Sins Forgiven = Thanksgiving
Luke 7:36-50
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 7:36-50 36 Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. 37 And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” So he said, “Teacher, say it.”41 “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” 44 Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” 48 Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Every time we gather together around Word and Sacrament, we do so for Thanksgiving. There are, of course, many ways to give thanks to God. You can say a prayer of thanks by yourself. You can say a prayer or sing a song of praise with your family at home or in church. You can confess the one true God, as we do each week in the Creeds of the church. You can make a list of all the things you’re thankful for, all the things you recognize, with gratitude, as coming from your Father’s bountiful goodness: food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, and on and on and on.
Also, deeds of love for your neighbor can be acts of thanksgiving to God. True obedience to God’s commandments is always an act of thankfulness. Your whole life, in fact, can be one great giving of thanks, in all you do, in all you say, in every godly vocation that you hold.
But the starting point of all true thankfulness is love for God. It all begins with love. And love begins with faith. And faith rests upon God’s promise to forgive sins for the sake of Christ. Therefore, ultimately Thanksgiving flows from sins forgiven, which is why Christians celebrate Thanksgiving Day with more purpose and joy than anyone else.
That’s what the apostle Paul emphasized in his Epistle to the Colossians: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. (Col 2:6-7)
Even more directly, that’s what Jesus teaches in Luke 7:36-50, our Gospel text for today. An unnamed sinful woman – that is, a woman well-known for her sins – heard that Jesus was dining at a Pharisee’s house, so she went to see Him. She spoke not a word of thanks to Jesus in our Gospel – no prayers, no praises. In fact, she said nothing at all. Instead, “she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.” (Vv. 37-38)
The woman said nothing. But her every action, her every tear, was a thanksgiving – a thanksgiving that flowed from love that flowed from faith that rested upon the forgiveness of sins. It all came from the Gospel that she had already heard and believed.
Simon, the Pharisee who invited Jesus, didn’t appreciate her act of thanksgiving. Nor did he think very highly of Jesus for letting her do this to Him. He thought to himself, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.” (v. 39)
Now, those are the thoughts of a truly thankless man, and Jesus tells him a little story to illustrate his thanklessness. Two debtors owed money to the same man. One owed 500 denarii, the other owed just 50. The creditor forgave both debts. “Which of them will love him more? I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And He said to him, You have judged rightly.” (vv. 42-43)
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Then Jesus explains the story to Simon. You see this woman? I came to your house and you did nothing for Me. You didn’t even offer me the common hospitality of a foot-washing or a bit of cheap oil for my head, much less greet me with the customary kiss of friendship. But this woman has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair and kissed them and anointed them with costly perfume. And she did it, not to make up for her sin and not to purchase My favor, but she did it out of her great love for Me, because she knows her sins are great, but she also believes that I am great, and that I have come to forgive sinners their great and terrible debts of sin. She loved much because she has been forgiven much. “Your sins are forgiven,” Jesus told the woman. “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
But you, Simon, you should take her actions as a grave warning, because your lack of love for Me, your lack of thanksgiving to Me, is a sure and certain sign of a deadly disease: “To whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (V. 47)
It’s not that Simon actually had little that needed forgiving. And it’s not that you or I or anyone actually has little that needs forgiving, that is, compared to all those “really wicked” people out there. The difference between Simon and the sinful woman wasn’t in how much forgiveness each one needed from Jesus. It was in how much forgiveness each one sought from Jesus, how much forgiveness each one admitted that he or she needed from Jesus. That’s why the woman was so grateful and Simon so ungrateful. She was penitent; he was impenitent. She was honest about herself; he was delusional about himself. She was astounded by the grace and mercy of Jesus, while Simon was uninterested in it.
So it is that thanksgiving can only flow from love; and love can only flow from faith; and faith is only true faith when it rests upon God’s promise to forgive sins for the sake of Christ alone. This is where thanksgiving begins and ends.
And so this morning we go back to this source of thanksgiving, this Christian faith, this recognition of how badly we need the blood of Jesus to pay our debts, and how great Jesus truly is for willingly shedding His blood, just so that He could say to each of us on the day of our Baptism, “Now your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Baptism has saved you. I have saved you. Go in peace.”
That brings us to the Lord’s Supper itself, the “Eucharist,” that great Greek word that means “thanksgiving.” The eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, is the great Thanksgiving in which we poor sinners, penitent, baptized and forgiven, come to offer this “sacrifice” to Jesus. It is certainly not a sacrifice to pay for sins anymore, but a sacrifice of thanksgiving – our grateful acknowledgement that Jesus is the friend of sinners and has given His body and blood for us, and now to us, as a seal of the forgiveness He won for us by His death on the cross.
The Eucharist is our as-often-as-you-drink-it opportunity to come into the presence of Jesus, to express our love for Jesus, even as the sinful woman did in the Gospel. But more importantly, it is our opportunity to receive from Jesus much more love than we ourselves can give, just as the sinful woman herself received absolution from Jesus again that day.
From here, let your love for Christ be nourished and grow into an every-day, every-hour, every-minute kind of thanksgiving. After all, it is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to our merciful God, with words of praise, with prayers of thanksgiving for all that He has given, with lives of obedience to His commandments, and with lives of service to your neighbor.
There are many reasons to give thanks to God, but they all begin with the forgiveness of sins. There are many ways to give thanks to God, but they all begin with love – God’s love for us first, and then our love for the God who made us and brought us to Christ.
God grant us his riches in Christ for which we are truly and constantly thankful!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
