January 26, 2025 What Are You Hungry For? A Hunger for Belonging | Luke 7:36-50

Today we will reflect on Luke 7:36-50, A Hunger for Belonging. God created us in his image and God is a community within himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We’re not meant to be alone; this is why many people who find themselves on the outside of society or a group hunger for a place to belong, a place where they are accepted. But because of sin, we tend to create groups and those who don’t belong are kept on the outside. Jesus encounters a woman on the outside of society, a woman who is scorned and told that she doesn’t belong. Yet she is the one who comes to Jesus and honours him, who recognizes that he will accept her, even in her situation. Jesus offers her forgiveness, and invites her through his forgiveness, a place to belong.

Transcript

A Hunger for Belonging
Luke 7:36-50

Our story this morning is a story of contrasts: the holy, proud, and inhospitable host who has a strong sense of who belongs and who doesn't, and the prostitute who doesn't belong but is tolerated for the services she provides, but who knows her hope rests in Jesus and who shows she knows her need for Jesus through a humble act of devotion and worship. Belonging is an important part of being human. There is a desire in almost everyone to find a place where they feel like they belong. The first “not good” in the Bible is when God declares it’s not good that Adam is alone, so God creates Eve. Even God himself is a community, a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who completely belong to each other, who pour into each other in an endless dance of belonging. Instinctively we know the importance of belonging; this is why one of the harshest punishments we can do to someone is to shun or isolate a person from others. 
Jesus is invited to the home of a Pharisee named Simon for dinner. As they reclined around the table, a woman in town who lived a sinful life heard that Jesus was at Simon’s house so she shows up at the dinner party. One of the interesting customs of the time was that needy people were allowed to visit a banquet and receive some of the leftovers. This custom has its roots in God’s commands found in Leviticus 19 and 23, Leviticus 19:9–10, “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.” And Leviticus 23:22, “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.” God gives laws like this to the people to ensure that even the poor are cared for, and to remind Israel that the land belongs to God and they’re simply stewards of the land, and the Lord provides for all his people out of his love for them. Simon follows the law, but as we see, he doesn’t have the compassion of the Lord.
Often the host would hold a banquet in the front courtyard in order to show off an important guest, this is likely why the woman is able to get close to Jesus. However, some commentators wonder if Simon is testing Jesus here since he would have assigned servants to make sure something like this wouldn’t happen. Simon might be trying to see if Jesus is really sent by God or simply a charlatan trying to fool everyone, if Jesus really is worthy of Simon’s attention or honour. Jesus is hard to understand; he can heal the sick, he teaches with wisdom and authority, and yet he’s called a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, as Luke records just a few verses earlier. 
When you study history and observe the world around us, it almost seems natural for people to exclude others; to create groups designed to welcome some and reject others. We find it easy to dismiss some people and keeping others out. We choose based on whether we believe they are good, or in Simon’s case, proper enough to belong. Who do you keep outside your circles, who do you consider unacceptable? God knows this about us; this is why he gave Israel laws that upheld the honour and wellbeing of the poor, the widow, the foreigner and outsider. As you read through the laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the Lord keeps reminding the people that everyone counts, even the slaves. They were all considered part of the family when it came to Sabbath laws, everyone was given rights and responsibilities, everyone was to be provided for. Israel is to be an example to the nations of what God’s kingdom and people are to be; in contrast with the evil and selfishness that characterizes the nations, still today. 
The woman’s weeping as she kneels down at Jesus’ feet and covers his feet with her tears. She then wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair, kissing his feet over and over again, and then pours perfume over Jesus’ feet. What a beautiful act of devotion and worship that still echoes today thousands of years later! She knows Jesus is truly a friend of sinners and feels safe with him. Luke now turns our attention from the sinful woman to Simon the Pharisee. 
Simon is watching Jesus and how Jesus responds to what the woman is doing. Simon’s thinking in “them and us” ways. You can see a progression in Simon’s logical approach in thinking: first: if Jesus is a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him, second: if he knows what kind of woman she is he would reject her, and then third: he’s no prophet so I don’t need to pay attention to him. Simon’s ready to dismiss Jesus from his social circle because he accepts the sinful woman’s act of love and devotion, Jesus accepts her. Jesus knows what’s going on in Simon’s head and challenges Simon with a parable of two people in debt to a moneylender and how the moneylender forgives their loans. Jesus asks Simon a simple question, “Which of them will love him more?” Simon replies, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven,” a logical response.
Jesus’ parable reveals how the sinful woman has more self awareness of her standing with God and need for forgiveness and grace than the one who studies the Scriptures and law and has dedicated his life to them. Simon’s so proper and yet he shows Jesus great disrespect by not having anyone provide water for washing his feet before dinner and doesn’t even offer Jesus a kiss of greeting while the sinful woman lavishes Jesus’ feet with her tears and perfume and kissing them. Jesus now drops a bombshell; he forgives the woman of her sins and tells her that her faith has saved her. In this brief encounter with the sinful woman, we’re reminded that our faith is a gift from God and that forgiveness is unearned; faith is the basis and foundation of our salvation, not anything we do. 
This is the difference between Simon and the sinful woman; she receives forgiveness through faith in spite of her sin because she accepts Jesus, while Simon, who’s working hard at keeping the law as his way of pleasing God and receiving salvation through obedience to the law, is questioned by Jesus about his hospitality and lack of acceptance of Jesus. Salvation comes to the sinful woman because she acknowledges her sin through her tears and anointing of Jesus’ feet, she knows she has nothing to offer except her devotion. To Simon, the woman doesn’t belong, in Jesus’ eyes the woman belongs. 
The sinful woman knows how much she owes Jesus while Simon has a hard time believing he owes Jesus anything, that Jesus is a prophet or sent by God. Yet it’s not her love that saves her, it’s her faith, but her forgiveness by Jesus produces her love. Jesus ties the depth of a person's awareness of their need for forgiveness to the ability to love. There are different degrees of sin between Simon and the woman, yet both need Jesus’ forgiveness since he is God. Simon has a choice to make, either he believes Jesus is blasphemer, or he’s God in the flesh. The woman receives Jesus’ declaration of salvation; the way Jesus tells her in the Greek shows that her salvation is an accomplished act, she can’t lose her salvation since it’s rooted in faith.
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, faith is the only source of salvation. Faith is the way God’s grace in Jesus and the blessings of salvation is received. Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith emphasizes the centrality of faith in the Christian life. Paul teaches in Acts 13:38–39 “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.” To the church in Rome 10:9–10 he writes, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” 
Faith in Jesus makes you part of God’s family, gives you a place and relationships where you belong. John makes this point in John 1:12, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” while Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia makes the same point, Galatians 3:26, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.”