| ps from ps/pkLuke 7:36-50; Matthew 25:35-40Fierce Love – reflections from Rev. Dr. Brian BlountHow fiercely does God love? Let me tell you a Galilean story. Simon, a Pharisee, a religious man who lives his life according to God’s laws, invites Jesus into his home. Customarily, such a host would greet a guest with acts of hospitality: the washing of feet soiled by dusty roadways; an anointing of oil for respite from the heat of the day; a kiss of welcome. Though Simon receives Jesus, he provides no such greeting.Impertinent and audacious, having heard that the great teacher is in Simon’s house, a woman, an unsolicited sex worker, invades the space. Immediately, the Pharisee, a man tasked with conveying God’s love to God’s people, distances himself from her. From his perspective, the love in which she traffics, commercially but not virtuously intimate, prohibits her presence. But Jesus graciously allows her to draw near.When she is close, ironically, she offers Jesus the hospitality that Simon had neglected. She washes. She anoints. She kisses.Scandalized, Simon rebukes Jesus for letting this woman touch him. Disappointed in Simon, Jesus responds with a parable about the extravagance and ferocity of God’s love: two people are in debt to a man, just as every one of us is in the debt of sinfulness before God.One debtor owes the man little. The other debtor owes the man much. Ridiculously, the man forgives both of them their debts. Which debtor, Jesus asks, will be the most grateful, will respond to the man with the most love? Of course, it is the man who owed the most.Simon believes that he owes God much less than this disreputable woman because he has lived a life of holiness and righteousness. Just so, Simon can never know the ferocity of the woman’s love for the God who loves her. According to Jesus, God loves her with an extravagance of grace that cancels all her sins just as surely as the creditor expunged his lender’s massive debt.Jesus tells the woman to go in peace. How can she, though, without help? Living on the streets, she finds welcome among those who struggle like her. Forgiven, she now needs the welcome she has shown Jesus to be extended to her by a community of Jesus people—people who recognize that they, too, have been graced by the extravagance ofGod’s fierce, unrelenting love.Did not Jesus say in Matthew 25 that to welcome him is to welcome those whom the self-righteous have rejected? The hungry. The immigrant. The homeless. The convict. Jesus’ church can show Jesus’ fierce love by inviting into the intimacy of their faith fellowship those whom others are scandalized by.By recalling Jesus’ journey to the cross, the season of Lent reminds us of God’s extravagant love. May this season inspire us to love others just as extravagantly, just as fiercely as God, through Jesus, loves us.ReflectDescribe an example of extravagant love for have experienced.Blessings,PS and PK |
