Apr 2nd: Blessed are the Rejected, with Rev. Kally Elliott.

Posted: Sun, Apr 2, 2023

[00:00:00.170] – Kally The scripture this morning comes from Luke, chapter seven. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and when he went into the Pharisees house, he reclined to dine. And a woman in the city who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisees house, brought [...]

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Rev. Kally Elliott

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[00:00:00.170] – Kally The scripture this morning comes from Luke, chapter seven. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and when he went into the Pharisees house, he reclined to dine. And a woman in the city who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisees house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair, kissing his feet and anointing 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 what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner. [00:00:54.450] – Kally Turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon, the Pharisee, do you see this woman? I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. [00:01:30.410] – Kally Hence, she has shown great love. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Go. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. [00:01:44.050] – Kally You’re six years old. All you want in life is for your dad to play with you. Dad. Dad, will you throw the football with me? Not now. [00:01:57.780] – Kally Can’t you see I’m busy? Blessed are you when the most important person in your life can’t be bothered with you. [00:02:10.730] – Kally You’re 13 years old. They’re all talking about a slumber party. You’re not invited. Blessed are you when you are left out, unwanted, unseen. You’re 16. [00:02:29.000] – Kally You’ve just been cut from the team. You’ve been practicing your whole life. Now what? Blessed are you when you’re not good enough. You’re a young adult discovering who you are, but you’re not what or who your parents want you to be. [00:02:57.930] – Kally Blessed are you when you are not accepted by those who claim their love is unconditional. [00:03:07.550] – Kally You’re middle aged, married for 25 years, three kids. You both look so happy to everyone else, but deep inside you know it’s over. Your spouse is leaving. Blessed are you when the person who vowed to love you till death do you part does not keep their vow. You’re older now. [00:03:37.750] – Kally Your grown children have lives of their own. You know they love you, but it’s been so long since you’ve heard from them. Blessed are you when you’ve poured your whole life into someone and they grow up and they don’t call. [00:03:56.890] – Kally People say you are elderly, but you still have your mind. In fact, your ideas are creative, your wisdom deep. Yet nobody will listen. Nobody will take you seriously. Blessed are you when you feel the world is passing you by. [00:04:20.050] – Kally When the gifts you have to offer go unwelcome. [00:04:27.030] – Kally Blessed are you when you are rejected. Jesus says it this way blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you. Blessed. When I am rejected, the last thing I feel is blessed. Recently, I taught a family to family course for the National Alliance for Mental Illness. [00:04:59.890] – Kally Family to Family is an education program for family members, caregivers, and friends of individuals who live with mental illness. While the program is designed to provide tools and resources to better understand and support loved ones with mental illness, the class really ends up becoming a place where the sting of heartache and rejection can safely be shared with those who get it because they, too, have lived through it. There is an audible sigh of relief throughout the room when a participant shares the rejection she felt after admitting someone they love lives with a serious mental illness. Me too. Others murmur. [00:05:50.290] – Kally Me too. The rejection is not blatant, but it’s there in the look of shock that spreads across the face of others, in the way they change the subject almost immediately in the stammers of their well meaning but ignorant comments. Upon your admission, it feels like rejection, and it does not feel blessed. At least not blessed in the way that we’ve come to use the word. You know, hashtag blessed. [00:06:26.410] – Kally Rejection means you don’t belong, that you are not wanted. And I’ve yet to see a Facebook post that says, hey, I wasn’t invited to the party. Hashtag blessed. Or My kids don’t want anything to do with me. Hashtag blessed. [00:06:43.190] – Kally Or I didn’t get the promotion that I worked really hard for. Hashtag blessed. When I was a college pastor, an elderly woman named Mary used to join us for worship. Most Sunday evenings, Mary, always about 15 minutes late, would bump her way to the center of the gathered chairs, plop down, and almost immediately begin snoring loudly. When worship was over, the students would wake Mary and she would shuffle downstairs with the others for dinner. [00:07:19.590] – Kally As the food was served, Mary would always find something wrong with it, critiquing it even while she ate, and then moving on to critiquing the sermon, even though she hadn’t heard the sermon because she had been snoring. At 80 plus years old, mary was a bit older than the young adults we normally served, but the students took it in stride. They included her in their conversations, listening to her contrary opinions, even hours after worship and dinner were supposed to be over. One evening, Mary told us that she lived alone, that her only son had stopped speaking to her, and she had lost her husband years ago. She used to work for the university, but they’d let her go a long time ago. [00:08:12.830] – Kally I don’t know why Mary chose our campus ministry to attend week after week. There were plenty of others on campus, but I think she attended ours because there she was seen. She belonged. In the text I read, we hear of a woman who shows up to a dinner party where she was not invited. Luke