Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

They will know we are Christians by our love.

This was the attitude that Christians in Egypt embraced during the third century, when a terrible plague overwhelmed the famous city of Alexandria.

According to Dionysius the Great, it was the followers of Christ who had compassion on the sick, even at the cost of their own lives.

“Most of our brother Christians,” he wrote, “showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another.

Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy.…

Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead.”

In those terrible days, the Christians showed a love that surpassed what anyone else was able to give.

Dionysius went on to say this: “The heathen behaved in the very opposite way.

At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead, and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avoid the spread and contagion of the fatal disease.”

Even the famous physician Galen fled the city in fear.

What made the difference?

What accounts for the extraordinary love that Christians showed to the dead and dying?

Simply this: they had been forgiven.

A life of love is the grateful response of a sinner who has found true forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

This is one of the ideas found in our passage for this morning.

One being with a focus on the Pharisee, and the second being on a woman who ministered to Jesus.

I thought it quite fitting to focus on the second being today is mothers day.

Turn with me and we will read the passage together.

This morning I want to really focus in on verse 47

The main idea I would like for us to take away this morning is the one who loves, forgives, and the one who forgives, loves.

The common struggle of forgiveness.

Who was this woman.

There are two occasions in scripture when Jesus has his feet anointed.

This is the first, the second is later, after Lazarus is raised.

The second woman we know to be Mary.

This woman here though is unnamed.

We know they are two different accounts though because the stories take place in different places, contain different actions, and have different critics.

The similarity comes in the name Simon.

One however was a leper, and the Simon in this story is a Pharisee.

All that we know about this woman is what is included in this text.

We all have many sins.

As she is introduced, it is not in a positive light whatsoever.

The first thing that Luke says about her is that she was a sinner.

Behold a woman of city, who was a sinner.

Most often in the New Testament, this designation seems to refer to prostitution.

People selling their bodies for money.

At a dinner like this, the house would be open and people could come in and watch.

A sinful woman (perhaps a prostitute) would not have been welcome, particularly in a Pharisee’s house; it took courage for her to come.

We share a number of things in common with this woman.

Though our sin may not be the same as hers.

We share the same title.

The same could be said about each of us - behold a man or a woman of the country, who was a sinner.

Each of us is a sinner.

Paul was quoting from Psalms, proverbs, and Isaiah when he wrote.

We sin against God

We sin against each other.

Which is where the difficulty begins.

The pharisee in our story struggles with how Jesus can interact with this woman.

Men’s struggle with forgiveness.

The pharisee is again coming at this situation from a position of pride and tradition.

This woman would make him unclean.

Part of the struggle with forgiveness though also comes with how God has created us.

God created us male and female.

Created different for a purpose.

We are truly meant to compliment one another.

When Adam first saw Eve he said

She was created to be a helper fit for Adam.

Not a lesser person, simply another part that brings completion.

In creating us differently, our minds work differently as well.

There are all sorts of marriage books out there that help us to explore this.

One of the clever titles I am sure you have heard - men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

I haven’t read it, can’t endorse it, but the premise is true.

One of the best ways I have heard our ways of thinking described is men are like waffles, and women are like a plate of spaghetti.

Men think in one box at a time, perhaps we can have a foot in each box but that normally doesn’t end well.

Women though tend to think along the noodles, each one touching the other, interwoven, interconnected.

So dealing with forgiveness is different for men and women.

The Pharisee was stuck in the box of this woman is a sinner, she is unclean, she shouldn’t be here.

Jesus was trying to get him to see further.

To see more of himself, which we will focus on next week.

But also to see the need and possibility of forgiveness.

Forgiveness I think can be easier for men because of their tendency of thinking.

We can forgive and leave that box behind.

We may revisit the hurt at times depending on the situation.

But in general, forgiveness can be a done deal when we have moved on from that box.

Women though, as the day progresses and thoughts and situations throughout the day come, that noodle is running through the whole plate.

Touching multiple other noodles.

And each time it comes in contact, the thought, the hurt, whatever it is that needs to be forgiven.

Each time it comes in contact with another noodle, that pain resurfaces.

Bringing with it renewed pain, anger, sadness.

The problem comes in that we process things differently.

It makes understanding and forgiving one another difficult.

Forgiveness can be difficult in all situations of relationship.

Spouse, children, friends, co-workers.

Jesus though, in speaking with the Pharisee gives a typical example and example regarding forgiveness.

Those who are forgiven, love greatly, and those who love greatly, will be forgiven.

The connection between love and forgiveness.

There is a connection between love and forgiveness.

Back to our passage in Luke

C.S. Lewis wrote

“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”

Perhaps the most painful and courageous part of forgiveness is when we must absorb the cost of another person’s sin.

The pain of being sinned against doesn’t go away quickly.

Words spoken, money lost, vows broken—these pains get stuck on “repeat.”

As Jesus points out here though, there is a direct connection between love and forgiveness.

Biblical forgiveness absorbs at least two costs.

First, in loving another person we must say, “I’m not going to punish you.”

For forgiveness to happen, we must deny our instinct to throttle a debtor and release him or her from punishment.

Second, in showing love we must say, “I will pay the debt for this sin instead.”

Debt doesn’t just mysteriously evaporate.