An Alabaster jar full of gratitude Pastor: Sandeep Thomas Scripture: Luke 7:36-47 November 23, 2014 There is a very small group of events in Jesus live that occur in all four gospels. Jesus baptism, John the Baptist which was my very first sermon, feeding the 5000, the events surrounding Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. That is the entire list except for one event. Jesus anointing by a woman. Now the four accounts of Jesus anointing do have similarities as well as enough differences that it is hard to make out if there was actually one anointing or two or four. I am not going to go analyze the differences and give you my opinion on how many anointing there were. I think it makes no difference. The passage in Luke also does not name the woman involved. Whenever the Bible talks about sinful woman who have repented their identities are always concealed. And I am not going to waste time speculating on her identity. When Jesus first walks into Simon s home, he is actually slighted when in fact he should have been receiving hospitality. To understand just want happened we need to take a trip into the world of first century Jewish Palestine. In those days it was common for a visiting Rabbi to be invited to the home of a Pharisee for the Sabbath meal. It is like if we had a guest preacher at our church we would take him out for a meal after the service. Now when a guest walked into a home the servants in the home would offer bowls of water where the guests could wash their feet. It was a very hot desert environment as well and so it was also common to anoint the head of the guests with oil to keep the head cool. The guests were always treated with great honor. Now Simon does not offer the customary hospitality of foot washing or oil for anointing his head. In fact Simon does not even greet Jesus with the traditional greeting which would have been a kiss on alternate cheeks. Not doing these things would be considered nothing less than an insult to your guest. Why would Simon do such a thing? Well in the preceding versus we have some clues. When Jesus first entered the village he saw a funeral procession. He felt compassion on the child who had died and he walks up to the coffin and brings the child back to life and presents the child back to his mother. The people were all shocked and amazed and realized that a big prophet was in their midst. Now everybody was impressed except of course the Pharisees. The versus then describe how even John the Baptist had no luck with the Pharisees because when everybody else was receiving his baptism of repentance the Pharisees were not. Jesus is totally aware of this lack of response from the Pharisees. So when Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus over he knew that Simon was not inviting Jesus out of respect but simply to size Jesus up close. So 1 P a g e
Jesus would not have been surprised that Simon at the minor insults when he walked into Simon s house. But Simon will come to see that the son of man will get the honor he deserves. You see the host may have had his plans but he is going to get a real surprise. You see the homes in those days were mostly open and if there was something of interest going on in someone s house people from the street would just walk into the house and line up on the walls or sit along the walls. These outsides would carry on conversations with the official guests who were reclining at the table or if there was some entertainment taking place they would sit along the wall and enjoy the performance. News also travelled fast in tightly knit villages. So when a certain woman heard that Jesus was heading to Simon the Pharisees house and she was moved to go and serve Jesus and express her devotion to him. Picture the guests reclined at the table with their left elbow on the couch and their feet extended on the other side of the couch. Suddenly this woman walks in. It seems that everybody knows her and she is also known as a sinful woman. The passage does not name her or say what her sin was or why everyone knew her. But she seems to be someone whose life was saved and transformed by Jesus like the woman caught in adultery. She knew she owed Jesus everything. So for her it was nothing for her to take her life savings and spend it on this expensive perfume to anoint Jesus feet. By the way from the account in Matthew says that the perfume used was pure nard. Nard was an aromatic oil that was extracted from the roots of the spikenard plant that grew on the foothills of the Himalayan mountain regions in the northernmost tip of India. And to keep the aromas in the oil had to be packaged in a cylindrical jar made of a translucent soft stone that was from Egypt. Then it had to be transported on foot or by boat all the way to Israel. It is no wonder that this would have been the most expensive oil you could get costing almost a year s wage. And the only way to use it would have been to break open the jar and use the whole thing. There was no option to just use a little and save the rest for later. So this woman places herself behind Jesus, lets her tears flow all over Jesus feet which she then wipes with her flowing hair with utmost humility and devotion. And then she breaks the neck of her alabaster jar and anoints the feet of Jesus. She is so grateful for her transformed life that her is willing to express her gratitude without any concern for what anyone might think of her including the host of the house. Jesus will get the honor he deserves even if the people who should honor him, do not. 2 P a g e
