I’ve been thinking about young, sexually attractive women this week. (How’s that for an attention-grabbing opening line?) Let me try to elaborate: starting with this text from Luke 7, I’ve been thinking about young, sexually attractive women...and the church. See, at Bible study on Monday, I asked, “If you had to draw the woman in this story, how would you picture her -- young, old?” Most of us responded “young”, and I was even so bold as to say, “I think she was pretty, too.”...because I believe that Jesus includes, loves, forgives and calls everyone.
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Back in seminary, in a course entitled “Transition to the Parish”, I chose women in the ministry the topic for my final paper. I had never really asked. (There’s a sign of my privilege, right? I get to deal with sexism, when I decide to do a paper on it.) I basically just interviewed female pastors around the church and two of my friends who were soon-to-be female pastors in the church -- a few of them, to be honest, were very attractive.
In that project I listened to these women share stories of how challenging it is to be a pastor. (They weren’t complaining; I was asking for their candidness.) One told me about when she got to the door of the house of the woman she was visiting, she was announced by the husband, “Honey, the little pastor girl is here to see you.”
It was clear to me that the female pastors (at least the ones I talked to) when it came to the church were either objectified or patronized and not taken seriously by many men. And then by older women in the church, often judged, glared at, or ignored. Often comments on their clothes, their hair, their make-up. Questions like “Sweetie, do you understand what that outfit is communicating?” (reminds me of the Pharisee’s words of judgment, “...if he had know what kind of a woman this is...” -- by the way, says nothing about ‘prostitute’, but...)
Anyway, I’d never had experiences like these female colleages of mine, so could only sit agape and listen.
Not all bad things either, and certainly there were some wonderful stories too. But the sense of being an outsider in what has traditionally been a male profession -- at least, for the past couple hundred years -- was so great and sometimes overwhelming for these women that nearly all of them had considered at one time or another leaving the ministry completely...even my seminary friends who were just starting!
I’m thinking of young, attractive women, as I approach this text because they teach us something; and Christ -- of course -- teaches and offers us something too.
The woman in this text teaches us about repentance. She approaches Jesus with tears in her eyes, tears of regret, tears of pain, tears of grief, tears of hopelessness. See Jesus was seated in a circle and this woman could only approach Jesus from behind, from outside the inner circle, and she offers him the kind of hospitality and welcome that even his host didn’t. This whole episode ends with Jesus commending her faithfulness: “Your faith has saved you.” This young, attractive woman (in my imagination, maybe yours too) is teaching us that faith = being repentant, deeply thankful, and offering signs of hospitality. That’s what faith looks like!
Making confession is a sign of our faithfulness. Have you ever wept and poured out your sins to anyone? Individual confession is so cathartic and good. We Lutherans have traditionally and even jokingly shied away from individual confession, because we don’t want to be perceived as Catholic, and I think there’s all kinds of baggage around the guilt/shame of “not going to confession”. But have you ever told a trusted confidant your sins and heard God through them share promise of forgiveness, the “Go your way, your faith has saved you”?! It’s life-giving, renewing, talk about a deep healing breath! Martin Luther elevated private confession and some scholars even suggest it was a sacrament for him:
“Confession embraces two parts,” Luther said, “One is that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution, or forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, and in no ways doubt, but firmly believe, that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.”
This woman in the story teaches us about this true, deep, honest confession. Because as she approaches Jesus, she already knows God’s forgiveness. And her tears and these gestures of hospitality and welcome -- the oil and foot-bathing -- are only signs of gratitude. She’s not begging Jesus to forgive her, she knows that he already has. So now she can’t help but offer a sign of her deep gratitude and joy.
Having been forgiven by God, through Jesus Christ, we can’t help but fall on our knees, weeping and giving thanks through signs of gracious hospitality.
Oil on the head, washing of the feet, providing a good meal for a guest (which the Pharisee’s part out here) -- all of these were signs of gracious hospitality and welcome back then. It’s worth asking and pondering and praying over this together as a congregation, who is building new spaces: What are the signs today of deep welcome and hospitality in response to the mercy and forgiveness that God has poured out endlessly for each one of us?
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And then I said that Jesus teaches us something here too:
The circle just keeps getting wider. That’s why I wanted to get more vivid with the appearance and the age of this woman.
Jesus has welcomed and forgiven, old men with withered hands, battered women slumped over with years of oppression and disease. He has brought cute little children into the middle, he’s even raised them from the dead! He has lifted up and shown mercy toward the Roman marine, whose dominant armies have oppressed and squashed Jesus’ own tribe, the Jews. Christ offers him welcome pardon, even heals his favorite slave, and calls that Roman soldier’s faith greater than any he’s ever witnessed in his own community. Do you see how the circle just widens and widens? Surprising us again and again? Those people too? Those people too?
And now a young, sexually attractive woman receives this same embrace. In Christ, no longer is she an outsider. In Christ, no longer is she to be patronized and objectified through careless words and actions. In Christ, she is free from the oppression of judgement, and being reduced to simply an outfit or a certain style. In Christ, sisters and brothers everyone, everyone, everyone is welcomed at the table of mercy. We struggle with what that means, in our world, in our church, in our hearts; but God does not.
And at the end of the day, all we can do is fall down on our knees, maybe weep a little bit and give thanks that we too are included in this cosmic embrace of God. We too are forgiven, blessed, and now sent out. Go your way, this faith that God has given us -- a gift, by the way, offered freely to us in our baptism (little Isabella’s receiving a gift this day: the gift of faith) -- this faith is what saves us. And so we can truly go out into this hurting, dangerous, challenging world -- in peace. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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