ACCEPTED... AND CELEBRATING!

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was sitting at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. '

And he said to the woman, 'Your faith has saved you; go in peace.'

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

(Luke 7:36-39; Luke 7:50; Philippians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Romans 15:7 -- all RSV)


The Woman

'A woman of the city... a sinner' did not have a home in suburbia. Her life was rough; she did not always have a lock on her door. Her body was her asset, and sex paid better than a kitchen. She was admired in a fashion, as a body with a price. Sometimes she was used and not paid and that was a double blow to her diminished sense of self-worth.

She tried not to think of her past -- the aches and the cold and the acquaintances who never quite became friends. There was no point in thinking of the future for days never went as planned.

Jesus was different. He did not size her up. He did not expect her to perform. He did not condemn her. He accepted her as she was.

She gave herself totally to him; not a giving as she gave to the men who paid her. She wept. No barriers. A release of feeling, of anger, of frustration, of joy poured over his feet. And she wiped his feet with her hair, not pausing to consider -- for to expose your hair like that then would be like removing your bra and using that as a towel now. She made full use of her body, but in such a different way.

Where did she get that expensive flask of ointment? Best not to ask. A whole flask. No token action, but all she had. As always, she traded past end future for the present.

Her confession was total. Not in words, for in her experience words were empty. But in action, with her whole life -- tears, hair, ointment.

But doesn't forgiveness depend on repentance?, And what did she say that showed faith?. The depth of her turning was that she staked everything on his acceptance; for even her city reputation now would be tarnished. Her fragmented self at last was touched in a way that began a healing, and she could go in peace.


Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual.

Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations

In a non-threatening atmosphere where there is warmth and acceptance and someone to receive what/we have to give, creativity begins to flow.

Elizabeth O'Connor, Eighth Day of Creation

You touched me and I burned for your peace.

Augustine, Confessions

It is not the love of the woman that brings her forgiveness, but it is the forgiveness she has received that creates her love. By her love she shows that much has been forgiven her, while the lack of love of the Pharisee shows that little has been forgiven him.

Paul Tillich, The New Being

Simon the Pharisee

Simon was an educated man with a home and a sound position in the established order. He was interested in Jesus -- only professionally, of course. Really a favour to have such an itinerant teacher home for lunch.

Could have interviewed him at the office, but sometimes the home atmosphere can put these types at ease. Amazing how a feed and a few glasses can loosen the tongue. Don't overdo it though; no washing the feet or kiss of peace as a real guest might expect. Show my hospitality and my broadmindedness and pick up ideas he might have.

Then this prostitute came in. I was embarrassed, but Jesus did not mind at all. He just let her go on and on. I thought, 'You're a lecher or a fool. No prophet would let her get close and allow her to carry on like that.' he tried to carry it off with an aphorism or two, but now I had his measure.

In the traditional Christian view, the Pharisees have become representatives of everything evil, but in their time they were the pious and morally zealous ones. Their conflict with Jesus was not simply a conflict between right and wrong; it was, above all, the conflict between an old and sacred tradition and a new reality which was breaking into it and depriving it of ultimate significance.

Paul Tillich, The New Being

The burden he [Jesus] wants to take from us is the burden of religion. It is the yoke of the law, imposed on the people of his time by the religious teachers...

Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations

We withdrew after the rector of the day declared it sinful to guess the number of beans in a jar at the annual church fete.

Patrick White, describing why he left a church in Flaws in the Glass

Jesus

Jesus accepted Simon's invitation. He noticed the social snubs and observed how Simon did not want to meet him in a personal fashion but sized him up -- role 'A' assessing exhibit 'B'. He knew well enough how the woman felt on that score.

As she reached towards him in a desperate, awkward, overdone, extravagant and total bid for recognition as a person, he allowed her -- and freed her -- to do so.

The Pharisee was offended, bottled up. So Jesus dealt with him gently and verbally. Simon had too much to lose to respond from within and so he replied cautiously. Concerned primarily about a theological point, Simon and his colleagues missed completely one of the warmest and deepest turnings to God.

What may appear as indifference to religion in our culture may, in fact, represent a concern to get at a more basic Christianity.

Veronica Brady, A Crucible of Prophets

Jesus did not seem to be the person they had told me about. He was more ironic for one thing; ruder for another. He appeared to have a major preoccupation; he did not like people who thought they knew what life and love was all about, but he liked the ones who had made a mess of things, who had given up the struggle and just did the best they could. Goodness was not what he went for. Brokenness was.

Laura's impression on reading the Gospels, in Monica Furlong's novel, Cousins

The church should be celebrating and giving so much that it draws people to him [Jesus]. I think the church should be an example and not a judgment seat.

Noel Paul Stookey, interviewed in On Being

No matter what danger enthusiasm may have brought to the church, the final defeat of enthusiasm has always signalised the sleeping church, even the busiest one... There is no Christian freedom without a dose of enthusiasm; and today/,,, after long abstention, that dose ought to be generous rather than meagre, even if the result should be slight intoxication.

