Our story opens with Jesus being invited to have dinner with Simon and his friends. It must have been a mixture of curiosity and a court trial on their part. It was not hospitality or an invitation of a friend to dinner. They showed none of the common courtesies they would have to him. Had he been a celebrity they would have fallen over themselves making him feel welcome. But they invite him to dinner to examine him – not to welcome or include him.

He’s been upsetting too many people and disturbing the peace that they so carefully control.  It might be that a word of warning or common sense from a few influential men would be enough to rein him in before too much damage is done. So, Simon is the one selected to have him over to the house for dinner and a little chat about how things are. “Young man, here is how things are done.”

But then there is the uninvited stranger. Or maybe she is not a stranger as Simon seems to know exactly who she is. But showing up like this is an embarrassment. That said, it was not uncommon for people to wander in and out during an open dinner in a home. Dinners were served in the open courtyards and this might have been more like a concert than a closed and private dinner.

When we were in Vienna we toured one of the palaces and there was a painting on the wall of people at dinner surrounded by perhaps a hundred onlookers. When I asked about it the guide told me it was a common practice for people to pay to stand and watch the royals eat dinner. It was not only a privilege but a little extra income for the royals. This may be similar. Ordinary people were curious about what goes on with the local celebrities and controversies.

But no one was supposed to actually get close enough to touch or interfere with one of the invited guests. That was bad form for sure. Not only that but it was a woman who should have known to keep her distance from a man. Worse, it was a woman known to be a sinner – and most people assume that means she was a prostitute. She would have been the skunk at the garden party for sure. I imagine some people thought it was just another intentional effort on the part of Jesus to poke them in the eye. “He probably invited her!” Of course, it takes two sinners to make a prostitute. But not in that culture. The man was not indicted. Someone told me the other day that we should not only shame the women who have had abortions but the men who have made it a choice. She did not get pregnant by herself but she is the one who bears all the consequences.

Jesus was a magnet for women – those whose characters were questionable like the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, or the woman with seven demons and a score of others who had no fear of him. But he also attracted women with great character – like Mary and Martha and the women who supported him. In fact, he attracted all sorts of women and Luke, more than any other of the Gospel writers, emphasizes the role of women in his life.

We’ve spiritualized this woman so many times and so many ways that the scandal of the story has been bleached out of it. We excuse it or explain it away or even romanticize it but we don’t let it touch us.  We keep it at a distance. We don’t think about forgiveness as much as we do tolerance or understanding. The fallen woman and the hooker with a golden heart are stock characters now. She is not sinful. She is exploited. Sophia Loren in the Man of La Mancha; Fantine in Le Mis; Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge or Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.  The story is now sweet but not scandalous. It’s a hand grenade with no firing pin. It’s a paperweight but hard for us to identify with her as sinning. She is not a wicked character or even, really, a sinner but someone to be pitied.

The only scandal now is Simon’s reaction to her because we believe we would behave better than he did – but, in fact, we don’t. We’ve read to the end of the story so many times and see how Jesus corrects Simon. We don’t want to be in his shoes. But, we still have conditions for people who come to our services. I know because I have been Simon myself. I still am. Sometimes I look around the congregation and notice someone in one of the pews who obviously should not be in church – or at least my church. They might fit better in one of the liberal churches in town. There being here makes me uncomfortable. Actually, it makes me wonder how they can be comfortable. They are a thief or a liar or payday lender or have had multiple affairs outside of their marriage. As I said last week, I am so put off by their behavior that I would even resist their repenting in tears. I want to send a note to the pastor and tell him to really lay it on this week about sin. They don’t really deserve forgiveness until they have proven themselves to be worthy of it. Give them a six month trial period and we’ll see if they really belong here.

But how does Jesus see them?  They are lost. They have lost their way along the road of their life. There is no one who is not capable of repenting and turning from their sins. Jesus is searching for them and not as targets with the threat of hell if they don’t repent. No, the goal is forgiveness and reconciliation with God. That is why God has made us agents of forgiveness in the world – not just agents of righteousness.

And that would be a threat to the people who had a lock on forgiveness. It would be like patent infringement or theft of intellectual property. If you have a monopoly you don’t want competitors. You don’t want people having the power that is yours alone and for which you can charge high prices. You don’t want cheap imitations. Only you have the license to forgive sins through a ritual and an organization that is not anxious to turn loose of that power.  Jesus was not just a blasphemer. He was also a competitor. Why should the people come to them for forgiveness when they could go to him instead? Besides, as easy as his was it would only dilute the value of the real thing.

