Welcome Home: Hospitality as Friendship (Luke 7:31-50)

Dinner with Friends

Two summers ago, a graduate from the University of Michigan moved to New York City after landing a financial services job. Anita Michaud had trouble making friends in the big city. So, last year, she started what she called “Dinner with Friends”. The concept was simple.. she invited 6 strangers to her apartment for a home-cooked meal. Strangers. “Dinner with Friends” has become so popular, the waiting list for a meal at Anita Michaud’s apartment now numbers more than 800 people who will be waiting up to four years. Strangers who become friends over a meal hits on a critical need in our culture for friendship, especially after all the isolation we’ve experienced in the pandemic.

"Dinner with Friends” in New York City runs right to the heart of hospitality. When we first started this series a few weeks ago, we defined hospitality this way:

Hospitality is providing a space where people are moved from hostility to hospitality, from enemy to friend.

Strangers are not necessarily enemies. But they could be. And this is where we’ve arrived today in our Bible talks around hospitality. It doesn’t get any more personal than this. Hospitality is creating space for friendship, especially among those who are enemies. And when I say enemies and strangers, this includes people who don’t look like us, talk like us, act like us, think like us, vote like us, or spend money the same way we do.

What is a Friend?

We’re in a passage this morning in which the idea of “friend” takes center stage. We have to ask though… what is a friend? What do we think a friend is? Facebook has significantly altered the way we talk about friends. It used to be, we had a limited number of friends. And those friends were those we’d hang out with. For me, it was those I spent time playing basketball or baseball with… those I went to church with. These days, Facebook allows you to have hundreds of friends, many of whom you barely know. Almost all of them are what we would call acquaintances… at best, and most of whom we do not have the depth of a relationship.

If you had to write a definition of friend, we would typically come up with words that reflect a depth in our relationship, such as:

Someone you know well

Someone you trust

Someone you like

Someone with shared values and beliefs

Someone you enjoy spending time with

Someone with whom you feel safe

Someone who is not in your immediate family

We could name a bunch of other traits, but these are those that typically jump to the top. There are exceptions to many of these, but these generally are the traits we think of when we use the word “friend”. There’s nothing wrong with this definition. In fact, you look at that list and you can immediately think of someone in your mind. You can see them. And if I keep talking, you’ll begin to think of the great times you’ve had with that friend or those friends.

“Dinner with Friends” is hitting at something deeper. And I think it is where Jesus would have us think about friendship. One way the Bible talks about it is what we mentioned moments ago:

Making your enemy your friend.

That doesn’t quite give us the warm fuzzies does it? We recoil at this. We like hanging with people who are just like us. Those who are not like us? Not so much. This idea is embedded in our story today. But it shows up in this statement from our text:

Jesus is a friend of sinners.

Have we considered that Jesus being a friend of sinners is Jesus making his enemies his friends. There’s nothing to like about a sinner. But that’s all of us. Before all of this started, we were not friends. And now we are.

Jesus, Friend of Sinners

If we ever wanted to know what it looks like for Jesus to be a friend of sinners, Dr. Luke provides us the picture of it immediately after telling us that Jesus is a friend of sinners. It’s one of my all-time favorite stories. Jesus is eating at a meal with the religious leaders… those who know their Bibles better than anyone… they have been complaining that Jesus eats with sinners. He spends time with them. He is friends with them. His reputation is that of being a glutton and a drunkard… but worse.. he’s friends with sinners.

This is all wrong. The accusation is Jesus is eating and drinking with sinners, but here he is eating and drinking with the religious establishment. You have to wonder if the religious leaders are attempting to co-opt Jesus… you eat with sinners.. it’s time to eat with some of the righteous church people.

Regardless, if this was a meal for the righteous, that abruptly ends. Those sinners Jesus eats and drinks with are crashing the party. Luke makes sure we don’t miss it.

A woman in the town who was a sinner began to wash his feet.

Who was a sinner. The very kind of person at the heart of the accusation. Jesus eats with sinners. No… more than that. Jesus is a friend of sinners. Jesus is a friend of “those types”. Friend. Someone you spend time with. Someone you trust. Someone you feel safe with.

What’s amazing is this woman, a prostitute, feels totally safe with Jesus in a place where she is definitely not welcome. What she does is scandalous. A prostitute at a man’s feet with perfume and her hair is down and she is kissing his feet. She’s treating Jesus as if he is a client.

So of course, the religious churchy leaders totally lose it… this is inappropriate. They complain loudly, but Jesus is having none of it. Jesus is a friend of sinners. And what does this mean?

Friends: unconditional love and forgiveness

This is where we begin to see that Jesus’ definition of friend begins with love and forgiveness. Let’s add this to the definition:

Someone with whom there is unconditional love and forgiveness.

Jesus is a friend of sinners who were formerly his enemies. The heart of this story is forgiveness. Scandalous forgiveness. Jesus has been accused of hanging with sinners… he's at a religious elite's house having a meal, the pure and righteous and holy morally upstanding conference speakers, those publishing books on how to be a better person. How to get ahead in life. How to look like, talk like a million bucks… how to make sure your every move is God-pleasing. And guess who crashes the holy meal? A prostitute. A sinner. One of Jesus' friends. The contrast is remarkable. And she's doing what the good guys, the godly pastors, hadn't done for Jesus… wipe his dirty feet. She's doing it with perfume and tears. And it's all about forgiveness. Scandalous forgiveness.

