A reputation for embarrassing service

Good morning, its lovely to be here with you all – thank you so much for the invitation to join you – and whether you are curious about faith, critical of the church or already committed to Jesus, I’m really glad you are here this morning!
OK – I know it’s the long weekend, but you should all be rested, so we are going to start with a bit of mental math. If you are currently employed, I want you to calculate in your head you or your partners annual gross salary and benefits – or what your salary was, or if you are receiving an educational grant, or pension. Have that number in your head – now add 3 more months of that income. There are only 260 work days in a year and I want us to come up with a number roughly equivalent to 300 days of work. Do you have that figure in your head? This is approximately how much the alabaster jar of ointment was worth – a year’s wages – that an unnamed woman lavished all over the feet of Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago. That was how much Jesus was worth to this woman. This was a display of love to Jesus, an act of SERVICE, that went way beyond generous or startling, beyond even extravagant, it was embarrassing.
North American culture is a relentlessly self focused culture right now. Charitable giving continues to decline in Canada, social media algorithms push us into echo chambers of like minded thinking and narcissism, and increasing percentages of our income are spent on beauty products, both for men AND women – all breeding a lack of social cohesion and loneliness not seen in other cultures AND an aching lack of fulfillment that our jobs and relationships, no matter how good, can never fully satisfy. Service. At St. Paul’s Bloor Street, where I serve, we follow a Rhythm of Life – 5 ancient spiritual practices that we believe will make us more like Jesus and therefore the best way to impact our city – and one of those rhythms is Service – pouring ourselves out for other people in the church and the wider community – my sense is this is easy to get on board with IN PRINCIPLE, but hard to implement in our daily lives – jobs, kids, dating – they take up so much time! Especially as we step into a new season – September in many ways is the start of the year and not January – our culture encourages us to try to live a balanced life – balancing work and home, friends and family, saving and spending and the list goes on. But a balanced life is not actually the goal for Christians – our goal is a centered life – a life centered on Jesus, because the person we actually most want to be like, whether you are 25 or 55, IS Jesus – and this morning we heard an account recorded by the physician Luke – of a woman, with a “reputation” whose life was becoming increasingly centered on Jesus, and she literally poured herself out in service. What had this woman experienced, and how can it shape US, on the edge of this new season, how can it shape US for lives of service?
A bit of background. Because this woman is named as a sinner in Luke’s account, throughout history commentators have assumed that she was a sex worker or a woman caught in adultery – as if the only sin possible for a woman was the transgression of society’s sexual norms. The text implies no such thing. In the Jewish context that this interaction took place, the descriptor “sinner” would have indicated anybody who was not being faithful to the Torah, to God’s law – an assessment that could be made against every one of us. The setting is the home of Simon the Pharisee (a religious leader), who has decided to invite Jesus to dinner, suggesting that he knows enough of Jesus to be intrigued. Observing this woman slip into the dining room, Simon clearly has some ideas about how Jesus should behave towards her. Jesus promptly fails Simon’s prophet test by letting this woman touch him, which generates a delicious little irony for us the hearers, who understand that Jesus has just read Simon’s mind.
The woman interrupts the dinner party, bringing with her a jar of ointment that the gospel of John tells us would have been worth roughly a year’s wages – that figure you have in your head – and it is conceivable that this ointment was either left over from a family burial, or, as other scholars believe, was a precious family heirloom. Through her tears, she then begins to bathe his feet with the expensive ointment. It was embarrassing. You can almost hear the cringing in the room as she made this completely over the top gesture. Extravagant love and service embarrasses us and will often produce logical frustration.
We have friends, Tim and Laurie, who have 2 boys – their oldest son Joshua has a serious congenital heart defect and about 14 years ago was going in (at the age of 1) for his second open heart surgery. I remember one evening at bedtime our girls began talking about which of their baby toys they could give him while he was in the hospital. How sweet they are, I thought….this teddy bear, that squeezy thing….then our youngest, Charlotte, who would have been about 2, piped up….”I give baby Joshua my blankie” she smiled. Charlottes blankie was her absolute prized possession, tears were wiped on it, cuddles received in it, and sleep was impossible without it. “Oh no” I thought, “if she gives him her blankie, it will be a disaster at bedtime and I won’t get a moments peace.” I found myself trying to encourage her to give him a different present instead. It just logically made no sense….any toy…but not her blankie. What was I doing? Here I was trying to squelch my daughters first act of extravagant love and service, of pouring herself out for someone else.
