Untitled Sermon

We’re building a biography of Jesus. Between the events in the very beginning of his life and the events in the very end of his life, you mainly have a series of personal encounters. What we have here is an encounter not so much with just one person. In my particular version of the Bible, which has headings over various sections, this one is called ‘Jesus Anointed by the Sinful Woman,’ but this is really not an encounter with just one person. We see in verse 40, he turns to Simon, and in verses 48–50 he turns to the woman.

This is really an encounter of Jesus with two people. They’re brought into contrast with each other and in a certain sense you miss the point otherwise. Let me draw you the picture rather quickly. In fact, there are a couple of little things you have to work on your imagination with from history or you don’t get a good picture in your mind. First of all, we have Simon, who’s a Pharisee. He’s a member of the religious and cultural elite. He’s invited Jesus to a major, formal banquet.

These are a couple of things you have to keep in mind if you’re going to have a picture of what was really happening. First of all, no one’s feet were under the table. You have to remember that. At a banquet like this, everyone was laying on a couch, up on one elbow, head toward the table where you were eating, feet stretched out away from the table, and sandals off. The second thing you have to know is when you had a formal kind of banquet like this; there would have been a lot of people walking around.

Not just the servants waiting on the table, but actually people from the street, the public, could come into a banquet like this in a major home and watch and see what was being served and actually listen to the conversation. That was all part of the way it was done in that culture. That’s the reason why, from what we can tell when you read this, you have the situation in which clearly the woman seems to approach Jesus and something happens before she makes a move. She wasn’t noticed at first.

It would be very possible for this woman to approach Jesus and not immediately catch a lot of attention until … She comes up. Who is she? Unlike Simon, a member of the religious and cultural elite, we’re told she was, “a woman of the city and a sinner.” Notice the way they have to translate it to make it a little easier to understand. It says, “When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating …”

A sinful life in that town literally it says she was a woman of the city. What’s a woman of the city? She was a sinner. Every Greek scholar who knows something about how these enigmatic expressions came together says this woman was a prostitute. That’s what a woman of the city is. She might even have been a streetwalker. She approaches Jesus and she’s about to do something. She wants to put perfume on his feet. Literally, the word would be a perfumed ointment. Someone says, “Why?”

If you understood something about that climate and that environment, to put perfumed ointment on feet would be a comfortable luxury because it would soften the calloused feet and, of course, it cleanses the dirty feet, and it certainly sweetens the smelly feet, and it soothes the tired feet. In those days, of course, you wore sandals. You didn’t wear shoes. This was a luxury and a comfort. She wanted to do that. If you look at the way it tells us the story, we’re told that before she could do it, something happened to her.

“She brought an alabaster jar of perfume …” That means she wanted to do something. Before she had a chance to do what she wanted to do with the perfume, she found herself standing there, and she found herself weeping. She got overwhelmed with emotion as she came up. She couldn’t do what she was going to do. Then we’re told she began to wet his feet. Probably, that would be the first time he would have noticed her there because he felt her tears. He felt something soft falling. He turns, and probably at that point everybody turns.

Instead of bolting away, she kneels down and she undoes her hair. As we’ll talk in a minute, no woman would have walked out in public with her hair down. She undoes her hair, and she wipes the feet dry with her hair, then kisses the feet, and then puts on the perfume. Why are we talking about this? Why is that important for us? How does that concern us today? Usually in an introduction, I have to explain why you need to know this.

When I taught preaching I used to say, “You get a crowd together, and you need to show them why what you have to say is relevant. In the very beginning of a message, you try to explain why you have something to say they should listen to.” Did you notice how quiet you all got? Just the story … It’s a vivid story. It’s an amazing story. The reason you want to hear the rest is because you want to hear the rest of the story. There’s a meaning and a relevance to the story. This is not a story just about the woman, but about Simon.

We can see the woman is interested in Christ, and the woman wants to meet Christ, and the woman is seeking Christ, but we don’t see how strongly the text tells us Simon the Pharisee wanted Christ. We’re told in verse 36, one little word which really should impress us. It says one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to dinner. Simon was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a class of people who were utterly, violently opposed to Jesus. The only other Pharisee we know who came and had a personal interview with Jesus was Nicodemus. How did he come? Do you remember? At night. Of course.

