I want you to leave this place a sinner!

Ok, now that’s going to get some folks around College Park talking! I can hear them now: "I knew it; I knew it: I just knew it! Those Episcopalians!"

To figure out why in the world I would say something like that, I’d like to meet some people. First, I’d like to introduce you to a man named Simon. He’s a good man. He cares very much about his faith and about following the rules of his religion. He’s a member of a lay order that takes the Scriptures very seriously and encourages its members to set themselves apart so they’re not corrupted by the world. Simon follows the rules and works very hard to live a highly moral, unstained life.

Next, I’d like to introduce you to a woman. I don’t know her name. I really wish I did. But maybe it’s appropriate that we don’t, because in her world, her name probably doesn’t matter much. We can only guess about her background, but we can be pretty sure that between the time she was a little girl and now, something went terribly wrong. Maybe sexual abuse, maybe economic coercion, maybe circumstances we can’t imagine, but I know that something in that little girl’s life went terribly wrong because I’ve never met a little girl who aspired to grow up and be what she is. Our translation of Luke calls her a "woman in the city, who was a sinner." Other translations call her a "woman of the town." We don’t need to beat around the bush. Not many people used her name, because most people just thought of her as a whore.

This woman and Simon are about as utterly different as you can imagine, but they have something in common. Each has experienced Jesus. We don’t know how that happened, but Jesus has just finished preaching the Sermon on the Plain (Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount), and I’m guessing that Simon was on the front row. The woman was standing at the edge of the crowd, straining to hear.

They each experienced Jesus, but they experienced him very differently. Simon thought, "This guy could be a prophet. Maybe. But maybe just a troublemaker. Intriguing guy, clearly something special, but also disturbing in many ways, unsettling. Still, worth looking into, but he could be something of a loose cannon." Simon is conflicted, so he hedges his bets. He invites Jesus to dinner and calls him "Teacher," both signs of respect, but he doesn’t greet him with the gestures of hospitality that, in his world, betoken a warm welcome — the footbath, the kiss of peace, anointing with perfume.

The woman’s experience of Jesus has been entirely different. It is hard to imagine her standing at the edge of the crowd without imagining her crying. Weeping tears of joy. Tears of gratitude. Tears of profound, profound joy and gratitude that at last, at last, she is hearing and believing, really believing, something that changes her life, that makes her not just a whore, but so much more. God’s beloved child. She is not conflicted.

And so, as probably the boldest thing she has ever done, she finds out where Jesus is going for dinner, and follows him.

At Simon’s house, the guests leave their sandals at the door and recline on low couches with their feet behind them. The doors would have been open, so she makes no noise when she comes in. When Jesus feels her touch his feet, he looks back. He doesn’t startle; he doesn’t say, "What are you doing here?" He is Jesus. Her tears of profound joy, profound gratitude run down the end of her nose and drop onto his feet; she dries them with her hair, kisses them, and anoints them with the ointment she has brought. It is a very intimate act (women weren’t supposed to touch a man or even show their hair), but it is not an erotic act. It is the embodiment of gratitude so sincere that it is moving even now.

And so the woman and Simon have crossed paths. The contrast cannot be greater between this socially and morally upright man with a name who has hedged his bets and not offered Jesus the customary hospitality, and this nameless, outcast woman who offers that hospitality with her tears, her hair, her kiss, her perfume.

The contrast is then between Simon and Jesus. Here are two religious leaders suddenly in the presence of a sinful woman. Simon has an understanding of righteousness that causes him to distance himself from her. He is shocked that she is in his house and scandalized at what she is doing. And in his mind, Jesus loses all credibility for not putting a stop to it.

Jesus has an understanding of righteousness that causes him to move toward her with forgiveness and a blessing of peace. Seeing the horrified look on Simon’s face, he says, "If a creditor forgives one person five hundred dollars and another fifty dollars, which will be most grateful?" Simon says, "The one forgiven the greater amount, I guess." "That’s right," Jesus says, "and you’re not very grateful. You hedged your bets. You didn’t offer me the customary hospitality, but she did, and she did it with her tears." Then Jesus says something shattering to Simon’s world. "Her sins, which were many," he says, "have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven [You, Simon!], loves little." Simon was right to be concerned — Jesus is a loose cannon.