Did this woman realise what she was doing with this embarrassingly lavish service? Everyone else who came to Jesus, or invited him to dinner, knew what they wanted and asked for it – sight for blind eyes, healing for a sick child, stimulating conversation at a well appointed dinner table – but this woman? She asked for nothing. She had nothing to gain by her lavish display. Whether she knew or intended the full significance of what she had done with the ointment we don’t know, but Jesus did, and uses this as a “teachable moment” for the surrounding men about who he is and the purpose of life.
You see, she anointed his feet, and in the other records of this encounter she also anointed his head. In this culture, you only anointed the heads of kings and the only time you got your feet anointed was when you were dead – and they all knew it. Whether she realised it or not – the woman was the prophet in the room – anointing the King of the world who was about to die. “Do you see this woman??” said Jesus – clearly implying that they have NOT REALLY SEEN. “Turning to Simon, Jesus said “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing 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 were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” This woman, says Jesus, has given me the lavish love and service you failed to give me. An observation which wins Jesus no fans, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Who indeed. What has this woman experienced to motivate her to such an act of lavish service, and how can it shape us?
Well, this woman experienced a man who loves even more extravagantly than she did. There is nothing frugal or logical about God’s love. God loves each of us so much that God would do whatever it takes to draw us back into relationship with him. This woman had her sins. I have mine – many of them known, some of you hurt by them. You have yours – and the consequences for all of us are serious…if you have a temper, or have strained relationships, if you care about the US election or missing indigenous women, or the inclusion of the marginalised in church or have been on the wrong end of office gossip, or WAR for God’s sake – then, like the woman, you know. But not only do our sins tear and destroy, they build up a barrier between us and God and that is a terrible thing. Its like if you have a fight with your husband, theoretically, and you go to bed angry with each other – you might be sleeping in the same bed but there is a wall of ice in that bed, and it doesn’t get melted until the next morning when HE apologises. Whatever it takes says God, whatever price of extravagant love and service to deal with this problem – I will DO it – my son will serve and submit to an embarrassing death on a cross, anointed by an unnamed woman in an act of embarrassing extravagance. “But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little” says Jesus. THIS IS what this woman experienced – forgiveness – this is what shapes a life of service. Jesus makes a startling link between OUR awareness of our need for forgiveness and the degree to which we will pour ourselves out for others. Forgiveness seems to be the engine for service, and you see – the more our lives get centered on Jesus -which is what these ancient rhythms help us do…. the more on the one hand, we grow in our hunger for forgiveness, which then humbles us, and on the OTHER hand have that hunger instantly SATISFIED by Jesus, and thereby find ourselves strengthened for service. Dorothy Day, the American journalist, anarchist and Roman Catholic said something I find challenging ““I really only love God as much as I love the person, I love the least.” That amount of your yearly wages – poured out for the person you love least in this world?
On numerous occasions, Jesus identified himself with the poor and the outcast, the least loved in society, telling us – when you feed the poor and shelter the refugee, you are serving me. Becoming increasingly aware of our need for forgiveness, will be the engine that will enable us to serve the poor and the outcast, those whom we often love the least.
One of life’s great tragedies is that so many of us can go through our lives with our alabaster jars of service never broken and infrequently poured out. One of the reasons Remembrance Day strikes such a chord, while we grieve the horrors of war, is because being willing to lay down your life is a visceral act of service. This woman’s jar may have been a family heirloom yet she didn’t hesitate to pour it out in service to Jesus. Some families even hand down containers of their abundance from generation to generation, putting them in vaults and banks. We can easily fall into patterns of prudence and caution when it comes to serving our neighbours and yet Jesus is not looking for cautious or even logical people, to be his followers. If you are spiritually searching, I need to tell you that Jesus is looking for people who are willing to live lives of sometimes embarrassing service – love for God, love for other people, lives that don’t always look prudent, lives with rhythms fuelled by forgiveness, that break open family heirlooms, raise eyebrows, and take risks.
God extravagantly loves sinners and is looking for followers who are up for more of the same. If you are already a disciple, I would invite you to think about a simple change to your life that would open up time to love Jesus and serve others – both within the family of faith here at your local church and in the wider community. What is one activity you could give up, or drop from your child’s schedule, so you could serve others?
Start small but aim big – all things that are impacting OTHER people. The one to whom little is forgiven loves little. We have all been forgiven much, so let’s embrace a daily and weekly rhythm that gets us a “reputation”, for embarrassing service. Thanks be to God.