It took incredible bravery for a member of the ruling class to come see Jesus. Simon welcomes him openly and invites him not just to come talk, but to a meal. In those days (again, you have to get into the culture here), to invite someone to a meal meant you were inviting them into a relationship. Simon clearly was so willing and so interested in meeting Jesus and getting to know his teaching and to find out who he is that he was braving the scorn and the disdain and the opposition and maybe the persecution of his class, of his family, of his friends, and of his peers.

He was a serious seeker, and she was a serious seeker. We see at the end that Jesus Christ rebukes him, rejects him, and welcomes her. We do not have here a contrast between a person who’s interested in Christ and someone who’s hostile. We don’t even have a contrast between a person who’s interested in Christ and a person who’s sort of indifferent. We have two people who are very interested in Christ and are coming to him, want to meet him, and are in his presence who are seeking him. He smacks one on the muzzle and sends him away and welcomes the other one.

Shouldn’t that be of concern to you? Isn’t that relevant? I know in the 90s it’s popular to say everybody has to find Jesus Christ in his or her own way. Jesus says, “Oh, really?” What is the difference? Why is there a difference?

If you read the text, the difference comes in three waves. In the very beginning, we see they respond to Jesus in two different ways. In the middle, we see through the parable Jesus explains the two responses to Jesus derive from two different understandings of Jesus. Then at the very end we see the two different understandings of Jesus result in two different responses from him. Let’s take a look at those in order. That’s the way we’ll understand the difference.

1. They respond to Jesus in two different ways

I can say it two different ways. Simon’s approach is an intellectual one. It’s a detached one. He’s coming at Jesus with the head, but the woman comes with the whole life.

First, he’s coming impersonally, but she’s coming personally. You can see this in that Simon is thinking. Notice, for example, as soon as she touches Jesus, he is thinking. He’s very concerned about Jesus. He wants to know who he is. In verse 39 we see him say, “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.’ ”

What’s going on here? He’s saying, “Wait, if this is a holy, divine man, either he doesn’t know who she is, which means he’s not holy and divine, or he does and he’s letting her touch him, which means he’s not pure. Therefore, one way or another … He’s thinking it out, and that’s good. But that’s all he’s doing. What she does when she comes is she immediately gets personal. Her whole self is involved.

It’s astonishing that Jesus turns to Simon. Can you imagine what he thought? He says to Simon, “Simon, she wept over me. She hugged me. She kissed me. She anointed me with oil.” Here’s Simon sitting here and saying, “You want me to weep over you? You want me to hug you? You want me to kiss you? You want me to do all that?” Jesus is saying, “Yeah.” What he’s after is Simon’s impersonal religion. Simon obviously doesn’t expect it to be anything other.

You’re going to have trouble relating to this unless I read you an interesting quote. I came upon this reading a Christian magazine. In the Christian magazine, the editors did, I think, a very good thing. They went out and found four bright, young (they were in their 30s) people, two married couples, who didn’t believe in Christianity or had real problems with it.

They did an interview and they said, “Tell us what your problems are with Christianity.” That’s very honest and very helpful, a very good idea. What they say is the sort of thing I think would be extremely typical in New York, certainly the majority view in New York, and probably, therefore, representing the view of many people here today. This is what they said.

One person says, “The problem I have with Christianity is Christians focus so much on Jesus rather than on the message or example he set. By focusing on Jesus, I think it excludes other religions and other people from having a relationship with God, and that really bothers me. I’m not sure about Jesus or what level he was, but we should learn from him. People can’t separate Jesus’ message from the messenger, but I do.”

That’s the first quote. The second quote is almost the same, but another person. She says, “The way I perceive Christianity right now is not centered on Christ, the person, but on God and the path Christ outlines for us how we should live. I have a lot of trouble with the interpretation that says, ‘If you don’t worship Christ, you’re not going to heaven.’ That’s too exclusionary. When he says, ‘I’m the way, the truth, and the life,’ I think he’s talking about my way, the way I’m trying to show you and demonstrate to you. If you live the way he showed us, I think that’s the way you can have a relationship with God.”

They say, “Let’s separate the message from the messenger.” This is so typical, and I’m sympathetic with it. Many of you, certainly, are sympathetic. In fact, many of you would say, “That’s what I think.” They start in the 90s with a given. The given is, “We don’t want to exclude anybody. We certainly don’t want to exclude people who don’t worship Christ or know about Christ. Therefore, what’s really important is not the person of Christ (the messenger). What’s really important is not to worship him (though you can, if you want).”

