Do You See This Woman?

Good morning. What a treat for me to be here and I’m so thankful to Dr. Stirling for his kind invitation to come here today to this historic church, and beautiful city, on this beautiful day. Thank you for your welcome. I bring greetings from Calgary, Alberta and from Ambrose University and Seminary and want to also say hello to the radio listeners. I had a mentor, almost kind of a tormentor. He was very good but he could see into me no matter how much I tried to wear a mask or evade his deep discernment of what was really going on with me. He just had these eyes that could penetrate and I found myself fessing up to things that I had hardly admitted to God. I learned to fear his questions more than his rebukes. There was a couple of times where he gave me a pretty searing rebuke and quite frankly I had it coming but it was these questions that I found got underneath the surface of me very deeply.

It felt sometimes like grappling hooks going down into innermost places to pull up those things that I didn’t even want to admit to myself and somehow with this man I would start blabbing. In that way he was somewhat like the Lord. You ever notice how many times God engages or Jesus engages people with questions, not easy to evade the questions, they’re not simply yes or no answers they’re calling out something deep in us. Where are you? Who told you that you were naked, that you had to cover up in some way? Where is your brother? Why are you so afraid? Do you want to get well? Do you love me more than these...fill in the blank; and this question that is in the text in Luke 7 that Robert, thank you, ably read, “Do you see this woman?”, Do you see this woman, that’s the question that Jesus asked Pharisee Simon. He turns to him but Simon’s full of these opinions, these judgements, these labels, twice the text says, “A sinner”, he’s boxed her in, pigeonholed her. He’s pretty much rendered the final verdict on her life and Jesus asked I think one of the most pointed subversive questions, “Simon do you see this woman or are you blinded by the conclusion that you’ve already reached about her because of indeed the live that she’s lived? Are you locking her in on that? Do you see this woman?”

I teach at Ambrose Seminary among other things a course in pastoral care and if I had to distill what that course is at the heart it’s actually - in a sense - an exposition on the text in Ephesians where Paul prays that the eyes of our heart would be open and would actually see. It turns out our spiritual formation, our becoming as Christ, our growing in our love for him, our adoration, our submission, our joining him in his mission, a lot has to do with how we see. That’s why I think Paul who - interestingly as you may know, had some ophthalmological issues, when he talks in Ecclesiastes he’s writing in such large letters it’s probably because he was myopic, he’s having to look very closely. But it wasn’t just an ophthalmological issue it was a heart issue for Paul. He had a very narrowness about how he saw people, and so I think it’s beyond just metaphor that when Jesus confronts him the first thing he does is knock him blind; and the first sign of his coming into the kingdom life is that something like scales from his eyes have been lifted and he can see. It’s not just the restoration of physical eyesight.

I think that’s why he would write things like in Ephesians, “I pray that the eyes of your heart would be open.” Or in Second Corinthians, Chapter Five, where he says that we are so convinced of who Jesus is and what Jesus had done in his death and resurrection that we no longer look at anyone from a human point of view, the original means of seeing and perceiving. We let judgement and opinion cloud how we see. In 2010, I was in the city of Cochabamba Bolivia, a beautiful city in mid part of Bolivia and I didn’t know until I got to Cochabamba that sitting up on a high ridge over the city is a statue of Jesus that is pretty much a replica of the one in Rio De Janeiro, the famous Christ redeemer. There’s one almost exactly like it in Cochabamba, Cristo de la Concordia, Christ of Unity, and it is actually a metre taller.

Apparently there’s some kind of rivalry between the cities, and I said to my friend who I was visiting there, “Can we go up to the statute and stand of the feet of this incredible three dimensional symbol of Christ, 30 plus metres high, arms outstretched, cruciform and welcoming to the entire world. Can we go up and stand at the base of it?”

He says, “Oh we can do better than that, we can go in Jesus!” So up the road we went. I was very excited about this and I ran up the stairs and was out of breath because it was 8,000 feet elevation in Cochabamba! I got to the feet of Jesus and to my great dismay Jesus was closed! I considered the ethics of a B&E, breaking in, but I didn’t. I went down the hill, not having that on my bucket list up until that moment and now it was the number one thing that I had almost had and missed. I was so very discouraged that we didn’t get into Jesus. By God’s grace in 2012, I was back in the city of Cochabamba and I said to the same friend, “Can we try again?” and we did.

