email bankruptcy <=> relationship deficit

I don’t know if that mathematical title means anything or not, it’s just what I was thinking after I read this article.

Some folks are so inundated; they’ve decided to declare what’s called “e-mail bankruptcy.” That means choosing to delete or ignore a very large number of e-mail messages without ever reading or replying to them.

One woman received 200 emails a day and finally called it quits. A funny thing happened.

 

It was a break for her co-workers who are usually flooded by her e-mails [emphasis mine].

Can you say synchronicity? I know you can.

This just proves to me that it’s the same deal as with postal customers who complain about the amount of junk they receive. A sure fire way to stop getting those catalogs? Don’t buy their crap!

I’m a pretty busy guy, at least it’s felt that way for the last couple of weeks. For me, 50 emails a day is heavy… it happens but not often, and that’s counting the numerous blog comments! Ahem.

wiped

A few days ago, I said

 

I have only myself to blame for the current state of affairs: Two articles to write in 24 hours and a third to begin when those are done.

Did I mention that I’m preaching this Sunday?

…And that I don’t even know what the lectionary scriptures are yet?

…And that I’m delivering the mail every day this week?

It actually got worse after that, which you know if you read what I posted this afternoon. But, and this is a very large but, it’s all over now. Well, almost. Two of three articles are written and submitted, the mail is delivered, the sermon is written and preached and even if it wasn’t all that great, it is over.

And I am wiped out. Tired all the way through.

Yet, there is no rest for the weary. Tomorrow it’s back on R5 and then R7 on Tuesday, perhaps Thursday and Friday as well, plus I need to set up the interview for that remaining article.

I’ll see ya when I see ya.

unexpected grace in an unexpected place

I’m including my sermon from this morning below. Not because it was that good, it wasn’t, but because of the story at the beginning. My week was absolute hell, but my coworker, Ann, demonstrated just how hard she rocks on Friday. There is a fair amount left out of the story which I’ve kept out for this online version because it reflects rather poorly on another person who caused the whole mess through inaction. Read the whole thing if you want, but definitely read the first few paragraphs.

You’ll probably never see this, but thanks Ann!

***

I want to start off with a story. I don’t know how much this has to do with the scriptures this morning and their emphasis on justification by faith, but it’s a good story, it’s a true story, and it happened to me this week. It’s not a really a story about me, though. It’s about a coworker of mine named Ann.

Let me set the scene for you. I do some freelance writing for a business to business magazine. I’m also a substitute mailman… the postal service calls me when they need me. Without fail, the post office calls me every day during the week my freelance assignments are due. And if by some chance I also have to write a sermon that same week, the post office will have even more work for me to do. This past week was one of those.

I have three articles due right now. I had just finished the first of these on Thursday when the post office called. They needed me for route 4 on Friday. The regular carrier was out sick and his sub, Ann, had told me back on Monday that she was hoping to have a much shorter route on Friday so she could spend the day with her daughter who is home briefly from college. No one else being available to do it, I said okay. I was not a happy camper.

I was even less happy early Friday morning when the mail was slow to arrive at my case. It was late and when it came there was a fair amount of it. This happened because I was in a hurry, it’s always that way. That’s where I was, standing at the mail case, confused, with somebody’s letter in my hand, when Ann arrived. Knowing my situation, Ann became a living parable of grace. She asked me if I wanted to switch and take the much shorter route that she was doing instead. Of course, that meant Ann would be doing the much bigger route, a situation she had been trying to avoid all week. I said no because I figured my sermon would get done eventually and Ann’s time with her daughter was more important anyway.

Ann insisted. She rescheduled her date with her daughter and gave me the much smaller route to do.

It did not take me long to get the mail from the short route sorted. When I was done with that, Ann was still sorting the mail I should have been working on. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her. “No. You need to get out of here,” she said.

I just stared at her, almost ashamed at what she had just done for me. She purchased a whole day for me by giving hers up. How powerless I felt as I responded the only way I could. “Thank you,” I said.

Not only did Ann save my hide by freeing up my day, she also helped me with my sermon by becoming the introduction. By noon, I was writing it down. I still had a ton of work to do, but now I actually had time to do it.

Maybe the post office is not the place one would expect to find grace. But I’ve actually seen grace at work there on more than a few occasions.

The unnamed woman in our gospel story was probably not counting on finding grace at the dinner party she crashed. It didn’t stop her from crashing it though. And in fact, she did find grace there.

The woman’s name is not given. It’s not because she didn’t have one. It’s not because of male chauvinism, either. Her name is not given because that allows us to become her. So whether you’re a man or a woman, you may think of yourself in her place.

Her situation is not very good. Was she a prostitute? Perhaps. She may not have been able to afford a jar of expensive ointment otherwise. Whatever she did or didn’t do with her life, it’s patently obvious to the people at the banquet that this woman is, first, of questionable character, second, not one of the invited guests, and third, looking for Jesus.

