Loved Extravagantly:What DID Jesus DO?
We had been sitting in the hospital for seven hours, and it was finally time for the doctor to sign off and send us home. What was supposed to be a simple heart cath for my dad turned into a little more extensive roto-rooting and the placement of multiple stents. Still, though, just a few short hours later, he was headed home.
I was only half listening to the nurse as he went over my dad’s post-procedure instructions. When I heard the nurse mention driving, though, I perked up. The cardiologist hadn’t mentioned anything about driving in our discussion about the procedure, so I was caught a bit off guard when the nurse told my dad he wasn’t supposed to drive for a week.
Dad and I both looked at each other with the same confused look on our faces. A week of no driving meant I would be assuming the role of chauffeur for my parents, as my mom has a TBI and we prefer her not to drive. I went to the parking lot and pulled his truck around as the nurse waited for Dad to get dressed and then wheeled him to the front door.
He jumped up into the passenger seat, and we headed home. Immediately, we started discussing this driving restriction. With his signature ornery laugh, Dad said, “Well, I guess you have to drive us to church on Sunday.” My groan was clearly audible, as I said, “Seriously, dad? Don’t you just want to go golfing with me instead?”
I have a hard and fast rule that I do not go to my parent’s church. I love them, but I hate their church. It’s everything I have spent years deconstructing from. I’ve spent countless hours trying to find a church near them that isn’t triggering, but I’ve come up empty every time. Feeling all the daughter guilt, I reluctantly agreed to take them to church on Sunday; however, as it was the Sunday after the Trump verdict, I did tell them I was leaving at the mere mention of anything related to Trump during the service.
While there was (miraculously) no mention of Trump during the service, I knew I was in trouble as soon as I sat down and opened the bulletin. The title of the sermon was “Men, Women, and the Church,” and the text was from I Corinthians 11:1-16. The intelligent thing for me to do would have been to simply excuse myself and come back later to pick my parents up, but I’m not always the most intelligent human, so I stayed and tried not to audibly scoff throughout the service.
It was a sermon that mirrored the sermons I had been raised with–all about how we can ignore certain verses because of culture, but not others because they’re universal and apply today. It was full of circular reasoning, logical fallacies, rules, and laws and completely devoid of the love and grace of Christ. I was so angry because of the faulty theology, but I was also so sad because of the number of people who were being misled, told they were less than, and marginalized in a place that should be overflowing with the love of Christ.
At one point in the sermon, the pastor went off on a tangent and adamantly expressed how men need to dress and look like men, and women need to dress and look like women, how there’s no place for anything else in our society, and how this practice of men looking like women and women looking like men is what’s wrong with our society.
What I wanted to say was, “Excuse me sir, but your wife has short hair and is wearing pants,” but that didn’t seem like the best approach.
At the end of the sermon, the pastor gave this seemingly heartfelt plea for those who don’t know Christ and how he hoped they would find him here today.
I face-palmed and immediately looked at my dad and said, “I’m not sure how that could happen because Jesus hasn’t even been mentioned today.”
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A Seat at the Table
We’re in the middle of this series working through the book of Luke and looking at what Jesus DID when he was here on earth. Last week, we talked about Luke 7:36-39 where Jesus was invited into Simeon’s, a Pharisee’s, house for dinner. While Jesus was there, a known prostitute came, knelt at his feet, washed them with her tears, and anointed them with an expensive perfume. During this exchange, Simeon sat watching, but he was thinking:
“This man can’t be a true prophet. If he were really a prophet, he would know what kind of sinful woman is touching him.”
Luke 7:39 TPT
Jesus is engaged in this loving, heartfelt exchange with this woman whose heart is committed to serving and worshiping him while Simeon is sitting back, silently judging both this woman and Christ. Before Simeon says anything, Christ responds:
Jesus said, “Simeon, I have a word for you.”
“Go ahead, Teacher. I want to hear it,” he answered.
“It’s a story about two men who were deeply in debt. One owed the bank one hundred thousand dollars, and the other only owed ten thousand dollars. When it was obvious that neither of them would be able to repay their debts, the kind banker graciously wrote off the debts and forgave them all that they owed. Tell me, Simeon, which of the two debtors would be more thankful? Which one would love the banker most?”
Simeon answered, “I suppose it would be the one with the greater debt forgiven.”
“You’re right,” Jesus agreed. Then he spoke to Simeon about the woman still weeping at his feet.
“Do you see this woman kneeling here? She is doing for me what you didn’t bother to do. When I entered your home as your guest, you didn’t think about offering me water to wash the dust off my feet. Yet she came into your home and washed my feet with her many tears and then dried my feet with her hair. You didn’t even welcome me into your home with the customary kiss of greeting, but from the moment I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You didn’t take the time to anoint my head with fragrant oil, but she anointed my head and feet with the finest perfume. She has been forgiven of all her many sins. This is why she has shown me such extravagant love. But those who assume they have very little to be forgiven will love me very little.”