The really vital, the really essential thing, the really irreplaceable thing is that you live according to his way, according to his example, according to his loving approach. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you believe about Christ, what really matters is that you’re a good person. Jesus Christ right here says exactly the opposite. Not a little bit different. He actually says it doesn’t matter whether you’re a good person. She’s not a good person. “What really matters is that you believe in me, love me, and have a personal, wildly passionate, profound encounter with me.”

The exact opposite. Not the way these nice people and the way the average New Yorker say, “It doesn’t matter what you believe about Christ as long as you’re a good person.” He says, “It doesn’t matter if you’re a good person but whether you have a wildly passionate, personal relationship with me.” The motivation for separating the message from the messenger is so we’re open-minded, so we don’t exclude. But you’ve excluded something … you’ve excluded the personal.

If you say what’s really important is thinking and doing certain things as opposed to loving passionately Jesus Christ, what you really have is you’re saying the essence of religion is an impersonal one. Religion is impersonal. When you say, “It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’re good,” what you’ve just created is a religion without tears, a religion without letting your hair down and, most of all, a religion without touching. Do you see what really creeps Simon out? She’s touching him.

Do you see that? “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him …” Simon says, “I don’t want a religion of touching. I want an elevated discussion. I don’t want to have to have this personal, passionate relationship with this one individual. I want to know what the noble way to live is.” He wants a detached, remote, impersonal religion, and she comes with a personal, passionate encounter with him. Don’t you see you’re going to exclude something? If you don’t want to exclude everybody else in the world, you’re going to exclude the personal.

Christians wrestle. We wrestle a great deal with, “What about the good person who’s never heard?” But we know if you decide to get rid of that problem, you will have a far more profound problem. A religion without tears, a religion without letting your hair down, a religion without a personal encounter, a detached religion, a Simon religion. Is that what you want? That’s what you have. It’s one or the other. Simon comes intellectually. Simon comes in a detached way. Simon wants a discussion. She wants a relationship. They’re both seeking, but …

Secondly, she comes without conditions, and he has all sorts of conditions. How do we know that? It’s the little alabaster jar. What was this alabaster jar? We’re told she came with an alabaster jar of perfume. That was a very specific thing. An alabaster jar was a small flask of perfume. It had a very long, skinny neck, and that neck made it almost impossible for it to actually be poured out, it was so narrow, but you could smell it. It was small, and most women wore them around their necks.

They were very expensive, but they were an incredible accessory of fragrance and beauty because in that culture, the smell and the sight made a woman very attractive and very desirable. If you ever wanted to pour it out, you had to break the neck. Then once you poured it out, it was useless. Realize what she’s doing. Do you see what she’s doing? Yes, many women, especially women with some money, wore these.

Occasionally I’ve found that sermons and commentaries point out the fact that what she was doing at this point was very expensive and, economically, would have been very expensive for probably a single, socially marginalized woman, a prostitute, to take something which is probably the most precious thing she had in her life and lay it at Jesus’ feet. She was not just making a financial sacrifice. What was she doing? This was the only power she had. What does a prostitute have in a world like that? What does a prostitute have now?

Her only capital, her only power, her only leverage in life was her desirability and her attractiveness. She takes it off, and she breaks it, and she pours it out. What is she saying? She’s saying, “If you are who you say you are, that changes everything. I come to you without conditions. I give you everything I am. I give you everything I have.”

Take my love, my Lord, I pour

at Thy feet its treasure store.

Take myself, and I will be

ever, only, all for Thee.

She lays it out and here’s why. What she’s saying is, “If you are who you say you are, that changes everything. I will do nothing to displease you. I will live a wholly different life. You tell me what to do.” This takes your breath away, but I want to propose to you for a second that it is utterly rational. It is the only rational way to approach Christ. When you first start seeking Jesus and saying, “I’d like to find out more about Jesus. I’d like to find out whether there’s anything in Christianity for me,” you can either go Simon’s way or you can go the woman’s way.

This is the Simon way: you can say, “I’d like to be interested in Jesus, but I don’t want to change my position. I don’t want to change my goals. If I come to Jesus, I would like the peace and power, but does that mean I’ll have to change this? Does that mean I’ll have to change that? Does that mean I’ll have to give up that? I have my opinions about that. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m going to be this.”

