Your Faith Has Saved You

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

June 16, 2013

Luke 7:36-50

Your Faith Has Saved You

In the name of Jesus.

Why would this woman with a bad reputation wash Jesus' feet in a house that had a good reputation? The answer helps to explain Jesus' final words of this incident: “Your faith has saved you.”

If this sinful woman was washing Jesus' feet to earn His blessing, then she chose an awfully strange time and place for it. She could have found a place where Jesus' company would not have fussed over her presence. There were several occasions where Jesus ate with sinners, people with bad reputations. Why not wash His feet then? She would have fit right in and her kind deed might have appreciated by the others there.

But if this woman was washing Jesus' feet out of profound thankfulness, then she wouldn't have cared about the opinion of those Pharisees. We see that this was the reason why she washed Jesus' feet with her tears and her hair and expensive perfume. She didn't care where Jesus was. A house of good repute or a house of ill repute didn't mattered. What mattered was that her Jesus, her Saver, was there. And that's where she needed to be.

She was profoundly thankful because Jesus had spoken to her and forgiven her reputation, which was based on her actual sins that came out of her sinful heart. For years she had been without hope. She knew she was guilty of great sin—everyone in Simon's house knew who she. She knew that living a better life by avoiding old friends and places and finding better people to associate with might raise her reputation in the eyes of some. But perhaps she knew that a person's better behavior doesn't cancel out a person's life of sin in the judgment of the only one who counts: Jesus.

So if behavior didn't save that woman, even the act of cleaning Jesus' feet, what did save her? Jesus tells us: “Your faith has saved you.” And what is faith? It is the trust that Jesus had given to that woman. She trusted that she was clean, not because Jesus had ignored her past, but because He was going to die for her past and her present and her future. He was going to become her sin (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). He was going to become her bad reputation and give her His spotless reputation in its place. By her saving faith, her reputation before God was now spotless. And now she was compelled to confess her gratitude with this humble act.

Faith is grasping Jesus' promise of forgiveness. This grasping is caused by the Holy Spirit's work in us, so Jesus is absolutely correct when He reminds this woman that she specifically has been saved by her faith alone, the faith that He had given her, the faith that had led her to carelessly and with the greatest care, wash His dirty feet. Carelessly in regard to the opinion of other people; with the greatest care in her choices, buying expensive perfume, using her own hair as the rags that would wipe away the filth of His feet, the same feet that would walk to Calvary. The same feet that would be nailed to a wooden cross. The same feet that would bleed real blood for her sin.

Our own hearts are determined to read this assurance of Jesus—“Your faith has saved you”—as a Law to obey. We read faith as a choice to behave better. But Jesus assures us that this isn't at all the case by telling a story.

“A creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, and the other 50. Since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?” (Luke 7:41-42)

Make this story yours. How many more years on your mortgage? 19 years? Eight? 27? Now what if the bank sends you a note informing you that the bank has decided to pay off your loan in full—what would you do? You'd cry with joy and buy Whitty's for everybody at the bank all summer long. Or maybe it's your student loan to Palmer and a long-lost great aunt from Norway decides to pay it off in full. Happy? Of course and you're on the next flight to Oslo to say thank you.

Now some would be jealous and say that you are saying thank you only because the bank or Aunt Helga did something wonderful for you. Well, yes! But that isn't money-grubbing. That's just being profoundly thankful.

Let's not pretend that we are Jesus in this incident. Let's confess that we most identify with the Pharisees. Now let's be clear: the Pharisees were not going around with their noses in the air. They acted just like you. They helped people or they wanted to help people. We turn the Pharisees into silly caricatures and we do this so they can't reflect our own bad image back to us.

Some preachers today are going to preach this text and say that the point is this: “Don't judge others … like those bad Pharisees.” And what they mean is that a real Christian will never point out sin, wherever it is. In yourself. In others. Never ever call sin out and name it, especially if it popular. And if the sin in question is judging, then in that case, judge away and decry that evil sinner.

This approach that effectively snaps the Bible shut and locks it away changes Jesus' parable so that the there is no creditor or debtors. They don't owe 500 or 50—they owe zero.

When there is Law, there is no sin. And where this is no sin, there is no Savior. This woman was guilty of great evil and the Pharisees would have been right to call her on it. But they didn't do that and they were guilty of a greater sin—they despised the forgiveness of God.

Their final sin wasn't being judgmental. They were guilty of deep-seated jealousy. They despised this woman's forgiveness and they despised the Savior who forgave her.

Let us not be jealous, but rather rejoice in the forgiveness of a sinful person. Like a book, in viewing the covers of some people, we might think that we can see signs of past or present sin. And we might be right. And so we rejoice with them and in their forgiveness. The same Jesus that forgave them has forgiven us. And to despise their forgiveness is to drive yourself away from yours. To say that they don't belong at the foot of His cross is to say that you don't belong there, either.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Our faith grabs onto this promise from Jesus. And that's why it saves you—because He has.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.