When it's all said and done… she gets forgiveness. And the morally upstanding citizens of the community don't. The prostitute goes away forgiven, and the goody-two-shoes preacher doesn't. Scandalous.

The scandal of forgiveness is that it is unconditional. It's not deserved. Jesus gives forgiveness anyway. Note the rhythm…

Luke 7:47 “Her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much.”

Jesus says that she loved much because her many sins have been forgiven. Already. Long before he even says a word to the woman. And then he says to her… your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. That's a scandalous timeline. She has crashed the party and is washing Jesus' hair because her sins are forgiven. And then, Dr. Luke tells us that Jesus' forgives her sins.

Luke 7:48 Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

He says this after he has already said that her sins are forgiven. That's not an accident. Luke writes it this way because he wants to feel it. He wants us to gasp. He wants us to start throwing things. Are you kidding me? Sins forgiven before Jesus says it? We live in a world of conditional forgiveness. We even do this with Jesus. You need to make sure that you've genuinely repented before Jesus will forgive you. Genuine repentance? Who gets to decide that? Where is that in the Bible?

Scandalous Friendship

Jesus won't forgive if your repentance isn't up to his standards? We do it with Jesus… we do it with each other… forgiveness right now is a taboo subject. You can't forgive that guy. You're letting him off the hook. You're soft on sin. We want payback. We'd rather talk about "consequences". We can't wait to talk about the law for other people. We've convinced ourselves that we are good law-keepers and the other guy isn't. We're not really that bad. We're pursuing holiness and having success at it. In the end, we're better than the other person because we repent better.

This is so scandalous. But this is true friendship. This is Jesus being our friend. We can't stand that Jesus forgives the next guy. So much of our thinking is driven by the (unstated) idea that we somehow deserve forgiveness… we won't say it out loud… that we deserve forgiveness, but it shows up in the way we think about forgiveness for other people. We convince ourselves that we have better repentance than the next person. I said the right words. I decided the right thing with Jesus. But we don't deserve forgiveness.We don't choose Jesus. It's not a matter of whether or not our repentance is good enough. Repentance is a gift given by God through the preaching of the Word and his Sacrament. We don't deserve forgiveness. We don't earn it. It's not conditional.

The forgiveness in friendship: God lets us off the hook

Did you know that God lets us off the hook all of the time? What's the penalty for sin? We already said it earlier… condemnation. Hell. That's what sin deserves. Jesus forgives me. Has forgiven me. Again. He lets me off the hook. He makes me His friend. Letting us off the hook is the story of the gospel.

I've heard some say God never lets us off the hook. I couldn't disagree more. In fact I think it's totally wrong. It's unbiblical. It is contrary to Christ and the gospel. It is at odds with Christ and his grace. Because the Bible says we're off the hook. God lets us off the hook many times. When was the last time you suffered any kind of a consequence, spiritual or materially, for every single one of your sins? Not just one. Every single one. You haven't. And the reason I know you are off the hook is because you're not in hell. If you're not in hell, you're off the hook. God does not give us consequences for every single one of our sins. We're off the hook, because Jesus is on the hook for those sins. Every single one of them.

A New Kind of Friendship

And all of this does translate into scandalous living that the world hates. This is a new kind of friendship. This is the scandal of the Gospel. It's free. Forgiveness is free. And if it's free for me, it's free for the next guy. Our world today wants a pound of flesh for sins we commit against each other. Slight someone the wrong way. Say the wrong thing. Believe the wrong thing. Make a mistake. You disrespected me! No forgiveness for you! You are canceled. Commit a heinous crime? We penalize. We lock them up, and we should. But forgiveness? No… of course not… canceled. Written off. Not in my backyard. Forgiveness is weak. Forgiveness simply enables the perpetrator.

A world without forgiveness is hell. Life is lived through the lens of law. Always trying to exact punishment. That's the law. The gospel goes missing. And the irony is that even as forgiveness is mocked, people are starving to hear a word of forgiveness. When we don't forgive, we forget that we are the prostitute in this story. Did you hear what Jesus said about this prostitute. She loved much because she has been forgiven much. That's what the morally upright preacher guy didn't get. Forgiven much. Love much. If you've experienced a lot of grace and you come to understand that intimately… it changes our behavior. From the outside. From a Person. The one who forgave us an infinite debt.

I keep returning to the story of the sinful woman because that's me. I want to pop off at my children because I have been disobeyed. I have been disrespected. I want to slight my wife because I have been slighted. I better come back to Luke 7 and find myself in the sinful woman. I have been forgiven much. I have been given much grace. Problem forgiving someone?? Come with me… let us look together at the prostitute wiping Christ's feet with her tears. That's us… in need of Jesus. Problem giving grace to kids who disobey? Come with me… let us see Christ crucified for us… for our kids disobedience or for our neighbors' sin… for us…. The traitors and prostitutes we all are.

Hospitality creates space for the Gospel

So, the question becomes this: how much of our hospitality is aimed at making friends? Not just because people need friends. They absolutely do. When we consider the hospitality of Luke 7, hospitality is a means by which space is created for the gospel to do its work. With us. With those who are strangers. Friendship is a place for the Gospel to change both parties in the relationship. It’s where Jesus provides love and grace and forgiveness and healing and reconciliation. Hospitality opens up space for Jesus to make sinners friends, and in the process, He provides us with community.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

Jesus, friend of sinners. Right here. Right now. This is where Jesus gives us of himself and one again declares us to be his friends. Sinners receiving His forgiveness and life, just like the woman in the story. This is where Jesus forgives much. Loves much. And calls us friend.