Now, everybody understands the importance of being loving. And Jesus has just said that your ability to be loving is directly proportional to the number of sins for which you have been forgiven. Do you get how shocking that is? Your ability to be loving is directly proportional to the sins for which you have been forgiven.

I bet Simon got it. I bet he was regretting that he hedged his bets. I bet he was regretting that he’d invited Jesus at all, because this sounds like Simon’s worst fear. Simon is a man who tries to serve God by being perfect. Simon’s goal is not to commit sins, to present God with a holy, spotless life. Simon’s goal, in other words, is not to need forgiveness.

That’s tempting, isn’t it? I hate to think how easy it is for me to fall into Simon’s mindset. "I’ll be one of the good ones, God, one of the moral ones, one of the ones who follows the rules, one of the strict ones, so you won’t need to forgive me. Don’t worry about it; I’ve got it under control. Truth is, I don’t need you." And I hate to think how easy it is for me to experience the consequences of Simon’s mindset: "I’m one of the good people. I’m one of the moral people. I don’t break the rules." So when I see someone who isn’t good and moral, who breaks the rules, someone like, oh, I don’t know, like maybe a whore, it’s so easy to say, "There’s a really bad person. Not like me. I follow the rules. I’m good with God, and they’re not. I’m — superior. I don’t need to learn her name. She’s just a whore." So what are the chances of me being able to love that other person as a child of God? Not much.

All right, until now, those folks that I riled up at the beginning are probably still pretty riled up. They’re saying, "It can’t be right that Jesus wants us to sin." Of course, that’s right; Jesus does not want us to sin. The key here is that the woman loves much because she knows two things deep in her bones: (1) she is a sinner in great need of forgiveness, and (2) God has forgiven her.

Now, some of us have lots of trouble with both parts of that equation. Simon, for example, stands for a lot of us in thinking, "Look, I follow the rules; I try to live a moral life; I don’t rob banks, or murder, or commit adultery. I’m not a sinner. Sure, I might sin once in a while, but that’s an aberration; I’m not ‘a sinner.’"

The problem here is thinking of sin as only breaking Simon’s rules. Let me tell you my definition of sin, which takes into account God’s standard of perfection. "Sin is any thought, word, or deed which reflects less than perfect, loving relationship with God, other people, ourselves, or the creation." Any thought, word, or deed which reflects less than perfect, loving relationship with God, other people, ourselves, or the creation. If you think you can get through one day without sinning, you’re not paying attention. We tend to want to lower the definition of sin so we can jump over it. But we can’t. Martin Luther, the great sixteenth century reformer, said, "If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners." We really are real sinners.

The second part of the equation is about forgiveness. It’s so hard for many of us to believe that God’s forgiveness is there simply for the asking. When priests hear confession, what we’re really doing is ritualizing the truth that if you know you’re a sinner, and you want forgiveness, you’ve got it. We need the ritual because — that just seems way too easy. When Jesus says to the woman, "Your faith has saved you," he meant her faith, her trust, that God had forgiven her.

And this freely given forgiveness raises fears in people like Simon, and in the Simon part of me (and I suspect you). "The world is held together by rules and morality," Simon thinks. "If you start doling out forgiveness to whores and immoral rule breakers, the whole world will be immoral. We have to be strict." (Simon is the kind of Christian I dread being seated next to at banquets, by the way.)

This thinking is backward. Morality isn’t why we’re in God’s good graces. Morality is our profoundly grateful response to God’s forgiveness. People who really get how deeply sinful they are and how constantly forgiven they are, they’re not obsessed with their sin; they laugh a lot (think if Desmond Tutu’s giggle); they want to make God proud, and they are the most moral people you’ll meet.

So I don’t want to encourage you to sin. But I do want you to name the reality that you, and I, are real and not fictitious sinners. That would be terrible news if it stopped there, but we’re also forgiven sinners, merely for the asking. Now how important is that? This important: if you don’t get that very much, you won’t be able to love very much.

So, if you tell someone who wasn’t here today that I started off telling you to leave here as a sinner, be sure to tell them the rest of the story. And, when you tell it, whether literally or figuratively, tell it through your tears. Tears of profound joy. Tears of profound gratitude. Tears that run down your nose and drop onto Jesus’ feet.

The Rev. James H. Pritchett, Jr. St. John’s Episcopal Church, College Park, GA