Of course, as Lewis Smedes says in his book “Forgive and Forget” there are some nice things forgiveness is not.

It is not merely forgetting. A healed memory is not a deleted memory.

It is not excusing the offense or letting them put the blame elsewhere.

It is not tolerance.

It is not smothering the conflict. You cannot say, “Let’s just move on as if nothing happened.”

So, what is forgiveness if it is not this?

The word was used to describe the starting gate of a horse race. It was the place of letting go and release. It is simply opening your hand and letting something escape. But it is not passive or even “let go and let God” as we’ll see a little later. It is a release in order to do something.

But, for most of us it is not immediate. There are stages of forgiving like stages of grief and Lewis Smedes describes those as well.

1. We hurt. We are stung or betrayed or something precious is taken away from us.
2. We hate. We dwell on the unfairness or the loss or the desire for revenge that will make things even.
3. We heal. It is only when we feel the power to desire the best for them. Not to excuse their guilt or avoid punishment but to desire what is in their best interest.

We don’t heal quickly. There is a particular kind of spider bite – the brown recluse spider – that appears to heal over quickly but it is an illusion. Underneath the scab the poison is working to kill living cells and flesh so the wound has to be kept open and heal from the inside out. Otherwise, the bite can be fatal even while it appears to be healing.

4. We come together again. This has been the miracle in Rwanda that has been studied by so many. How did people living together in a village manage to forgive their neighbors for such atrocities? I’ve been there and asked the same questions. The most frequent answer is “because we had no choice. We had to find a way to live together. Otherwise, we would all be destroyed over time.” A photographer has captured the results in a book that poses the killer with the family of the ones who died in most horrible ways. It was not easy but they have found a way to come together again.

But, we miss a good part of the power of forgiveness if we see it as merely letting go and releasing our hurt and anger. Forgiveness is more than erasing the slate and starting over. It is more than subtracting something from our lives or avoiding the destruction of our souls. It is a seed that is planted and grows and with each act of forgiveness another seed is planted. If there is an image of release and letting go then it is the image of the sower and the seed. It is not just opening our hand. It is planting a garden. Forgiveness can create – not just take away. For me, that is the supernatural part. It may well be possible for a non-believer to wipe the slate clean but only God can turn forgiveness into something new and even beautiful. Every single time we forgive we release a seed whose sole purpose is to grow and overcome evil. Every time we forgive we plant something that is more powerful and long lasting than the hurt we have received.

Did you read the story this week about the power going off in the HEB store? When the manager realized there was no way to check people out he told them to just leave with their groceries.  You can imagine their response. I don’t think a single person said to themselves, “Wow, I got away with cheating them or I should have put more stuff in my basket.” No, it was just the opposite. People were incredibly grateful given all they had been through in the last several days.

“Out in the H-E-B parking lot on Tuesday, Hennessy could tell that other shoppers were touched, too. Carts were getting stuck in the ice and snow. Groceries were tumbling out. But people started holding on to other people’s bags, Hennessy said.

Watching an elderly woman nervously struggle to get her car moving — the wheels were spinning on ice — Hennessy says he and a couple other men pushed the vehicle ahead.

“Everybody started helping each other,” he said.

Hennessy, who works in information technology, said he called H-E-B on Friday to ask if they had preferred charities. He wanted to pass on the good deed by donating whatever he would have paid for his milk, produce and power bars.”

And that is the ideal response to forgiveness – not just relief that you have been forgiven. It is unleashing the power of forgiveness in a community. I suspect the sinful woman had someone she needed to forgive and so on and so on. That is what forgiveness is. Not just a single act but an act that sets in motion what we cannot predict.

We hear a lot of talk today about healing our nation and coming together. True healing does not start with civil conversation or working in a bipartisan cooperation on legislation. It does not come from setting aside our differences and disagreements. It does not start with moving on. It begins with forgiveness. It begins with what all of us have the power to do. Forgive.

That is the power of letting go in a marriage, a family, a church, a community or even a nation.  Remember the words of the people in Rwanda: “because we had no choice. We had to find a way to live together. Otherwise, we would all be destroyed over time.” I think that is where we are now. We have no choice but to forgive. The only way to healing is through the power of forgiveness.