforts us, helps us climb out of the pit with him.

Cory Ten Boom says it like this.

She says, There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still.

And on this point right here, one last thought.

Shame not only seeks to isolate ourselves and put us in the pit, it seeks to get us to hate ourselves.

And Tim Keller has a quote about this from one of his books.

He says, without the gospel, we hate ourselves instead of our sin.

That is shame at work.

But when we realize we're loved despite our sin, we begin to hate the sin itself and allow God to change us.

Amen.

Well, lastly, I think this passage reminds us that the invitation of Jesus is offered to all.

Did you notice in our passage that Jesus didn't judge either the woman or Simon?

He was so tender with the woman, but he was also gracious towards Simon, just trying to point out to Simon where he was lacking in his understanding of his need.

Jesus does not withhold friendship, relationship from either one of them.

And I love that.

Jesus doesn't extend grace and mercy only to the woman who extravagantly loved him.

He also extends grace and mercy to Simon, who doesn't think he needs Jesus.

And he extends grace and mercy to me and to you, to all of us.

And Jesus alludes to this in his parable of the creditor and the two debtors, because both of the debtors are forgiven their debts.

The one who owed much and the one who didn't owe much at all.

Jesus is the moneylender.

The reality is all of us have a debt that we're unable to pay, that's insurmountable.

And in Jesus' parable, the moneylender chose to forgive the debts of both debtors, not because of anything they had done, based solely on their need, their inability to pay the debt, and because of the love, the heart of the moneylender.

I don't know where everybody is this morning.

You know, I know some things about some of us, but so I don't know what might be going on in your lives today.

You might be saying, well, Matt, I don't know, the thing about pride and the thing about shame, I'm not really wrestling with those right now.

And I get that.

You know, you might just be saying, man, life's just really hard right now.

And I know that there's more options in our life than just pride and shame, right?

There's so many things in between.

Um independence, um, guilt, anger, bitterness, failure, illness.

There's so many different things that are trying to convince us not to come to Jesus.

And I just want to encourage us wherever you might be on this continuum this morning, and Jesus is meeting you right where you are.

Dane Ortland says this in Gentle and Lowly.

The minimum bar to be enfolded into the embrace of Jesus is simply open yourself up to him.

It is all he needs.

Indeed, it is the only thing he works with.

You don't need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus.

Your very burden is what qualifies you to come.

Friends, God's heart towards us is that he's willing to do anything to save us, that he would rather die than let anything come between us.

Same love and forgiveness on offer to the woman in the passage is on offer to Simon the Pharisee and on offer to us.

All we have to do is come to the feet of Jesus.

And I'll close with this familiar Keller quote.

We're more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we dared believe, and yet at the very same time we're more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

So the worship team's coming up.

Would you stand if you're able as we prepare for our response song?

And would like to remind you that we have a prayer team that meets at the back.

And gosh, if there's something that you would like them to pray with and for you about, go spend time with them.

They would love to pray with you.

Uh let me let me pray for us, Lord.

Thank you for your word.

Thank you for this story where we see your approach is not one of shame, of belittling, of badgering, but your approach to us is to welcome us in.

There's nothing uncomfortable or awkward to you about where we are at any given moment.

And you welcome us each in.

Jesus' name.

Amen.