Jesus is in the home of a Pharisee for dinner, but the focus of this story is not the rich community leader, the generous host, but a sinful woman who wanders into the outer courtyard where an evening party and meal is taking place. People would not just necessarily wander in off the street, so this particular woman is known in some way by the Pharisee. In my mind, I wonder to myself, “How well was she known by the Pharisee?” Sometimes people who are self-righteously religious are the worst kind. And, this might have been the case here. The Pharisee criticizes the woman and Jesus.
I once had a man in a church that I served who left the church because he said I was not strongly opposed to abortion. The truth was, and still is, I am opposed to abortion. Abortion ends a unique human life that has been conceived. But what I am for, and radically committed to, is human rights. I believe that a woman should decide what takes place in her own body and the medical treatment that she will pursue. The woman and her family are the ones who need to decide about the family, not the government. Lord help us, how can the government decide for any of us what is best? So, I am radically for human rights, and that involves the right of a woman to choose her family. But, the problem with the conflict this individual had with me was that he said, “You are not strongly opposed to abortion, therefore I am leaving the church.” I went to visit with him in his home, only to discover that he was not living with the woman to whom he was married. He was living with someone else – another woman. That kind of hypocrisy is what drives you crazy. The Pharisee, who obviously knew of this woman of the city, because she had freedom of movement to come into his outer courtyard, yet in front of Jesus, he was judgmental of her. That kind of false piety drove Jesus crazy. Jesus would even say of the Pharisees, you are like white washed tombs, pretty on the outside, but inside filled with dead men’s bones.
Here Luke portrays individuals—the Pharisee who neglected common social graces he had become too accustomed to having it all and no longer cared for others. The woman of the streets who came to Jesus, transparent in her needs. Here is a story of a woman who knew herself and desperately wanted to be free of her sins. She saw in Jesus the possibility for that freedom. As you have heard this story, you have begun to get a clear picture of this person who is nameless. She is a “woman of the city, a sinful woman.” She comes to Jesus; she cries in public and showers Jesus with her tears, and anoints his feet with oil. There are many persons who are desperate to get rid of their problem but do not have enough strength of character to acknowledge their need and to find relief. As I understand life, when we have a problem, we first have to acknowledge that problem before we can find help.
It is said that the best known prayer in our society today is not the Lord’s Prayer, but the Serenity Prayer. “Lord, help me to change the things I can change, to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This is the prayer used in the Twelve Step Program of AA for people addicted to alcohol and drugs as they deal with their problems.
Some people believe we have become a society of addicts. Anne Wilson Schaef in her book When Society Becomes An Addict refers to watching television, running, accumulating money and working and worrying as similar to alcohol and sexual addictions. The list is pretty long and it places most of us in the addict's category.
She has suggested that you know you are addicted if:
you like to watch videos in fast-forward
if the only time you’re standing still is during an earthquake.
if you chew on other people’s fingernails.
if you walk 10 miles on your treadmill before you realize it’s not plugged in.
if you can play tennis by yourself.
If this woman of the street was an addict of sorts, she handled the third step, as she acknowledged she had a problem. Jesus “praises this woman of the city” and harshly judges the Pharisees. Years ago, when I was growing up in Linden (AL) and trying my wings at dating, there was a young lady who many years later told me this interesting story. She was dating a friend of ours, and she was nervous because she was going to his home to meet his parents for the first time. She walked past a mirror and checked out her appearance one last time and noticed her shoes were a bit dingy. Now they lived in the country and kept the bacon grease left over from each morning on the stove and used it to cook with and for medicinal purposes, and Lord knows what else. Thinking about her dingy shoes, she went into the kitchen and gave them a fast swipe with a paper towel dipped into the bacon grease. They arrived at our friend’s home and were greeted by the parents and their much beloved, but rotten tempered poodle named Cleo. Well, the dog got a whiff of the bacon grease and followed her around all evening licking her shoes. At the end of the evening, the pleased parents remarked, “Cleo really likes you, and she is an excellent judge of character.” We are delighted to meet you and welcome you back to our family anytime.”
