A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. There was a certain Pharisee who invited Jesus to dine with him. Jesus went to the pharisees' home and reclined to eat. A woman known in the town to be a sinner learned that Jesus was dining in the pharisee's house. The woman brought in a vase of perfumed oil and stood behind Jesus at his feet, weeping so that her tears fell upon the feet of Jesus.
Then she wiped them with her hair, kissing them, and perfuming them with the oil. When the pharisee, the host, saw all of this, he said to himself, if this man were actually a prophet, he would know what sort of woman this is that touches him, that she is a sinner. Jesus, in answer to his thoughts, said to the Pharisee, Simon, I have something to propose to you. Simon answered, teacher, speak. And then Jesus spoke.
Two men owed money to a certain money lender. One owed the lender a total of 500 coins, and the other only 50. Since neither man was able to repay, the moneylender wrote off both the debts. Which of them was more grateful to him? Jesus asked.
Simon answered, why he, I presume, to whom the moneylender remitted the larger sum? And Jesus answered, you are right. Then turning to the woman, Jesus said to Simon, you see that woman? I came to your home, and you provided me with no water for my feet. She has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
You gave me no kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. I tell you, Simon, that is why her many sins are forgiven, because of her great love. Little is forgiven the one whose love is small. Then Jesus said to the woman, your sins are forgiven.
At which his fellow guests began to ask among themselves, who is this that he even forgives sin? Meanwhile, Jesus said to the woman, your faith has been your salvation. Now go in peace. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. Please notice in this account, and this is not a parable. This happened. The parable has to do with the moneylenders and the two debtors, but this is an incident recounted of our Lord's life and experience of his. Notice that the name of the woman is not given.
Notice that she's referred to as a sinner, but she's not if the sin is not specified. Please notice that. The text does not identify just what she was a sinner. And remember, there's more than one way of being a sinner, even in those days. And even more so in those days, when it was very easy for a Jew to be a sinner by violating any one of the thousands of regulations, which made a person unclean before the law.
So we don't know who the woman for sure was. We do not know what the character of her immorality was. All we know is what we're told, what we read. And that's enough. It's plenty.
It's plenty. What I would like you to pay to note carefully is this. From time to time, we have to I I urge you, we have to realize what honest to God religion is. We have to put God in his place, transcendent. That means he's a Transcendent is a beautiful word if we know what it means.
It means he has no actuality of contact with this world. In other words, you cannot make any proposition. You cannot make any statement. You cannot make any judgment about God which is literally true. You cannot even say God is.
That little word is, when you apply it to God, does not have the same meaning as I say that altar is or that famous young man sitting over there is. If he isn't famous now, he will be in a few years. Give him time. That you can't even say that. Keep that in mind.
God is not one of us. There is not a thing you can say about God which is literally the truth. And as I say, you can't get anything smaller in English than the little word is, I s. And even that is not univocal when you apply it to God and when you apply it to something else. Now that's point number one.
And the first commandment says we are to worship God. How does a man how does the human being worship God? By knowledge, by will, by love, by contrition, by resolution, by dedication, by repentance, all of these things. And all of these attributes or qualities or affections or actions of of a human being, all of them are immaterial in themselves. So that religion in its purest sense transcends the material, the physical.
Now all of this is true, absolutely true, and people of religious insight recognize it. Now, that's not the end of the story. That's only the beginning of it. Because we are not disembodied spirits. We are not pure angels unless you're not now a Platonist.
We are human beings of tremendous complexity. And it's it's the I, the self, the human being who goes to God to know him, to love him, to serve him. Not a disembodied soul, not a not a spirit, not a pure spirit. It's a human being in the oneness of his humanity. And so we have to go to God as I, a human being, can go to God.
It isn't just that I sit back and make these acts, know God, oh God, I love you, I'm sorry for my sins. I've got to go do more than that. And one of the things I have to do is to join my neighbor in worshiping God. I need that help. How do I do that?
We're not two disembodied souls. We're not two spirits. We're not two angels. That only happens during the honeymoon. And even that, the angels kinda change a bit.
But we are human beings, and therefore, when I go to God to worship him, I go as a human being. When this woman who was a sinner came to Jesus, she came as a human being with material, with physical action. She wiped and washed his feet. She dried those feet with her hair. She brought in perfumed ointment and anointed his head and his feet.
None of those things have any religious value in themselves. Then why did she do it? Did she have to do it? In a sense in a sense, yes. Yes.
It's just the same with you and with me. I cannot go to god unless I'm absolutely out of my cotton picking mind, thinking that I'm something that I'm not, I have to go to God as a human being. And therefore, I go to him as I am, as an individual human being. So I go to him in my entirety. I go to him and I do weep.
Tears, emotion, feelings, sentiment. They are not acts of religion in themselves, but they become acts of religion when they are the act of a single human being. I I go to God as that sinful woman did, and I anoint his feet with my tears, and I try to drive. Remember, these were these were courtesies which the Pharisees should have given to an honored guest. He didn't do it because, you see, our lord was not actually, I think, an honored guest here.
You might say that the the pharisee I'm only guessing, but the pharisee may have brought Jesus in just to show him off because he was a spectacular person, or he may have brought him in to see what would happen. Because usually where Jesus was, something happened. So in doing that, he did not give Jesus the ordinary courtesies of an honored guest, and the sinful woman did just that. Notice, there's not a word said there that I'm sorry, Lord, for my sins. She doesn't say anything.
All she does is act, act. She puts those ideas of worship, of of repentance, of sorrow, of forgiveness, of contrition, of confession, of self accusation. She puts all of that into action. She does something, and that's what the visible church helps us to do, to do something. It's not enough for us to to withdraw up into the mountain place all alone and worship God.
First of all, as a human being, it's not fitting, it's impossible in the long run and generally speaking. We need to go to God in the totality of our being. With all that we are, our emotions, our feelings, our loves, our desires, our successes, our failures, our tears, our laughter. We need to go to God with all of that in the totality of my person and say, God, here I am. I do what I can.
I am actually doing something for you. Remember, in a very real sense, actions do speak louder than words. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.