Over the last couple of years the mathematical game called Sudoku has become immensely popular.Those who love this game report its addictive qualities—the thrill or “hit” they get when completing a hard section or the complete puzzle.They also like its logic, regularity, the patterns, the surety that it can be solved with some effort.There are clear bounds, clear rules, clear and clean reality to be counted on.
I remember going to doctor’s reception rooms when I was a child.In the book “Highlights” there was always that large line-drawing that had hidden within it all kinds of surprises—a frog’s face in the tree bark, a house that also could be seen as a boat if you looked at it right.These two games are different ways of approaching—one predictable, solvable, orderly…the other chaotic, mysterious, untidy.
Simon the Pharisee liked the Sudoku approach I’m guessing.He invited Jesus to his house for a dinner and then insulted him for receiving the gift of a grateful woman.I suggest that Simon liked the Sudoku method because it matched his habit of categorizing, distinguishing, solving.This woman was a “sinner” and Jesus didn’t yell and object when she poured the oil upon his feet and touched him in such an intimate way, so he must also be a sinner and certainly not a prophet.It was clear-cut.
Jesus had a different approach to life and faith…an unusual approach to the Kingdom of God that was more like the hidden-picture-puzzle; surprises, mysteries unveiled, chaotic, strange, wonderful.The way of God in this world becoming a Kingdom is of reversals, paradoxes, flips and wild unexpected discoveries.The first shall be last…the Son of God, a friend to “tax collectors and sinners”...the mustard seed becomes the greatest, the hated outsider Samaritan becomes the hero…the prodigal is welcomed home with a feast and the faithful elder brother commits himself to the hell of the courtyard.A woman, risks everything to show her gratitude, providing the hospitality that Simon neglects— kisses, anointing, lovingly wiping them with her long hair.She enters the Kingdom Jesus speaks about—Simon keeps himself out in the hellish courtyard with the proverbial mathematical bean-counting elder brother.
Jesus’ vision was for a society that blurred together—that welcomed all without judgmental and discriminatory distinctions; male & female, young and old, different colors and races, slave and free, insiders and outsiders all treated the same.Even the categories of sinful and righteous need to go, since we are all the recipients of God’s grace and are in need of forgiveness.
This vision caught on. It brought life to those who knew they needed it. We have glimpses of it in the Gospels here and there.This radical vision of equality and hospitality was lived for a time, but then the males and those who needed control began to retreat from Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom, and soon made it into what Jesus was fighting against—rules, categories, insiders, outsiders, good and bad.But for a time it happened though.We see only flashes of it in between the lines, where the Gospel writers didn’t clean it up, and in other Gospels, but it is there.Jesus’ open table fellowship resonated with those left out—the women especially.The last verses of our text today poi
nt to the women who were disciples of Jesus: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and others who funded the movement.
In his novel Love Feast, Frederick Buechner gives us a picture, which very much resembles the vision of Jesus. The main character is Leo Bebb, a crazy traveling evangelist who hosts a Thanksgiving dinner at the Princeton, New Jersey home of a wealthy friend.The meal is a spur-of-the-moment affair whose guests are a strange combination of local residents, nuns, secretaries (at least one of whom is a part-time hooker), and students not otherwise occupied for the holiday.Some have been “compelled” to come in through aggressive invitations.When most of the guests have eaten their fill and consumed generous portions of a wine punch, Bebb addresses them.Antonio Parr, the novel’s narrator, recalls the following fragments of Bebb’s talk:
He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a great feast.That’s the way of it. The Kingdom of heaven is a love feast where nobody’s a stranger.Like right here.There’s strangers everywhere you can think of.There’s strangers was born out of the same womb.There’s strangers was raised together in the same town and worked side by side all their life through.There’s strangers got married and been climbing in and out of the same fourposter together for thirty-five or forty years, and they’re strangers still.And Jesus, it’s like most of the time he's a stranger too.Even when he’s near as the end of your nose, people make like he’s nowhere around.They won’t talk to him.They won’t listen to him.They keep their eye on the ground.But here in this place there’s no strangers, and Jesus, he isn’t a stranger either.The Kingdom of Heaven’s like this.”
He said, “We all got secrets.I got them same as everybody elseCthings we feel bad about and wish hadn’t ever happened.Hurtful things.We’re all scared and lonesome, but most of the time we keep it hid.It’s like every one of us has lost his way so bad we don’t even know which way is home any more only we’re ashamed to ask.You know what would happen if we would own up we’re lost and ask?Why, what would happen is we’d find home is each other. We’d find out home is Jesus, that loves us lost or found or any whichway.”[1]
“Things we feel bad about and wish hadn’t ever happened.Hurtful things…”This woman, the rocks in the floor digging into her knees, crying and wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair in joy and gratitude for forgiveness…acceptance…love— she’s at the banquet of heaven already.
When we get in touch with our own need for God’s grace, our own hurtful things, we join her at Jesus’ feet, and join in the feast of the Kingdom.So be it.Amen.
[1]Frederick Buechner, The Book of Bebb, pp. 306-307.
