This is the sermon I prepared for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, June 13, 2010.

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Readings

2 Samuel 11:26–12:10, 13–15
Psalm 32
Galatians 2:15–21
Luke 7:36–8:3

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Prayer

Lead us, Father in heaven, to confess our sins to you, so that we may grow in the love of your Son, Jesus Christ, through your Spirit’s gift of forgiveness. Amen.

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Message

When I was in high school,
I went on a field trip to New York City
with the German Club.
One of our stops was the United Nations Headquarters.

Since I wanted a souvenir of the trip,
I went to the gift shop
and ended up buying this set of Matryoshka dolls.

What’s curious about these dolls
is that each one opens up
to reveal another doll,
and so on, until you get to the smallest one.

This is a small set, only three deep,
but bigger ones may have more,
some up to nine dolls.

In a way, these dolls are like onions,
because you can peel off one layer of an onion
to reveal another, smaller onion inside of it,
and so on until you get to the center.

I thought maybe this image of the dolls or an onion
would help us to make some sense
of today’s Gospel from Luke.

This is a rather long reading
with a lot going on in it.
But if we go at it like we are taking apart a set of dolls,
or peeling back the layers of an onion,
that might help us make sense of the message.

The background for this passage
is the paragraph just before it
that tells us how Jesus critiqued the people’s reactions
to his ministry and the work of John the Baptist before him.
He said,

For John the Baptist has come
eating no bread and drinking no wine,
and you say, “He has a demon”;
the Son of Man (Jesus’ title for himself) has come eating and drinking,
and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Luke 7:33–34, NRSV)

There is no reasoning behind the public’s reaction;
they criticized John for his lean asceticism
and Jesus for his reputed hedonism.
And so what did Jesus do?
He went to dinner at a Pharisee’s home.

We know that some of the Pharisees had warmed up to Jesus’ teaching,
while others remained critical and skeptical.
But whatever Simon the Pharisee thought of Jesus,
he at least welcomed him into his home.

And that brings us to the first layer of the story:
the account of the dinner and Jesus’ conversation with Simon.
Simon showed Jesus the customary hospitality, to a point.
He invited him into his home.
They reclined at the table together to eat.

But then we come to second doll, the second layer of the story:
the arrival of the woman with the alabaster jar of ointment.
As was the custom in that day,
she could enter Simon’s house.
She sat at Jesus’ feet, washed them with her tears,
and dried them with her hair.
Then she kissed his feet and rubbed ointment into them.
In these simple and humble acts,
she extended to Jesus a more profound act of hospitality
that he had received from Simon, his host.

This irritated Simon,
raising the big unspoken issue,
the one the crowds had complained about
in accusing Jesus of loose living.

Simon said, “If this man were a prophet,
he would have known who and what kind of woman this is
who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:39b, NRSV)

And then Jesus spoke to Simon,
and Luke’s account moves inward to the third doll:
Jesus’ parable of the creditor and two debtors,
where one owed more than the other.
The gracious creditor forgives both debts
because the debtors could not pay what they owed.
And then Jesus’ question for Simon was simple:
“Now which of them will love the creditor more?” (Luke 7:42, NRSV)

Simon gave the right answer—
the debtor who owed more loves more when forgiven.
And then Jesus tied together these two layers of the onion,
these two dolls nesting together in the passage:
his parable of the creditor and debtors
and the hospitality extended by Simon and the woman.

They are the debtors who cannot pay what they owe.
They show their gratitude, their love by their hospitality.
So a greater act of hospitality means a greater love
that flows from forgiveness of a greater debt.

That’s why Jesus commented on his parable, saying,

…her sins, which were many,
have been forgiven;
hence she has shown great love.
But the one to whom little is forgiven,
loves little. (Luke 7:47, NRSV)

And then he spoke to the woman
who had been kneeling silently at his feet:

Your sins are forgiven….
You faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:48, 50, NRSV)

And that is the final doll,
the deepest layer of the onion,
the great treasure lying at the center of this Gospel,
the word of life for us.

When we come to Jesus Christ,
kneel at his feet,
and shed our tears,
we give up our burden of sin and we turn our lives over to him.

The greater the sins we confess at his feet,
the greater the forgiveness Christ extends to us,
and the more we love him in return.

This is the tiny doll, the pearl of an onion at the center,
the simple, yet profound and powerful message of grace,
the word that can change our lives.

This message helps us to know how to look at ourselves.
If we honestly examine our hearts,
and we see that we do not love God as much as we ought,
as fully as we might,
as deeply as he desires of us,
then we can take that insight as a call to confess our sins,
to come to the feet of our Lord,
and to bathe them with our tears
of repentence and contrition.

This is the moment of honesty and truth,
the time when we may join our voices—
choked though they may be by our sorrow—
with the voice of the Psalmist
and the echoes of our forebears in the faith
who used his words in the old Common Service:
“Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity.
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.’” (Psalm 32:5, NRSV)

And when we do,
we can wait in confidence for our Lord to say:
“Your sins are forgiven.”
After all, he is the one who eats and drinks with sinners
and now invites us to come and to recline at his Table. Amen.