Do You See This Woman?

Luke 7:36–8:3 tells of a woman who shatters her alabaster jar at Jesus’ feet, pouring out her tears, truth, and love. In this sermon, we see how Jesus looks beyond labels and reputations, inviting us to break open our own truth and discover the grace that refuses to look away.

Transcript

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You're listening to The Word on Baker Street, a podcast from Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Bakersfield, California. Each week we share the good news of God's love through the sermons from our Sunday worship. Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome here.

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The Holy Gospel according to Luke 7, 36 through 83. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and when he went into the Pharisees' house he reclined to dine. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating with the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears, and to dry them with her hair, kissing his feet and anointing them with ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would have known who who and what kind of woman this is, and who is touching him, that she is a sinner. Jesus spoke up and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. Teacher, he replied, Speak. A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which one will love him more? Simon answered, I suppose the one for whom cancelled the greater debt. And Jesus said to him, You have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house and 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 that I came in, she has not stopped kissing me. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. Hence she has shown great love. But the one whom has little forgiven loves little. And then he said to her, Your sins are forgiven. But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, Who is this? Who even forgives sins? But he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. The Gospel of the Lord. And let us pray. Loving God, may these words in all of our meditations draw us closer to you. Amen. Our gospel lesson today takes place when Jesus' ministry is really starting to take off. He's traveling from community to community around the region of Galilee, and the news about him is spreading. Huge crowds of people want to see what Jesus will do and say. And and the Jewish religious leaders, they don't share this enthusiasm. And they're starting to wonder do we need to worry about him? But it's it's more like, well, is he one of us or is he not? And perhaps this meal at Simon at the house of Simon the Pharisee was testing this out. And if it was a test, what happens next is kind of like an automatic fail for Jesus. It's kind of like you're you're taking the test to get your driver's license and you get into an accident. But this was far more shocking than that. It's hard to even get a sense of what may be going on here through the minds of everyone there. I mean, imagine you're having Thanksgiving dinner with your whole family and a stranger, a man with long flowing hair, looking like he's like off the cover of a Harlequin romance, comes in off the street and starts making out with your grandpa. Yeah. I mean, we're all like, does he even know who this person is? In our lesson today, a woman who is a known sinner. Note the text does not say what her sins are. She comes in holding this alabaster jar, and what she does is as outrageous as it is beautiful. She weeps and she bends, she touches, she breaks the jar open and she pours out its perfume, anointing the feet of Jesus with it. Her hair wipes his skin. Her tears fall like prayer. I am sure at this point all eyes are on Jesus. Clearly, she sought Jesus out. And when she encountered him, she could not contain the overwhelming sense of grace and gratitude. Simon, however, he can only see the sin. And he's like, Yeah, I knew it. If he was really a prophet, he would have known about this woman, and he would have never let him touch her. I mean, Jesus, but Jesus is a prophet. A prophet of grace, and he doesn't flinch. Instead, he turns to Simon and says, Do you see this woman? Not what did she do? Not, is she clean enough? Not where is she from? But do you see her? I'm struck by the image of this woman coming in and breaking open this jar at Jesus' feet. And it got me thinking about all the jars that we carry. Like an alabaster jar of truth, a fragile container of our real selves. Sometimes we keep it sealed, sometimes we crack it open just a little, just to test if it's safe. And sometimes, like the woman in the story, we break it wide open because we can no longer bear the weight of what we've carried. A coming out was certainly like this for me. Throughout my teens and my twenties, I could barely live with the certainty that God hated me. Because no matter how I fought it, I knew I was gay. I was consumed by shame, and the so-called Christian groups that I was a part of only offered exorcisms and Bible verses that reinforced my failure to have enough faith that God could rid me of my sinful thoughts. Coming out was an act of survival. Breaking open that jar and pouring it out at the feet of the cross. And I was certain it was the end of my relationship with God. I even got a tattoo around my ankle representing my life before, so that I would never be able to forget where I came from. But all I encountered from