Conservative people are afraid they’re going to become liberals, and liberal people are afraid they’re going to become conservatives. People who are in law school are afraid they’re going to have to become missionaries. Almost nobody going to the mission field is afraid of becoming a lawyer. Nevertheless, everybody comes and says, “I want my position. I would like help to get to my position.”

The only rational way is to say, “How in the world can I even be open to finding out whether this person is God, the absolute sovereign, unless I’m willing to say, ‘I’m willing, if you are who you say you are, to let you be who you say you are.’?” How can you say, before you find out if he is who he says he is, that he can’t be who he says he is? You’ll never find out who he is. You can’t possibly come and say, “I’d like you to be absolute God, but not if, not if, not if …”

It’s a little bit like a 6-year-old boy saying, “I want to grow up. I want to play in the NBA. I want to be six foot five, but I don’t want to have to like girls.” You laugh when a 6-year-old boy says that because you know a 6-year-old boy sits there and thinks that being 26 is basically being 6 with a six-foot-five body. We laugh and we know a 6-year-old can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like to be grown up.

When somebody sits there and says, “Before I find out who Jesus Christ is, I already know how my life has to go. Before I find out who Jesus Christ is, I already know what I want,” Jesus says, “Come back when you’re serious.” You have to. He does to Simon. But the woman he welcomes because she says, “Take my love. At thy feet I pour my treasure store.”

Those are the two different responses. One of them comes detached. The other one realizes this is not academic. One of them comes with conditions. One says, “If you are who you say you are, everything goes.” Do you understand the difference? Do you realize there’s a certain sense in which, though Simon is seeking, he’s not. He’s not open. He’s not ready to see the reality of who Jesus is. Why are those two people responding to Jesus so differently? Jesus, in that beautiful little parable, completely bares the difference between the two people.

2. The different actions toward Jesus come from different understandings of Jesus

I’ll just go through it very briefly because it’s so brief. He says, “ ‘Simon, I have something to tell you.’ ‘Tell me, teacher,’ he said. ‘Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ ”

First, he doesn’t see his need. The first thing he’s trying to show Simon (it’s really profound) is Simon does not understand like the woman understands his need for a Savior. What’s so brilliant about this is there are two people. They both owe money. If they can’t pay money, they’re going to lose everything. In those days, you go into prison. Nowadays you might declare bankruptcy and lose your business.

Here’s what so brilliant about this. It doesn’t matter how far in debt you are if you have nothing to pay. It doesn’t matter how bad a life or how nice a life you have lived. Everybody owes, and no one can pay. It doesn’t really matter if owe $10 million to your creditors or $10 thousand to your creditors. If you can’t pay, they’ll get you.

The illustration I like to use very often is if a poisonous spider comes in and bites you in your sleep so you never wake up and you die, or if a lion comes in and mauls you and dismembers you and decapitates you and then you’re dead, which of those two people is more dead? That’s what Jesus is trying to say. One of them is pretty dead and the other one is ugly dead, but they’re both dead.

Simon is pretty dead. Simon is the person with the 50 and the woman is the person with the 500. That’s how Jesus is drawing this. Simon has led a nice life, a very moral life, and a very respectable life. The woman has led a very broken life and a very messed-up life. What is he saying? He says it doesn’t matter. You’re both lost.

Simon religion says, “I don’t need a messenger. I don’t need a Savior. I need a message. I need a path. Show me what to do. I want your teaching, not you. I want the message, not the messenger. I want an impersonal relationship, not a personal, because I can save myself. I can do it.” Jesus, in this parable, says, “You have to see that whether you’re religious or irreligious, you’re lost. You need a Savior.”

How could that be? The Bible says sin is much more than breaking the rules. Sin is breaking the rule. What is the rule? Did you know there’s a bottom-line rule? Here’s the bottom-line rule of the Bible: There’s a God, and you’re not him. That sums the whole Bible up: theology, ethics, everything. Yes, it does. There’s a God, and you’re not him.

What that means is religious people are trying to be their own savior, trying to control their lives, trying to be their own god by saying, “Look, I can do it. I can be good enough.” Irreligious people (pagan people, we would say), are trying to be their own god by flouting the rules, but they both are sinning, and they both are lost. One is pretty dead and one is ugly dead, but they’re both dead.

When those nice people said, “I think you have to separate the message from the messenger,” there’s a premise under that. They seem to be unwilling to admit, make conscious or defend, the premise. That premise is, “I’m okay. I’m not that flawed. I’m not that bad. Human beings are pretty good, most of us.” Does the history of the world bear you out? There’s the premise.