This time, to my great delight Jesus was open so in we went. Inside the hollowed statue is a metal spiral staircase that goes up, up and up and about every 10 feet a scaffolding of planks, sort of like the scaffolding at the back of your building here, you stand on partly, I think, to not get dizzy from the perpetual climb. But also along the body of the statue, front and back on both sides are porthole size viewing points where you can look out and see the surrounding countryside. I would go up 10 feet, look out, back and forth, climb up another 10 feel, look out and finally I got to the last scaffolding, which is right at the place where Jesus heart would be and as I stepped up to it I had a sense that this is going to be an epiphany because as I looked out I realized, and I don’t know if it was serendipity or by design but the statue had been built at such an angle at height that only when you stood in that place and looked out could you see the entire city spread out below you, with nothing blocking the view.

The epiphany was that this is exactly the life that Jesus has invited me into. C.S. Lewis calls it “further up, further in.” More and more when I look at my city, when I look at your city, when I look at my neighbour, when I look at my colleague, when I look at my co-worker, when I look at my wife, when I look at my child, when I look at even the person I don’t like, more and more I see them through the heart of Jesus.
 
How’s your eyesight? Paul writes in Second Corinthians five about how we no longer look at anyone from a human point of view. “We used to” he said, “Before the Lord got hold of me that’s how I would look at people.” Then he actually goes and says that we look at people the way God does, who is not holding anyone’s sins against them but is actually making an appeal to them, it turns out through us. “Come and be reconciled, come and know the living God.” Paul indicates in second Corinthians five that if we’re going to actually live into that invitation it really depends on how we look at people.

There’s a theme running throughout the scripture that people who are trying to connect with God usually misbehave in the attempt. Have you noticed that? There’s a story in Mark’s Gospel, Chapter Two where the friends bring their friend on a gurney to have an encounter with Jesus and no-one will let them in, and so they break the roof. Or, there’s a story of Zacchaeus, the wee little man - I’m a wee little man so I kind of have an affection for him - misbehaving, climbing the sycamore tree, which is not an easy thing to do because the bark gives way in your hands, turns powdery and dusty, so it’s a scramble getting up. But he’s so eager to see Jesus so he climbs the tree. We can find story after story where people don’t quite behave themselves in their eagerness to see Jesus. Like this woman crashing the party. If there’s one person in this story that maybe should get it; that maybe should understand this woman’s hunger for Jesus, this woman’s delight, this woman’s thankfulness, it would be Simon.

Granted my claim about that is based on speculation. Speculation that the story in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 26, which also involves a woman, in that case named Mary, who crashes into a party and brakes an alabaster jar over Jesus’ feet. There’s much scholarly debate if those are parallel or separate stories. Let’s just assume for the moment that it’s the same story told from a different angle. If that’s the case then what’s particularly interesting about the parallel between Luke 7 and Matthew 26 is that Simon has a nickname: Simon the leper. Again, maybe they’re different stories but what if it was the same man and that nickname is somehow a descriptor of Simon’s past? What if at some point this man had suffered this dread disease that once diagnosed, you are banished from the community, sent to the outer bounds with other lepers and your life turns bleak.

If it was the same man then here’s further speculation that Simon was one of those lepers who broke the rules when Jesus came by one day. We know from Leviticus 11 that there’s a certain code that a leper has to observe when somebody comes near: they cry out, “Unclean, unclean” to warn people off. They dishevel their hair, they look ragged so they give a visual cue no to come near. But if somebody misses a visual cue you give an auditory one, you cry out, “Unclean, unclean.” We find stories in the gospel where lepers saw Jesus coming near and yet they broke the rules, “Come near, come near, if you’re willing” and he always is. He comes near and does what he does. He touches them often, which would be scandalous. And they’re healed. We do know from Luke 17 that in one case there was 10 of them all healed at once and only one came back. So go with me a little more on this imaginative excursion.

Simon was afflicted with leprosy, banished from the community, and no longer welcome in church, or in his own house, and he just wanted death to come. Then one day Jesus wondered by and he broke all the rules and instead of saying, “Unclean, unclean” he said, “Come near, come near.” Jesus did, healed him and maybe if any of this has any merit at all, this invitation that Simon the Pharisee makes to his home to have dinner with Jesus is to check Jesus out to see if he has credentials beyond that of just being a healer.
 