Well, Jesus, unlike Cleo, who was a better judge of bacon grease than she was a judge of character; judged the character of the Pharisee to be haughty and uncaring and unwelcoming, but that of the woman of the street to be grateful and loving.
There is in the heart of each of us, this desire to be accepted, to belong, to be a part, to be welcomed, to be included, to be chosen in the group. And although many seem to be loners; don’t kid yourself, there is a desire to be accepted.
In Chicago this past year, a young man by the name of Gonzales Franklin was arrested for a number of different gang related crimes. When he was processed through the courts, he was asked, why did you get involved with these people? “Because they accepted me, they liked me, and they included me. They were my family, he replied.”
In Luke 7, you discover this powerful desire to belong. There is Jesus—who said: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have their nests, but the sun of man has no where to lay his head.” Jesus moved away from his family of origin and claimed his family in the disciples who helped him carry out his life’s purpose. And then there is this “woman of the city”—no name and no family who showers affection on Jesus.
The good news of this story is this:
Although we look pretty good when we are all cleaned up as we are this morning, the truth is, we are the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame, the woman of the city with no name but with great needs. We are “the lonely woman” in tears sitting outside the “in crowd,” and lo and behold, here today we are told: You are accepted! Here you are welcomed! Here you have found family! You are accepted by a power greater than yourself. God wants us to be that kind of Church, that kind of accepting community.
I have heard that someone said to a visitor in another church, “You’re in my seat.” I can’t image that being done, can you? In the 1870’s when our church was located just down the street where the Federal Court House now stands; there was a sign over the entrance that read “Pews are Free.” It referred to the tendency in other churches raising money for building the church from wealthy members who would buy a pew or a stall. Well, here the pews are not free, because someone is paying for it and the air-conditioning that keeps us comfortable. But they are free—as no one has a claim on any one pew; unless you get here early enough to stake it out, as some of you do. But a great move is to slide over and say to a stranger, who is wondering anyway if they are in someone’s pew, “Hello, my name is ….I’m glad you are here.”
We must make it clear to the world that here the doors are open to all, the pews are free, and you are welcome! After all, if the church will accept people like us, anyone should be welcomed.
Here’s the good news: You are accepted and loved by a power greater than yourself.
Here is a strange tale told by Luke of a nameless man who lived necked in a graveyard. He was referred to by the word “Legion,” for many demons possessed him. I have often thought of this man “living naked among the grave stones of the Roman city of Gerasa.” This was a city built around 200 BC on the Southeast side of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus would have been passing through the village going from Galilee south toward Jerusalem. I have wondered about his parents: Don’t you know there was a mother with a broken heart somewhere who every day would pray for her ill son. Surely there was a father who longed for his son to come home in his right mind. Maybe the parents were part of the problem. Perhaps he was just mentally ill.
There are those today, who suffer in a broken world, they are called “Legion.” Many are adults who have been turned out of our mental institutions because of the lack of state funding. They now live in their cars and on the streets. Many are youth who have run away from intolerable family situations. Many are children who live as orphans or abandoned to fend for themselves. Legion they are. Legion they are named these nameless people of the graveyards of the world.
One Christmas morning I drove to church for the Sunday services aware of the abundance of gifts which had come to our home that morning and to our children and grandchildren. A drunken man staggered down the sidewalk and a few steps behind him a five year old boy with an angry look on his face followed along. This scene haunts me yet. Legion they are, Legion they are called.
Today in Egypt, a tourist bus going from the airport to Cairo’s luxury hotels will drive through the garbage disposal area, where the poor live because it is the only place for accessible food. In Saigon, just to the outskirts of the teaming city, there are the gravestones of thousands, where children sleep together by night and roam the city by day. In Rwanda, Africa, unsupervised orphans are scattered in the countryside looking for food and acceptance. In Zimbabwe, there are thousands of children left orphans by the Aids epidemic. They are Legion, they are many and they are everywhere.
