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Dear Church,
I hope that you are continuing to hear the Good News all around you. I am still so grateful to have shared our time together and to look into the eyes of those gathered and felt the power of being the Good News of God together. May we always continue to be surprised by God through God’s people.
One surprise I had on Sunday was how many of you read or are reading our Explore Together book and came to the wonderful conversation that was led by Loretta Franklin. Thank you all who came to that gathering with open minds and faithful hearts. I can’t wait for next month’s gathering. And I won't have to wait too long because this week we start our second Explore Together month. March is Explore Together: Women’s History. We will be reading The Girl Who Baptized Herself by Meggan Watterson and will be discussing it on March 29th (Palm Sunday!) with Robin Hamilton. You’ill also hear from Kevin about the music that he is planning for worship and the date for our trip to the National Museum of Women in the Arts with Anna Meyer will be announced next week. Explore Together is proving to be a meaningful new ministry for our community and I am so grateful for all of you who are taking those first steps with us.
This week we have a new focus theme for Lent: The Good News is Great Love for God and Neighbor and I am excited to deeply explore what that great love of neighbor means to our community. So, let us read the scripture and commentary from our devotional this week and think of the Good News in terms of Great Love, together.
With Great Love for you all,
Pastor Stephanie
Weekly Theme
The Good News is Great Love for God and Neighbor
Scripture
Luke 7:36-50 and Matthew 25:35-40
“One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to dinner. Jesus went to his house and reclined at table. A woman who had a low reputation in that town came to the house. She had learned that Jesus was dining with the Pharisee, so she brought with her an alabaster jar of perfumed oil. 38 She stood behind Jesus, crying, and her tears fell on his feet. Then she dried his feet with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the oil.
When the Pharisee saw this, he said to himself, “If this fellow were the Prophet, he’d know who this woman is that is touching him, and what a low reputation she has.”
In answer to the Pharisee’s thoughts Jesus said, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, Teacher,” he said.
“Two people owed money to a creditor. One owed the creditor the equivalent of two years’ wages; the other, two months’ wages. Both were unable to pay, so the creditor wrote off both debts. Which of them was more grateful to the moneylender?”
Simon answered, “I suppose the one who owed more.”
Jesus said, “You are right.”
Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “See this woman? I came into your house, and you gave me no water to wash my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss of greeting, but she covered my feet with kisses. 46 You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with oil. For this reason, I tell you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven—see how much she loves! But the one who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”
“Those also sitting at the table began to ask among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Meanwhile Jesus said to her, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
(Luke 7:36-50, ILB)
…
…For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:35-40, NRSVUE)
Reflection
by Rev. Dr. Brian Blount
Fierce Love
How fiercely does God love? Let me tell you a Galilean story.
Simon, a Pharisee, a religious man who lives his life according to God's laws, invites Jesus into his home. Customarily, such a host would greet a guest with acts of hospitality: the washing of feet soiled by dusty roadways; an anointing of oil for respite from the heat of the day; a kiss of welcome. Though Simon receives Jesus, he provides no such greeting.
Impertinent and audacious, having heard that the great teacher is in Simon's house, a woman, an unsolicited sex worker, invades the space. Immediately, the Pharisee, a man tasked with conveying God's love to God's people, distances himself from her. From his perspective, the love in which she trafficks, commercially but not virtuously intimate, prohibits her presence. But Jesus graciously allows her to draw near. When she is close, ironically, she offers Jesus the hospitality that Simon had neglected. She washes. She anoints. She kisses.
Scandalized, Simon rebukes Jesus for letting this woman touch him.
Disappointed in Simon, Jesus responds with a parable about the extravagance and ferocity of God's love: two people are in debt to a man, just as every one of us is in the debt of sinfulness before God. One debtor owes the man little. The other debtor owes the man much.
Ridiculously, the man forgives both of them their debts. Which debtor, Jesus asks, will be the most grateful, will respond to the man with the most love? Of course, it is the man who owed the most.
Simon believes that he owes God much less than this disreputable woman because he has lived a life of holiness and righteousness. Just so, Simon can never know the ferocity of the woman's love for the God who loves her. According to Jesus, God loves her with an extravagance of grace that cancels all her sins just as surely as the creditor expunged his lender's massive debt.
Jesus tells the woman to go in peace. How can she, though, without help? Living on the streets, she finds welcome among those who struggle like her. Forgiven, she now needs the welcome she has shown Jesus to be extended to her by a community of Jesus people- people who recognize that they, too, have been graced by the extravagance of God's fierce, unrelenting love.
Did not Jesus say in Matthew 25 that to welcome him is to welcome those whom the self-righteous have rejected? The hungry. The immigrant. The homeless. The convict. Jesus' church can show Jesus' fierce love by inviting into the intimacy of their faith fellowship those whom others are scandalized by.
By recalling Jesus' journey to the cross, the season of Lent reminds us of God's extravagant love. May this season inspire us to love others just as extravagantly, just as fiercely as God, through Jesus, loves us.
Reflection Questions from Pastor Stephanie:
- When in your life have you received extravagant grace and love?
- How do you show your love to people?
- How are you growing in your relationships to communities outside of your own?
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