that point on was from God was love. And that's the miracle of our story today. The miracle the woman received. Jesus accepts everything the woman brought. He doesn't move away, he doesn't flinch, he doesn't send her out. Instead, he honors her. And I think the question at the heart of this story is one that we as a society are still asking. Who belongs? Who gets to be here? Who is clean enough to touch holiness? And those questions get asked in churches and synagogues, mosques, temples of every kind. And they're asked in courthouses and voting booths and at the border and at pride parades and at No King's demonstrations, and they're asked in Congress and on Facebook and X and Blue Sky and Truth Social and you know the list goes on and on and on. And in each of those places, there is someone like Simon standing by the door deciding who is in and who is out. Psalm 139 tells us that before we speak a word, God understands. Before we take a breath, God is already there. There is no version of ourselves that God does not already know and cherish. And the woman in our story, she isn't trying to prove anything. She isn't asking for approval. She's simply showing up in truth, in longing, in unfiltered love, and like the psalmist resting in the presence of a God who knit her together. Her tears say everything she cannot. While she's being poured out at the feet of Christ, Jesus asks, Do you see this woman? Simon doesn't see her. He sees her label, her record, her reputation. Simon is a Pharisee, but to be clear, he's not evil. He isn't heartless. We might think of being a Pharisee as synonymous with the word hypocrite, but Pharisees were deeply devoted to God, and they believed that living the right way would make them right with God. And for the most part, the Pharisees were pretty good. God-loving people. People who wouldn't think they had very much sin to forgive. Debbie Thomas writes, if grace is real, it has to stretch wider than we're comfortable with. Simon's not comfortable. He doesn't trust grace that goes that far. And so Jesus offers this story of two people who owed a debt, one small and one large. Both are forgiven. Which one will love more? Simon gets the answer right, but he misses the point. Because he can't see his own need. As long as he is measuring others, he cannot receive grace for himself. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I'm more like Simon than the woman. I can get fixated on what other people are doing, you know, the trash that accumulates in the alley behind the church and the tagging on the walls or a broken window, and I'll I'll seethe at hate-filled rhetoric being spewed by religious leaders and politicians, and all the while I ignore the ways that I don't act with kindness towards others. I forget that I haven't checked in on a person that I know is struggling, and I forget that I still carry an alabaster jar. And it's not the same one that I broke open so many years ago. Coming out was freedom from shame, that belief that who I was was wrong. Sin is different. Sin is doing something that causes harm or is indifferent to the harm being caused. And guilt is a healthy response to this. Because sin is real. It is something we all carry, and we are called to break it open and to pour it out. That's why we confess. Not to shame ourselves, not to earn forgiveness, but because the jar was never meant to be sealed forever. The confession in our liturgy is a moment we all come together and say, I need Jesus. I am not whole. I have been hiding. And here's the thing: God already knows. Psalm 139 says it clearly. Confession is not new information for God, it's new freedom for us. It's our chance to bring our truth forward, to crack open the jar and say, this is what's really inside. And the good news is Jesus didn't come to save who we pretend to be. He came to redeem who we actually are. Martin Luther said it this way: be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. We're not freed by being good. We're set free by being real and letting Christ meet us there. I'm so glad. Emmanuel is the kind of church that says, bring your jar. Bring your tears, bring your truth, bring it all to the cross, to the table. No one is turned away. This is a place where we all join Christ in saying, I see you, I know you, I bless what you bring. Beloved, what is in your jar? Is it grief? A secret? A hope you stop believing in? A part of yourself that you've kept hidden from the world? Whatever it is, you don't, you don't have to hold it alone. Whatever it is, it's not too much for God. Your jar matters. Your tears matter. Your story matters. And when we pour out our truth, something holy happens. The room fills with fragrance, the jar breaks, and we're not ruined. We're made whole. Because Jesus sees us. Not the pretend us, not the edited us, but the real, weeping, reaching, trembling us. And Jesus says, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. That's the truth of it. You are free, your sins are forgiven. Live your life as a beloved child of God, fully known, seen, completely loved. Pour out this truth like perfume. Because the world, the world needs it sent. Amen.

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Thanks for listening to the Word on Baker Street. If this message has spoken to you, share it with a friend. More sermons and reflections can be found at emmanuelbakersfield.org. May God's grace and peace be with you today and always.