We are making a difference, but the needs are humongous. Because of Leigion, it is somewhat easy to give up, saying “The problem is too big for us,” so I will do nothing and that is what too many discouraged, overwhelmed people are doing. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Did you contribute this morning?
I am reminded of Winston Churchill who, in the heat of the battle with Germany in World War II, spoke to a graduating class in Chelsea saying to them: “Never Give Up!” “Never Give up” It was the encouragement that the English people needed in the midst of hard times. Someone said to “Legion” living in the graveyard of the Garesenes in the year 30 AD, “Don’t give up.” Perhaps it is the same encouragement you need today. “Don’t give up” “Don’t Give Up.” On helping others, on the family, on marriage, don’t give up on faith, hope and love.
In Jesus Christ there is always a future. As Jesus came to the Garesene Demonic and delivered him, he will come to us and to our broken world. To those who live in the graveyards of today.
* Don't Give Up on the Family;
In the state of Florida today we are at a 60% ratio of marriage to divorce. 6 in every 10 who are married end in divorce. One out of every three children that are born in the State of Florida is born out of wedlock. 33% have no father, have no concept of a traditional family in which most of us grew up where father and mother sat down to a common table and had a prayer before eating together. The problem is growing.
Ned Hallowell has written a book entitled The
Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness. He maintains that there are five
elements we need in our childhood to allow us to experience joy as an
adult.
The first element is unconditional love from at least one adult in our
lives. This gift allows us to see the world as friendly and the universe as
affirming.
The second is what he calls “discovering your passions through play.” Most
children discover their true interests by telling stories, building backyard
forts, playing with dolls or taking the toaster apart. You don’t want to
discourage this, as long as you aren’t using the toaster.
The third and fourth necessary elements of childhood for adult happiness is practicing and mastering your passions. This mastery over a particular skill increases children’s self-confidence and makes them less afraid to try new things. This can be a sport, singing in a church choir, being an acolyte, shooting a basketball.
And finally, a child needs to experience positive recognition from others.
You would hope that every child would experience each of these five elements as they grow up in our family—unconditional love, positive recognition and healthy play in which we discover and master our passions. Maybe that’s too much to expect because as parents we are all imperfect, but it takes a village to raise a child. Grandparents have their part. Adult workers in the church have their place. I saw adult workers wrapping their arms around children this week in VBS and in our feeding program. If they don’t get it in home, they must get it somewhere or else they will one day be living in a graveyard like Legion.
Don’t give up on the family and use the church family as it can help in this process.
* Don't Give Up on the Hope for Unity of Humankind.
There are so many things which divide us, Religious denominations, political opinions, racial, economic differences. East and West, Iraqi and American, and Christian and Muslin. Lord, here we go again in a national presidential election and people of good rapport are called liars and truth is misspoken. It is easy to give up hope in a suspicious broken world.
Mark Twain once said that as an experiment, he put a dog and a cat in a cage together to see if they could get along. To his surprise, they did. So he added a bird, a pig, and a goat. Soon, after making a few adjustments among themselves, they all got along just fine. But then Twain said, he put in a Baptist, a Methodist, and a Catholic and soon there was not a living thing left in the cage.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia: “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male nor female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Don’t give up on our hope for oneness in Christ Jesus. Live in such a way that unity is restored in the family, in the church, in the nation. “Do unto others as you desire that they do unto you” and you will see things change in your life and in our world. In our being one in Christ, we attract others.
*Don't Give Up on Faith, Hope Nor Love.
Summary: Legion, who lived in the graveyard, must have hid in the shadows, longing and hoping for a better life; but usually too afraid or ashamed or to something, until one day when Jesus came to the city and Legion approached him. Somewhere, someone, maybe it was his dad, when he was a kid said to him “Don’t give up.” He had not given up and neither must you. Leigion met Jesus and things were never the same again.
