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

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.

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.

Hence,  she  has  shown  great  love.  Then  he  said  to  her,  your  sins  are  forgiven.  Go.  Your  faith  has  saved  you.  Go  in  peace.

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.

Can't  you  see  I'm  busy?  Blessed  are  you  when  the  most  important  person  in  your  life  can't  be  bothered  with  you.

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.

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.

Blessed  are  you  when  you  are  not  accepted  by  those  who  claim  their  love  is  unconditional.

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.

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.

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.

When  the  gifts  you  have  to  offer  go  unwelcome.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And  in  doing  so,  to  let  ourselves  be  loved  fully  sloppy  tears  and  all.  To  let  ourselves  be  blessed.  Amen.