The dinner that this woman wasn’t invited to was being held in the home of a Pharisee. His name we are given. It’s Simon and he is almost certainly embarrassed when the woman appears suddenly and starts crying all over Jesus’ feet. Now, I don’t know how Luke got into Simon’s head but somehow he learned what Simon was thinking as this scene unfolded in his dining room. Though Simon doesn’t say anything out loud, Luke writes that he doesn’t Jesus would allow such a thing if he knew who this woman was.

Which is funny. It’s funny that he thinks this. Because Jesus does know who this woman is. He knows exactly who she is. He knows her name even though we don’t, and Simon probably doesn’t either. But Jesus knows more than her name. He knows her. Simon on the other hand, knows nothing and what he thinks he knows is wrong.

There’s one more thing Jesus knows. He knows what Simon is thinking. The little illustration Jesus creates about forgiveness is a direct response to Simon’s thoughts. “Simon,” he says. “The one who is forgiven much, like this woman, loves much. One who is forgiven little, loves little.”

Now let’s stop right here for a minute because Jesus is about to pull one of his trademark theological leaps and I want to take a good long run at it before we jump after him.

It would be easy to assume that Jesus was subtly criticizing Simon. Simon is a Pharisee and Jesus does love to take jibes at them. And Simon doesn’t seem to be a with-it sort of guy. Apparently he thinks he can honor Jesus by throwing a banquet for him. And when someone, an outsider, a female outsider, appropriately honors Jesus right before Simon’s eyes, he has to have it explained to him. But all that aside, I don’t think Jesus is really tweaking Simon so much as recognizing the rightness of what this woman of many sins did.

The woman doesn’t seem like someone worthy of any honor or recognition. She knows this and as a result she’s taken a position at Jesus feet. It might be helpful to recall that Jesus told a parable once about taking the least important seat at a banquet. He told that story to a bunch of Pharisees, who based on the current story, seemed to have missed his point entirely. As an aside, realize that in order to fall at Jesus’ feet the woman did not need to crawl under any table. The guests were probably reclined with their legs stretched away from the table. She might actually have slipped in and slipped out without many people noticing, had she not been weeping and smelling the place up with the perfume. She’s knows she’s an unworthy person. This is of course, the number one qualification for coming to Jesus.

But she knows something else, too.

The woman knows that she has been forgiven much. Her many sins are a thing of the past by the time she arrives. The woman and Jesus are the only ones who seem to be aware of this; and this fact is yet another thing that Simon does not know about her. Whether or not she had previously run into Jesus in person before we do not know, but somehow her sins have been forgiven. She is aware of having received grace, and we along with Simon and his guests are witnesses to her response.

The other day, when Ann graced me with the ability to finish this message by inconveniencing herself, I also responded. I can’t afford expensive perfume and I believe her husband and children might have thought it a bit strange if I showed up unannounced at their house, and began weeping at Ann’s feet.

Thankfully for me, Ann is a regular customer at the Philadelphia Soft Pretzel Factory on High Street. I know this because of the numerous times she has brought pretzels to the post office for us. Knowing this, I took a few minutes later in the day to purchase some pretzels as well as a gift certificate. I left it where she would see it when she returned from delivering the mail that I should have delivered. Sure, it wasn’t expensive perfume but pretzels are way better, and I’m confident that you all agree with me on that point.

Grace invites response. Demands it, in fact. And if you’ve ever been the recipient of grace from another human being; and I don’t mean just a favor, I mean something that freed you, the recipient, while at the same time exacting a cost from the giver. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that kind of human grace, you ache to respond.

How much greater, how much deeper must that longing be if you are the recipient of divine grace, of grace that only God can offer. The grace that Jesus has shown this woman and that he now publicly pronounces, by saying “Your sins are forgiven.”

Woah! Wait a minute Jesus! Only God can forgive sins. Only God can pronounce a person to be sin free. If you claim such authority then the only possible conclusion is that you are claiming the same authority as God. In other words, you’re saying that you’re God.

Jesus responds, not by speaking to the observers but to the woman: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

If you are a Pharisee, you’re probably more knocked out by this second statement than by the first.

But if you are the woman, you know all of this already. You know that forgiveness is yours. You know that all those many sins are washed away as if they had never been there in the first place. You know that you are saved even though you were unsaveable, that you are right with God even though you have lived impossibly wrong, that you are given peace even though there is still no earthly peace in your life.

And you knew that Jesus is exactly who he is claiming to be. You just wanted to stop by and say thank you before he goes.

It’s an amazing statement that Jesus makes: your faith has saved you.

Later, after Jesus is gone, a disciple named Paul who at one time had been just as unsaveable as the mystery woman at the banquet, would take this idea of saving faith and make it the cornerstone of his theology. He would attempt to explain it, writing down words that read almost like poetry. Perhaps they are something like the words running through the woman’s mind as she runs toward the Pharisee’s house and the banquet and Jesus, holding her jar of perfume, her eyes filled with tears of gratitude,

And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ…For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; ²⁰and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Paul was only writing down what the woman at the banquet already knew. That somehow Jesus made my many sins go away. I’m not entirely sure how he did it but I know they’re gone. It would be impossible to believe if I didn’t just know it somehow. How can I respond? My thank you is in my tears and in my worship of Him Who Saved Me, and in my life from this moment on.