When we meet Jesus, hope is restored, faith is rewarded, and love becomes tangible. It happened for Legion. We have seen it happen before in Luke’s story for the “sinful woman” at the Pharisee’s table, for Peter’s mother in law, for the leper, for the paralytic, for Matthew the tax collector, for the centurion’s servant, for the son of the widow of Nain, the one lesson we learn from the scripture for today is that we are “Never to Give Up.”
The gospel of Luke divides Jesus’ ministry into four stages: Birth, the teachings in Galilee, the Journey to Jerusalem, and His final days. Here in Luke 9 we see the beginning of the “Journey stage” which runs from 9-19 which is by far the largest section of the story. Jesus has “set his face toward Jerusalem”. There is a new intensity about everything. A singleness of focus. Jesus invites people to be his disciples and to follow him, knowing that such a commitment had an irrevocable clause, like marriage, “till death do us part.” In this stage, Jesus is not fooling around as He says things like: “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
“Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Our Lord makes clear that a decision to follow him would involve love of God first, love of neighbor, sacrifice and if necessary, death. This commitment will have priority over family, personal desires, and all other present commitments or circumstances.
The word Commitment, like discipline, is on hard times in the culture of our day. We change careers when a better offer comes along. We change mates when a more appealing possibility walks by. And we jump churches if what we hear is not appealing to our ears. We give up much too easily on relationships when things don’t go our way.
There is an old southern expression “comes hell or high water,” which captured the essence of commitment which is characteristic of any person’s life.
Jesus said follow me. And one person said:
“Let me first return home and say ‘goodbye’ to my family and friends”.
“Let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus would have nothing to do with these excuses.
In l959 I had a 1949 Ford. At the time I thought it was so cool, and it was. When I bought it, it was rusty and dirty and would barely run. But after a lot of scrubbing and cleaning and metal repair and customizing, and a black paint job, and a new battery, it looked and sounded like a million dollars. It was one sleek, good looking, sweet automobile. That car was a source of many a memory. Oh my, the places friends and I went, and Oh my, Oh my, the girls that were dated, the girls I dated, Oh, excuse me, my mind drifted a bit…
The '49 Ford was a stick shift which has to do with the way the gears would shift; meaning not automatic but a standard gear shift and therein was the problem. My Dad’s attitude was that I could have a car if I paid for the insurance, the gas and oil, and I kept it up. It was a stretch to buy it, insure it, paint it, gas it up, and to buy a new battery. There was simply no money left to deal with the transmission, and the problem was that there was no reverse gear as it had long ago worn out. There was only this one forward gear that worked. Jesus seemed to have a “forward gear” attitude only.
I learned a number of things in the year and a half that I had that car before I traded up for one that had a reverse and a forward gear. Interestingly enough, it was also a time when I was learning something about Christianity.
I learned that owning a ‘49 Ford cost you something as does following Jesus. Anything of real value will cost you something, be it family, school, friendship, profession, hobby.
You want to know what is of value to you? Look at your checkbook and see where you have spent your money this past month. Jesus said: “Where your money is, there your heart is as well.”
You want to know what is of value to you? Check your calendar for the month of June and see where you have spent your time. You know what is of value to you. No wonder the priorities of your life are not doing so well as they are getting less and less of your time.
Jesus wanted his disciples to follow him, but he warned them that there was only a forward gear, no reverse. He invited them to move from the past and leave behind that which is holding you back. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all other things would be yours as well.
The Apostle Paul once said: “This one thing I do, forgetting that which lies behind, I strain forward to the high calling of God through Jesus Christ.”
Some years ago, I studied in Psychology 101, “Reality Therapy”, which is one of the reasons I went into the ministry rather than into the field of psychology. Both are helping professions. In the ministry you deal with life as it is with a commitment to change what has been, rather than to merely understand what use to be. There is a place for Psycho-therapy, of understanding why we do what we do, why we make the same mistakes twice, but at some point you have to get the old car in a forward gear and move on. Jesus called the disciples to not live in the past, but to move toward a new reality.
You have heard it said of old, but I say unto you…
Let the dead bury the dead, but for you, come follow me…
Today Jesus’ invitation is to “follow Him” forward into a new reality of love and service.