Luke 7:40-47 TPT
Jesus knew what Simeon was thinking about both him and this woman, and he responded with this story about two people who had different amounts of debt, but whose debts were both forgiven by the banker. Then, Jesus asks Simeon who would be more thankful, and Simeon responds that the one with the greatest debt forgiven would be the most grateful.
Meanwhile, the woman is still weeping at the feet of Jesus.
Jesus goes through the litany of things the woman did for him. Then, he explains that this woman has shown him such extravagant love because she has experienced his extravagant love. Simeon, on the other hand, assumes he has little to be forgiven for, that he has little need of Christ’s love in his life, and thus, shows very little love to Christ and others in return.
We have to be so careful here in how we read and teach this. It’s easy to default to the “she was living in sin and needed forgiveness” theology without thinking through the depth and breadth of this woman’s situation. She was a sex worker, and thus, a marginalized member of her society who the Pharisees (theoretically) would have maintained separation from. Religion and culture didn’t grant her access to God, salvation, hope, love, or acceptance before Christ.
This is bigger than just forgiveness and salvation.
This is about love, acceptance, and having a seat at the table.
That’s what Jesus was offering her–extravagant love instead of separation, marginalization, and judgment. Through Christ, this woman, and every other marginalized person, has a seat at the table.
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I Don’t Want to Be a Pharisee
If you’ve been around here or the church for a while, then you probably associate the Pharisees with something negative. You know they were highly religious Jews who were constantly trying to catch Jesus in things they considered sinful, culturally unacceptable, or unlawful. While all those things are true, there was more to the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were a pretty complex group of people, but it’s tough to nail down exactly what they were after because other people labeled them Pharisees–they didn’t refer to themselves by that title. Scholars and historians agree on these details related to the Pharisees:
They held a strict adherence to Jewish law
They believed in the importance of following both the written law and the oral law (what God told Moses, not just what was written down)
They were legal experts
They preached piety among all Jewish people
They were laypeople
They focused on tithing, ritualistic purity, and sabbath observance
They sought political influence
They were essentially a political interest group
They sought social, political, and legal influence
They desired for the teachings to go beyond the temple and into ordinary lives
It’s funny. It’s almost like we have modern-day Pharisees doing these very same things…That’s a topic for another day, though.
Remember, Simeon was a Pharisee. This dinner party was full of his Pharisee friends. Ironically, though, Simeon and these other Pharisees completely ignored the cultural and social norms when Jesus came into the house for this dinner party.
Did you catch that? These men who preached the strict adherence to religious and cultural law completely disregarded it when it came to Jesus entering the home for this dinner party.
They didn’t wash his feet or even offer him water to wash his own feet.
They didn’t greet him with the customary kiss of greeting.
They didn’t anoint him with oil.
All three of these acts were symbols of hospitality and courtesy a host should perform for his guests.
And Simeon did none of them.
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Love Begets Love
If I was Simeon and his Pharisee friends in this scenario, I would have been completely embarrassed and humbled. I would have been throwing myself at the feet of Jesus, begging for forgiveness and love. Simeon doesn’t do that, though. Instead, Simeon and his buddies continued to judge and question Christ:
All the dinner guests said among themselves, “Who is the one who can even forgive sins?” Luke 7:4p TPT
In some ways, though, this is a fitting response, isn’t it? This woman who was shown extravagant love and accepts that love goes on to show extravagant love. Simeon and his Pharisee friends assumed they were good enough on their own and didn’t need Christ’s extravagant love, so they loved Christ very little.
I don’t want to be like Simeon.
I don’t want to assume I have little to be forgiven, that I’m good enough as it is, and that I don’t need Christ’s extravagant love. And, I definitely don’t want to fail to show Christ’s extravagant love to others.
Love begets love. When we are moved by Christ’s extravagant love for us, we want to offer extravagant to others. When we refuse, deny, or fail to realize our need for Christ’s extravagant love, we fail to extravagantly love others with the love of Christ.
Experiencing Christ’s extravagant love allows us to extravagantly love :
The marginalized
The misfit
The misunderstood
The hopeless
The disgraced
The outcast
Even if they don’t look like us.
Even if they don’t dress like us.
Even if they aren’t the same gender as us.
As I listened to the hate being spewed from the stage that Sunday morning, my heart broke for the people sitting in the audience who didn’t fit the mold of “Christianity” created by this preacher. My heart broke for the people who left that church convinced something was wrong with them and they’re what’s wrong with society.
I just wanted to hug them, shower them with extravagant love, and invite them to take a seat at my table.
Friend, I pray your church isn’t spewing hate. I pray the Jesus who showered this woman with extravagant love and moved her out of the margins to the center of the narrative is the Jesus you are this week and the Jesus your church welcomes on Sunday mornings.
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Reflections:
Who are the people in your life who consistently show the extravagant love of Christ?
Who are the people/groups who tend to act a little more like Simeon instead of Christ?
What can you do to show Christ’s extravagant love to the marginalized, the misfits, the misunderstood, the hopeless, and the disgraced this week?