Jesus goes after it and says that’s the reason for the Simon religion. You don’t see your need. You don’t see you cannot pay. You don’t see you are as lost as the other person, in a sense. You don’t see that it doesn’t matter that she has 10 times more sin in her life in an external kind of way. You don’t see that, together, you’re lost. You’re really no different when it comes right down to it.

Secondly, he doesn’t see the cost. The other reason that the woman realizes intuitively and Simon doesn’t is the cost. Salvation here is seen as forgiveness of a debt. We all know this. Forgiveness of a debt always means somebody pays. It just means the debtor doesn’t pay. It means the creditor pays. Forgiveness never happens without somebody getting hurt. If you wrong me, and I make you pay, you’re hurt. If you wrong me, and I don’t make you pay, then I hurt. Somebody’s going to be hurt. Somebody’s going to pay it.

A thousand-dollar debt doesn’t go into thin air. Either the person who owes it pays it, or the person who deserves to get it has to eat it, has to absorb it. Jesus is trying to say the only way for anyone to know God is if I pay your debt. Cost! Simon has no concept of that. When you see anyone who says let’s separate the message from the messenger in a Simon religion kind of way, shows you don’t have any real concept of the cost.

I know some of you (because every time I go through this, I hear from people) have bristled when I said, “If you don’t come to God through Jesus Christ, then you may have an impersonal religion, not a personal.” I’ve had people say to me, “I have a very personal religion even though I don’t believe in Jesus. I have a personal relationship with God. I don’t need Jesus.”

All I can do is I have to come back and say this, “What did it cost your God to have that personal relationship with you?” “What do you mean?” you say. Let me ask you. “Where’s the agony? Where are the thorns? Where are the nails? Where’s the blood?” You say, “I don’t believe it was necessary for God to go through all that in order to have a relationship with me.”

Right. That’s the reason why you’re not weeping. That’s the reason why you’re not letting your hair down. That’s the reason why you’re not ripping everything off, the most precious things in your life, and laying all the power before him. That’s the reason why your religion is far more like Simon’s than it is like hers. That’s the reason why he is not a personal reality in your life. You don’t see the cost. You don’t know the cost.

Get rid of the messenger; just have the message. There’s no cost, and there will be nothing personal: no weeping, no tears, no transformation, no joy, and no power that comes back (which we’ll see here in a second). So there we have it, two different understandings. He doesn’t see his need, and he doesn’t see the cost. As a result, religion is academic and ethical. What happens here at the end?

3. The two different understandings of Jesus result in two different responses from him

Because of the two responses to Christ, and because of the two understandings, Simon gets something and the woman gets something. We can deal with Simon in 15 seconds. Simon gets exactly what he wants.

First, what does Simon get? He gets a seminar. “Simon, I have a case study for you.” He gets an academic experience. He gets a discussion, and he gets a dig. He gets an insult, and he gets a cold shoulder. What he really gets is his back. He turns away.

Secondly, what does the woman get? Oh, my goodness! There’s almost too much. First of all, she gets an ability to love she didn’t have before. When he says, “… her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much,” if it wasn’t for the second clause, that first clause would be very misleading. It looks like it’s saying, “The reason I’ve forgiven her is because she’s so loving to me.” That’s not what it’s saying.

Look at the second clause. What does the second clause say? “But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” What it’s really saying is your love is a response to how deeply forgiven you feel yourself to be. She’s not forgiven because she loves much. It’s the opposite! What he’s saying is the reason she has this ability to love now is because she sees she’s forgiven. This is a remarkable principle.

This is saying your ability to love people or love life (let me show you) is completely due to how deeply you see your sin and how deeply you see yourself to be forgiven. If you don’t see yourself to be a terrible sinner and a completely forgiven sinner, you will not be able to love people or life like someone as she.

Let me give you a quick example. What if somebody wrongs you? If you have too high a view of yourself, that is, you don’t see yourself as a terrible sinner, or if you have too low a view of yourself which means you see yourself as a sinner, but not forgiven, you won’t be able to forgive. If you see how sinful you are, you’ll be too humble to keep a grudge, and if you see how forgiven you are, you’ll be too joyful to keep a grudge.