Ernst Kasemann, Jesus Means Freedom

The community which is filled with different energies of Christ's liberating power is therefore not an exclusive community of the saved, but the initial and inclusive materialisation of the world freed by the risen Christ.

Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit


Father, I see in Jesus someone different. Centred in you. He drew out all the woman was wanting to give and he gently probed Simon’s brittle veneer. A centre in you; that is your gift. I sense it sometimes, at least in part. You give good gifts and I should like more of that one, a gift that somehow enables others also to share in the gift.

Lord Jesus, I am under pressure to be sound and orderly and a company person. I get strokes for that. And its safe, secure. But something inside me shrivels. You never operated that way, and your people never have thrived that way. I push away the turmoil; help me to accept it. I try to plan; help me to accept the people and events that tumble in, and to know the wholeness that is your peace.

You are here with me, Spirit of the living God. You encourage me to live in the freedom that is the logo of your presence. There are no 'proper' ways to celebrate your freedom. Your freedom area is large and inviting, so 1'11 celebrate in the ways you open to me.


A Benediction

'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,' said Jesus (John 14:27, RSV).

Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 224-228

YOU ARE ACCEPTED

You Are Accepted (Paul Tillich)

The Lord your God chose you out of all nations on earth to be his special possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other nation that the Lord cared for you and chose you... it was because the Lord loved you.

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.'

The Lord says, 'When Israel was a child, I loved him and called him out of Egypt as my son... How can I give you up Israel7 How can I abandon you?... My heart will not let me do it! My love for you is too strong.

The one who comes to me I will not cast out. Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.

God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence. But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.

Accept one another, then, for the glory of God, as Christ has accepted you.

(Deuteronomy 7:6-7, NEB; Jeremiah 1:4-5, RSV; Hosea 11:1,8, GNB; John 6:37, RSV; John 8:11, RSV; Romans 3:22-24, GNB; Romans 15:7, GNB)


One of our most basic needs is to be accepted. When others recognise and value us we feel alive and fulfilled. We need acceptance just as birds need air and fish need water.

Who cannot recall the nervous tension of the first day at a new school or a new job? When we move to a strange location how greatly we long to be accepted by our new neighbours. Advertisers can play on this need, telling us that if only we wear this, smoke that or drink this we will be part of the 'in' group.

The church is God's answer for our need to belong. Our gospel speaks of a God who accepts us as we are. Then we are capable of accepting others, even as Christ has accepted us. Barriers are down. We belong. Of course the world has not yet seen it as it ought to be. We are all slow learners in the church, the 'school for sinners': most of us are in the remedial class. But the first and absolute necessity is that we can accept that we are accepted. To grow in that awareness is to grow into the potential of truly accepting others. 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself,' says God.


Whenever one finds an individual who has become a fount of bitterness, taunting and criticising people, saying cruel things that wound the hearts of friends, one may be sure that he is dealing with someone who hates himself, who loathes and despises himself, and that the bitterness manifested by such a person is but the projection of his own contempt for himself.

J.S. Bonnell, Pastoral Psychiatry

As for others and the world around him he never ceased in his heroic and earnest endeavour to love them, to be just to them, to do them no harm, for the love of his neighbour was as strongly forced upon him as the hatred of himself, and so his whole life was an example that the love of one's neighbour is not possible without love of oneself, and that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair.

Description of Harry Haller, character in Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

The act of self-acceptance is the root of all things. I must agree to be the person who I am. Agree to have the qualifications which I have. Agree to live within the limitations set for me... The clarity and the courageousness of this acceptance is the foundation of all existence.

Romano Guardini, from his essay 'The Acceptance of Oneself'

Jesus says to us, in effect: Accept yourself as God accepts you; be yourself, love yourself properly. Take off your darkcoloured glasses and see yourself not as superior or inferior to anyone else, but as you, a person who matters. You were not meant to go through life on your hands and knees, you were meant to walk tall. You are more significant, stronger, wiser and more creative than you think. I am with you to help you, and to give you life to the full.

W. Scott McPheat, Coping with Life

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable... this is the genuine meaning of the Paulinian-Lutheran doctrine of 'justification by faith'.

Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be

Sometimes at that moment [of despair] a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you...'

Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations

There are many religions which know no divine welcome to the sinner until he has ceased to be one. They would first make him righteous, and then bid him welcome to God. But God in Christ first welcomes him, and so makes him penitent and redeems him. The one demands newness of life; the other imparts it. The one demands human righteousness as the price of divine atonement; the other makes atonement in order to evoke righteousness.

J.S. Whale, Christian Doctrine

God loves you as though you are the only person in the world, and he loves everyone the way he loves you.

St Augustine

The whole doctrine of justification by faith hinges, for me, upon my painfully reluctant realisation that my Father is not going to be more pleased with me when I am good than when I am bad. He accepts me and delights in me as I am. It is ridiculous of him, but that is how it is between us.

John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God

Jesus loves me! This I know For the Bible tells me so.

Anna Warner

Christ accepts us as we are... But when he accepts us, we cannot remain as we are. Acceptance is nothing but the first step of love. Then it exposes us to a process of growth. Being accepted by the love of Christ means being transformed.