When the host gets creeped out at the woman s actions, Jesus explains to Simon that the people who really honor him are people who acknowledge that God has released from a great debt. Jesus explains it is a simple parable. He says two men took a loan of 500 and 50 pieces of silver and both could not repay it. The lender then graciously forgives both of them their debts. Then Jesus asks which debtor will love his lender more, the one who was forgiven 500 coins or 50 coins. Of course the one who was forgiven the 500 silver coins is more grateful. So clearly Jesus was explaining to Simon that this woman who has serving him with great devotion was aware that she was forgiven a great debt. Her love for Jesus flowed out of her acknowledgement of what Jesus had done for her. In our own context we might be aware of people like this. A good friend of mine who came to the US as a refugee in 2008 came to Christ when we was healed on his deathbed by the prayers of a Christian nurse. He knew that God had spared his life and he decided to give his life to Christ. Being a Hindu in Nepal he was beaten and thrown out of his house by his own family members. Through it all he remains even today a fully devoted follower of Christ. People who really honor God are people who acknowledge being released from a great debt. Now the key issue Jesus parable raises is those who think they owe God very little, love God very little. So who are the 50 coin debtors? In the passage we were working with, the answer is obvious, the 50 coin debtor in Simon the Pharisee. You see from Simon s perspective he has not committed any of the big sins. He has not killed anyone, or committed adultery or stolen from anybody. In fact Simon is a well respected and upstanding citizen. In fact Simon is part of the religious police making sure everyone else is following the laws the Pharisees have come up with to remain spiritually pure. So what does God need to do for him. Not very much at all. Maybe 50 silver coins, if that. In many ways if you grew up in a Christian home your life would not look too different from Simon s. Your parents made sure you were kept on the straight and narrow road. You went to college, maybe even Christian college, met and married a Christian spouse like you and you have been carrying on peacefully to this day, even being very active in church. So you might be saying to yourself, thank God I have not fallen into sin like person X across the street or person Y on the news. In other words run of the mill Christians commit run of the mill sins and in the end they do not feel they owe God much because God had only a few small sins to deal with. If you think you owe God very little your gratitude to God will be in small measures as well. Now imagine both these kinds of Christians went to heaven. Imagine if in heaven you had walking around two kinds of Christians. The kind who felt they had forgiven this enormous debt and the kind 3 P a g e
that had been forgiven a tiny debt. The person who has been forgiven this enormous debt is praising God and worshiping God with all his or her heart and truly enjoying the privilege of being in God s presence. On another side of the golden street this tiny debt dud comes along. He is strolling along, looks at the sights almost like a tourist in a fancy city. He is pretty impressed. Then he comes across these people who are so devoted to God that they are praising and glorifying God in some way all the time. He turns around to another of this tiny debt Christians and says what s wrong with these people. The people in heaven seem to me a bunch of crazies dud. Now, step back from this scene. You think what you just witnessed can ever happen in heaven. No it cannot. Nobody in heaven can ever saunter around thinking that they have been forgiven only a tiny debt. If you are in God s presence you will barely be able to contain your gratitude. So if that is the case, how do we church people who think we are on our way to heaven get away with our tiny debt attitude. As I preach this sermon I am reflecting on my own Christian walk. I was born in a Christian home and I was a person with a tiny debt attitude surrounded by people who had a tiny debt attitude. Three thinks helped me a lot with my tiny debt attitude and I want to share them with you. First, people who commit so called small sins always manage to couple their small sins with the sin of self-righeousness. You see when you thing you are coming a small sin, you are actually hitting a double wammy. One is you are sinning anyway and instead of remorse for the sin you are thinking that you sin is not so significant and that you are actually better than someother soul who I committing a bigger sin at this time. Selfrighteouness is the worst sin of all. Jesus of course had a lot to say about it but his parable of the Pharisee and the tax collectors pray says it all. The Pharisee prayered like this. I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don t cheat, I don t sin, and I don t commit adultery. I m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income. The Pharisee s pray is flawed because he has no recognition of the debt he owes God. He is a no debt believer and all the while comepletely bling to his own self-righteouness Secondly, in God s eyes there is no such thing as a big sin and small sin from the perspective of what God has to do to forgive it. You say of course there are big sins and small sins. If someone comits a murder versus someone stealing a bag of chips. They are crimes on two very different levels. Yes but what if you knew that the one who committed the murder had a mental problem and what if the one who stole the bag of chips had not eaten for two days and did not have any money. But there is another thing that needs to be considered. Imagine if the worst sin that people every committed 4 P a g e
was stealing a bag of chips would Jesus have to die on the cross. Yes he would. Remember the moment Adam and Eve ate the apple an animal had to be killed to cloth there nakedness. So every sin so matter how large or small death is consequence and Jesus has to pay for it on the cross. Yes there are big and small earthly consequences to sin. But from the perspective of the price that Jesus has to pay there is no such thing as a big sin or small sin. Thirdly, our minds are great at modifying our memories. We remember what we want to remember. When I was a kid I used to remember when the results of a test came in and I had not done so well I would simply forget my grade. So when my parents asked me I would say, oh I don t remember. Our minds play tricks on us and conveniently throws out the thinks it does not want to remember. We think we have not committed any significant sins because we conveniently forget our inconvenient memories. So when we reflect of our tendency for self-righteousness, on our tendency to modify our memories and when we think of the price that God pays for every sin that we commit not just the so called big sins, then suddenly the debt we owe to God does not seem so small anymore. When you look at what the woman who anoints Jesus this morning and the spirit of God is convicting you of your sin for the very first time or the spirit of God is convicting you of not loving Jesus the way the woman in this passage then will you be willing to pick up your alabaster jar come forward so we can pray together. Let us pray. 5 P a g e