If you cannot forgive, he says right here it’s because you do not see yourself this moment as not only deeply sinful, but deeply forgiven. If you see your debt as little, 50 versus 500 or 5,000, the size of the debt you see that Jesus Christ has covered will determine how much you can forgive and love people. It’s a rule. It’s a principle. Isn’t that amazing?

I’m talking about life, too. If you’re like Simon and you believe, “I follow the rules, and then God owes me,” and your house burns down, you’re going to either be mad at God, saying, “I have followed the rules and he owes me,” or you’ll be mad at yourself because you’ll say, “I tried to follow the rules and I guess I didn’t make it.” You won’t be able to live life either way. When things go wrong for you, you’ll either be mad at him, mad at yourself, or both.

But if you see how incredibly deep your sin was and how absolutely forgiven you are, you won’t be either mad at him, because obviously you deserve a lot worse, but you won’t be mad at yourself, because you’ll know you’re completely forgiven; he’s not punishing you. Don’t you see? He says, “The greater you see your debt to be, and the greater you see my forgiveness to be, the more you’ll be able to love.” She has it! She has this ability to love.

Another thing she gets is an absolute and incredible satisfaction. Let me put it to you this way. Did you read any of the reviews of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible? The Crucible is based on the idea that the Salem witch trials and all that religious fanaticism was really sexual repression. The girls were all sexually sort of pent up. This is very typical.

Since Freud, Arthur Miller, The Crucible, the modern idea is spirituality is really repressed sexuality. If you’re religious, you’re just sort of repressed sexually. The Bible here says explicitly in Romans 7, explicitly in Ephesians 5, and so vividly here that it’s the other way around. Sexuality is really repressed spirituality. It’s exactly the opposite.

What you’re trying to get in sex is you’re trying to find somebody who really loves you and really understands you. Here’s a woman, when she poured out her perfume she said, “I finally found what I’ve been looking for all my life.” She didn’t just get the ability to love. She got a love that filled her up. Spirituality is not repressed sexuality. Sexuality is repressed spirituality! Doesn’t that make sense?

I’ll tell you one more thing she gets. She doesn’t care what anybody thinks. When everybody turns around, she lets her hair down. Even today, we know what that means. In those days, if a woman let her hair down in public, a rabbi said that was grounds for a divorce. Why? It was a shame because it meant vulnerability and openness.

Even today, if you watch a movie and you see the woman take her hair down and shake it, we know what that means. In fact, if there’s a man there, that means, “Let’s make love.” If it’s the end of the day, and she’s kicking off her heels and she’s home and she’s letting her hair down, it means, “I’m vulnerable. I’m open.” It usually means some strangler is around the corner or something like that.

The point is letting your hair down means, “I surrender.” That’s what it meant in that culture. I’m not trying to say that’s what it means today. When she did this outrageous action, at the very same moment that she was surrendering to Christ, she was showing an unbelievable amount of chutzpah and courage because she did not run. She didn’t care what anybody thought. Isn’t this ironic? By giving up power, she got power. By surrendering to Jesus, she found that she never again will ever have to surrender to anyone else.

Power, love, assurance, certainty. “Your faith has saved you …” Past tense! In Simon religion, you never have a past tense. You hope you’re being saved. “Your faith has saved you …” He doesn’t just say, “Go in peace.” He says, “Go into peace.” No translation translates it that way because the poor reader would say, “What?” It doesn’t say, “Go in peace,” at the end.

He says, “Go into it. Your life will be an adventure of peace. The more you see your debt, the more you see my grace, the more you’ll be able to love. The more you let down your hair and open yourself to me, the more you will be able to face anything else in life. The more power you give to me, the more power you’ll have toward everything and everyone else. Go into peace.”

Dear friends, do you have Simon religion or do you have her religion? To those of you who know you have Simon religion, what do I say? I would say follow her. What does Jesus say to Simon? I would say the same thing to you. Look at this woman. Isn’t this the gospel? It’s not the powerful; it’s the marginal who show you how to become a Christian, always.

To those of us who say, “I’m a believer,” let me ask you a quick question. Do you love like this woman? Do you have this kind of satisfactory relationship with Christ? Most of all, is there anybody in your life right now you’re having trouble loving? Are you having trouble loving life? It’s in your power. You have forgotten your debt. You have forgotten what he’s done. I say you need to sing from your heart right now that hymn I keep trying to say right and I keep forgetting, so I will turn to what I wrote.