Well, like I say, that’s a speculation and maybe not accurate because who could have tasted the grace of God so profoundly to have your life so transformed by just a touch of Jesus and then want to withhold it from somebody else? Nobody would do that right? You wouldn’t do that would you? You wouldn’t have had your life so touched, the forgiveness of Christ so deeply extended to you, the welcome of God, his arm thrown open and said, “You’re mine.” You wouldn’t have ever experienced the grace of God that deeply and then withhold it from anyone right?

Now do you see this woman? I think I met her, this woman. I pastored for almost 18 years in a very interesting town on Vancouver Island. A woman phoned up one day and she wanted to get together with a pastor or pastors, so two of us met with her. She had a pretty bleak situation: she had a drinking problem, she was making money via the oldest profession and her three children had just been taken away by Social Services. She was desperate and she wanted to know if we could help in some way. So the pastor and I sat down with her and we shared with her the good news and she readily accepted that.

She was so delighted to know that there was a God who would welcome her and as we were saying good-bye to her that day, the other pastor said, “Listen, when you come to church this Sunday, it’s a fairly big congregation you might feel overwhelmed if church isn’t part of your experience, so feel free to come a bit late, you can sneak in through the back, sit at the back and then you can leave as the last song is playing just to acclimate yourself to the experience of going to church.” She looked at him like, “What are you talking about? I have been waiting my whole life for this!” She was there an hour before anyone else, except for the music team that was warming up. We had two services and she stayed for both, she virtually met everyone in the church and she was the last to leave.

The next Sunday she came and brought a friend. What I failed to mention is that she’s made this decision to leave the oldest profession but she still dresses the part so it’s rather inappropriate. What she’s wearing on this particular Sunday, well… it’s a call and response church, and every time I say something, she jumps up and responds, “Hallelujah” and “Amen.” She comes back the next week with her friend and she’s doing the same thing. I remember I was preaching on the theme of servanthood, that if Jesus somehow touched your life that not as a way of paying back, but just as an overflow of gratitude, you want somehow to serve. It was our Eucharist or what we call in the Baptist tradition a Communion Sunday, and I finished the sermon said, “Would the servant leadership team please come up?” For some reason there’s only two people who are designated such and they look like they’ve been called to the principal’s office, no kidding. They’re just moping their way down the aisle to the front. All this woman heard was: “Would the servant’s come up?” She’s just listened to a sermon on if you’re life has been touched by Jesus you’ll want to be a servant and she watches two people walk up to the front. She is utterly appalled that only two people in this large church love Jesus enough and have experienced the love of Jesus enough that they actually want to be servants. She gets up, puts her hands on her hip and looks at the entire congregation with gimlet eyes, like, “You bunch of losers!” She’s just astonished that there’s only two people that love Jesus that much so she walks up to the front to serve communion and I’m dying. I’m thinking, “Oh my goodness how do I ask her to go sit down without making too much of a spectacle?

Remember I’ve not described but I’ve hinted how she’s dressed as well. I’m about to lean forward to whisper into her hear, explaining the terrible mistake I’ve made, but as I’m leaning down I quite distinctly sense the Lord speaking to me. And guess what he asked? Do you see this woman? That’s the story Jesus tells Simon, “Do you see this woman?” Mark, do you see this woman? And instead of saying, “Go sit down” what I say to her is, “Since it’s your first time serving communion do you mind if I help?” and I remember walking down the aisles, she with her fishnet stockings and stiletto heels and my prayer at that point is, “Please Lord, don’t let her trip, especially not on that couple.”

It was one of the finest memories I have of pastoral ministry. As I looked out into the eyes and faces of men and women that I loved, and at that point, had served for about 10 years, I watched them watch her and not one of them failed to see her. I often get letters and emails from people and sometimes they have an issue. I got a lot after that but not one person took me to task. Everyone said thank you for seeing that women. What could I do? Jesus had welcomed me, didn’t hold my past against me, what could I do but extend the very grace that we had ourselves received. Jesus’ parting words to this woman are, “Go in peace”, “Go in Shalom”, “Go be the bearer of something of the peace of God, the blessing of God, the wholeness of God, the fullness of God, go to that place where you keep discovering the shalom of God.” So let me end with this, “Do you see this woman?”