Walter Trobisch, Love Yourself

Four stages of growth in Christian maturity: l. love of self for self's sake 2. love of God for self's sake 3. love of God for God's sake 4. love of self for God's sake.

Bernard of Clairvaux

This fourth step was what shocked me at first, but as I reflected on it I realised the medieval saint was exactly right. The hardest thing about God to love is the fact that he made me, and to come to accept this and love this is the greatest challenge facing most of us.

John Claypool, The Light Within You



Prayer:

Lord, the wonder of your grace always amazes me. There is a part of me which still finds it hard to believe. Somehow it seems to reverse all religious protocol. You love me as I am, grubby and outrageous, and without my first having to wash my hands and comb my hair. You have accepted me, completely. No reserve. Just as I am without one plea.

But. There always has to be a 'But'. This is a 'But' of grace. It does not follow logic but is the dictate of love. 'But that thy blood was shed for me'. So I am accepted, as I am, because of Jesus and not because I am good enough. Even as a child I sang, and believed, 'There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin'.

Why do I still find it so hard to accept acceptance? Is it the pride that is the root of all my sin?

Lord, here today I want to sing of your amazing grace that accepts me. I am so often defeated by the memory of my own rebellion, by disgust at my indifference, by shame at my weakness. How can you love me? I don't even like myself when I see myself as I really am.

But then you really do tell me in Jesus' words that you love the real me. May your word of acceptance lift me to that love of self which is so different from egoism and which is only ever possible because you first loved me.

Help me to accept others just as they are. Not to be indifferent to their need to change but to begin with them just as you have begun with me. Show me how really to open up to others and not to fear my vulnerability.

So may my relationship with you shape my relationships with others -- accepting, loving, encouraging.

A Benediction

May the amazing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you, assuring you that in love the Heavenly Father fully accepts you and that the Holy Spirit is changing you into the person who can accept all others as Gods children.

All the above from Rowland Croucher, Still Waters Deep Waters, (Albatross/Lion) chapter 15.



DISCUSS:

1. The basic axiom about self-esteem relates to the issue of 'Who gives you your grade?' Why is it so difficult to 'rewrite the script' when powerful people have helped us define our worth throughout childhood and beyond?

2. '"PBA" - Performance Based Acceptance - means that you base your hopes that somebody likes you on the basis of how well you are performing. It happens at home, in school, with friends, at your work... Is it inevitable?

3. When I (Rowland Croucher) am asked 'What's the cause of pastors and parishioners having conflict?' one answer is: 'There's a mismatch of expectations and reality - perhaps both ways.' How in the church can we match a theology of acceptance with the reality of judgment-by-performance?

4. "Most people are more 'against' those who deny half their creed than those who deny the whole of it" (Who said that?). Is it true? Why?

5. 'Terrorists are people who think they have the whole truth, and anyone who doesn't share it is a legitimate target... Most of us believe that no-one has the absolute truth... That life is a journey toward truth, that we have something to learn from each other; and that everybody ought to have a chance to make the journey.. So, for us, a community is made up of anybody who accepts the rules of the game. Everybody counts, everybody has a role to play, everybody deserves a chance and we all do better when we work together...' (Bill Clinton, 2001 BBC Dimbleby Lecture). Is that just too naive?

6. "Open membership churches feel that their 'closed' counterparts are legalistic, putting adherance to a particular doctrinal interpretation ahead of accepting others whom God has accepted. This criticism surely has validity. Closed membership is a denial not only of our Baptist principle of the liberty of individuals to be guided by the Holy Spirit, perhaps into another point of view, but is, above all, a denial of the Christian good news about God's grace." (See http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/9024.htm for the whole article). This statement is a reference to the many Baptists (and others) who insist on baptism as a prerequisite to acceptance into church membership. How does this square with the biblical notion of 'Grace'?

7. '"Accept one another". There are persons who we like to have around. There are others who are "only tolerated"... "Birds of a feather flock together". But why? People who are like us, who think the same thoughts... confirm us.' (Jurgen Moltmann, The Open Church, pp. 28-30). So how do we accept people we don't like, or who are 'handicapped' in some way?

8. 'Like all children I had always wanted my mother's blessing...But my mother is not grace to herself; therefore she simply doesn't have it in her to give to anybody else. I have finally let her off the hook. That whole experience has helped clarify for me what grace is and how we are finally accepted.' (John Claypool, Interview in The Wittenberg Door, date unknown). Can you relate to that?

9. Talk about God's acceptance of us - 'while we were yet sinners...' Think on this: 'He loves you just the way you are today/ but much too much to let you stay that way./ When he's changed your heart from what you were before/ He still won't love you one bit more.'

10. And finally this, from Dom Helder Camara's amazing little book 'A Thousand Reasons for Living' (p.93). 'Let me not be the door / for going to my neighbour, /for bringing him to me/ and forcing him/ to walk along my paths,/ to make my way-in his/ and have to use my keys./ If my door is Christ,/ what matters is/ that I should help each brother/ to travel to the Father/ and yet still be himself.'

Rowland Croucher