gives us a little bit of commentary on the woman, describing her as sinful, which could mean many things, though most commentaries say she was probably a prostitute. [00:08:53.290] – Kally In those days, guests reclined at the table, often on couches, sometimes on the floor, their heads near the table, their feet extending away from it. Candles on the table illuminated the food and faces so they could have a conversation. Often uninvited guests were allowed to attend such a dinner, but they would have to remain on the outside of the circle, in the margins, on the edge where the light of the candles did not reach. I imagine this woman slipping into the dinner party, working her way through the darkness, bumping into others, finally reaching the edge of the darkness, balancing on the line between the shadows and the light of the candles, until she finds the feet of Jesus. There she stands, jar of perfume in her hands, quiet tears flowing from a deep place within, rolling down her cheeks, landing one by one on his dusty feet. [00:10:07.420] – Kally Years of emotion stored up in her body, now flowing freely down her face. There on the edge between the darkness and the candlelight, she begins wiping Jesus’s feet with her hair. In a culture where for a woman to uncover her head was a sign of shame, she wipes Jesus’s feet with her exposed hair and then, in a wave of emotion, effusively kisses them, breaking the alabaster jar of perfume. The woman bathes Jesus’s feet in scent, the aroma filling the air, so that the wounds she bore and her quiet weeping were no longer hidden in the darkness. [00:11:00.610] – Kally Everyone had to be looking at her at this point, but do they see her? Or do they see what she’s always been known for her occupation, the reason she is never invited to dinner. Luke tells us that when the pharisee Simon, who invited Jesus to his house saw this, he muttered to himself, if Jesus were a prophet, he would know that the woman touching him is a sinner. But that’s not of concern to Jesus. What is of concern is that Simon see this woman. [00:11:41.630] – Kally Not his idea of her, but her. Do you see this woman? Jesus asks. Do you see her? Blessed is she who has been rejected, who for years has felt the sting of being unwanted and unwelcome. [00:12:03.510] – Kally No longer is her pain hidden. Blessed is she, for she has stepped into the light and is fully seen. A few weeks ago, I was wrestling with this idea of being blessed, and I asked our deacons what they thought the word meant. One of them said, Well, I think it is Jesus’s way of saying, I see you. My attention is on you. [00:12:37.810] – Kally I see you. What pain have you been hiding? Were you the child whose father was too busy for you? Were you the teenager who never got invited to the parties? Did you get cut from a team or lose a job? [00:12:56.570] – Kally Did your spouse leave you or your kids forget to call again? Do you feel like you have something to give the world? Wisdom, time, energy? But your age pushes you to the edge. Your gifts go unwelcome. [00:13:13.230] – Kally What do you do with all of the pain, the rejection that you’ve carried with you since your youth? Do you let those years of emotion flow freely down your face? Do you let people see you? The invitation is for us to come out of our hiding, allowing ourselves to be seen by God and loved by God. Blessed are you when you feel the sting of rejection, when the tears are pricking your eyes and your inner critic is telling you you’re not enough, you are not wanted, blessed are you, because even if nobody else sees you, god sees you. [00:14:07.070] – Kally Today is what the church refers to as Palm Sunday. It’s the day we remember Jesus entering the gates of the city of Jerusalem to what Scripture says is a very large crowd spreading their cloaks on the road and others cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. Scripture continues the crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. [00:14:43.770] – Kally Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is he the one who, a few days later, will be rejected by some of the very same people who welcomed him and even some of his closest friends. What will you give me if I betray him to you? One will ask. Stay awake with me. [00:15:13.720] – Kally Jesus will implore his disciples. They will all fall asleep. The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him. Jesus’s disciple will tell the guards, I don’t know the man. [00:15:28.810] – Kally I don’t know the man. Peter, one of Jesus’s inner circle, will cry when asked if he is a follower. Give us Barabbas, the crowds will yell when asked who should be spared. Crucify him. Crucify him. [00:15:47.070] – Kally They will insist when asked what should be done with Jesus, the Messiah. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus will cry, tears flowing down his cheeks, wetting his feet as he hangs from the cross. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. If anyone knows the sting of rejection, it is Jesus. [00:16:19.370] – Kally And yet, all of his life, Jesus sees those standing in the darkness of the edges, those rejected and unwanted and unwelcome, and he invites them into the light, urging all of us to see them, too. Do you see this woman? Look at her. Do you see the way she loves? How she wiped my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. [00:16:50.120] – Kally How she couldn’t stop kissing my feet. How she poured perfume on my feet. No longer hiding, she was able to be loved. No longer hiding, she was able to love. Well, blessed is she now. [00:17:09.770] – Kally To be honest, I’m still a bit wary of this word blessed. But maybe that’s because I’m still hiding some of my own tears. Maybe the sting was deep and I am still standing on the edge of the darkness. But maybe that is what this lenten season is all about. Learning to step into the light, to let ourselves be seen. [00:17:38.870] – Kally And in doing so, to let ourselves be loved fully sloppy tears and all. To let ourselves be blessed. Amen.

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