Luke 7:36-50; 1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21; Galatians 2:15-21
One of Robert Frost’s more famous poems begins this way:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.(1)
Frost goes on to talk about working with his neighbor to mend the fence:
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
The two are not dealing with livestock. The neighbor has pine and Frost has apples, which “will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines.” He wonders what the phrase means: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Although Paul doesn’t use the word wall in his writing to the Galatian believers, that is certainly what he is speaking about. Something that separates, divides off, keeps apart. Certain people were attempting to build a spiritual, theological, ethical wall between the converts to the Way of Christ which Paul had preached and the grace of Christ. These wall builders were called Judaizers because they wanted to reimpose the Mosaic purity code on the Christians who were former Jews and to make the Gentile converts to Christ follow its precepts. That purity code included circumcision, the dietary restrictions, and the various laws regulating personal bodily contamination that prevented participation in sacrifices and worship.
In Paul's estimation, his fellow Jews were wrong in assuming that they put themselves in good standing with God – justified, to use Paul’s term – by keeping the laws designed to create ritual purity worthy of admission to God’s covenant. Gentiles could not easily accept the rigorous purification practices of diet and circumcision as practical expressions of their relationship with God. The Judaizers were using the ritual law as a wall between the free grace of Christ and being able to live in that grace. Paul worried that if his Galatian friends were forced to submit to the Jewish Law, they would desert the Christian community altogether. In situations of conflict and crisis it does not take much to create doubt and disaffection in the minds and hearts of believers who are still trying to learn the vast riches of their relationship with Christ.
Like the up-heaving winter frost and rabbit-chasing hunters of Frost’s poem, Christ breaks down the wall which the Judaizers keep trying to build. With the sharp scalpel of rhetoric, Paul cuts out the distinctions between Jews and Christians.
“We have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not.”The he continues,
“But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.”Christ does tear down the wall. Paul said so to the Ephesian believers:
“So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth . . . were . . . without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.” (Ephesians 2:11-15; emphases added)
We can see Christ breaking down walls and making peace as he dines with a Pharisee. While he is there a local woman, described as a sinner – probably a euphemism for ‘prostitute’ – crashed the party, bathed Jesus’ feet, and anointed them with an ointment from an alabaster jar.
It is important for Luke to indicate that Jesus not only ate with the “tax collectors and sinners,” but also with the Pharisees! It may be that by the time of Luke, the believers had begun to look at the Pharisees as the “outcasts,” as the Pharisees had done to the “tax collectors and sinners” during Jesus’ day. Whether it is a sin of self-righteousness or of sinful living, Jesus welcomes both kinds of sinners. He accepts the Pharisee’s invitation to a meal as well as the sinful woman’s (scandalous) acts of love.
People generally washed and anointed their own feet. Foot washing was a routine matter of cleanliness, and the use of oil or ointment on one’s feet was soothing for those shod in sandals. When guests arrived at someone’s home, especially after a journey, the host usually provided a basin and water for the guests to wash their own feet before sharing the meal. A slave was virtually the only one who could be expected to wash and anoint the feet of another person. Because of these connotations, those who voluntarily washed someone else’s feet showed that they were devoted enough to act as that person’s slave.(2)
The Pharisee seeks to rebuild the wall between the woman and Jesus as well as between him and Jesus. The Pharisee in a stage whisper says, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him–that she is a sinner.” The Pharisee made two assumptions: (1) If Jesus were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman she is who is touching him, namely a sinner and he wouldn’t allow such a woman to touch him; and (2) since Jesus did not stop the woman, he must not be a prophet.
That’s when Jesus offers what seems to be a simple riddle. Addressing the Pharisee by name, Simon, he says, “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” The word “canceled” that Jesus uses means more than a simple release from an obligation. Jesus’ word is based on the word that means grace, kindness, mercy. A release from the debt obligation simply puts the wall back together after it had fallen down. The notion of grace, kindness, mercy removes the wall, completely takes away the distinction of on one side having a need and on the other side, being able to supply the need.
Brian Stoffregen says that many folks in our society who are in financial bondage because of credit card debt or underwater mortgages would understand Jesus’ riddle. He goes on to say,
“Part of my growth in faith is to become more aware of the depth of my sinfulness. In younger days, sin was bad things one did. Forgiveness implied not being punished as I deserved for doing those bad things. Since the bad things I might do weren’t all that bad nor that often, I didn’t think I needed much forgiving—not like those other sinners in the world. However, I’ve come to realize that my sinfulness is much deeper than my bad deeds—it involves inner attitudes, desires, motivations, etc., and thus, I also am in need of forgiveness and grace that reaches those depths.”(3)We are not fifty denarii debtors. We need a great deal more forgiven through grace, kindness, and mercy.
Forgiveness is the breaking down of the wall which separates us from our neighbors, whether they are sinners of the streets or sinners of snobbery. Christ’s forgiveness breaks down the wall that separates us from God and from the fulfillment of all that God has called us to be in our unique creation.
Christ helps us to tear down the walls that are around us. Yet we too often fall into the practice of rebuilding what we have torn down. We tear it down to get to the other side. Then once there we build it back up again. Do we do that to keep us from getting out? To feel safe? To not let anyone else in?
Life is a constant effort of reinventing ourselves through the grace of Christ. He enables us to break down outdated notions and to create new ones, many of which will have to be broken down at some future point in time. But it is his grace that makes it possible to mend, to bend, and to rend the walls that deny God, that deny the image of God in others, and deny the image of God in ourselves.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. And that something is Christ.
Thanks be to God.
(1) Robert Frost, “Mending Wall,” North of Boston (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1983), p. 1. (first published, 1914)
(2) Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 2003), pp. 112f.
(3) Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday – Luke 8:36-8:3,” Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 9:47 PM
Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Used by permission..
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