One of the most extravagant expressions of gratitude I ever received came from a young man with a repentant heart.  David was a camper at the YMCA Summer Camp where I worked after college as a cook.  David and the other table servers were picking up platters of food in the kitchen to take back to their cabin members in the dining hall. While he was in the kitchen, David made a very rude comment about the eggs.  My supervisor, the head cook, and I were standing right across from him.  The head cook was mad, called him out in front of everyone and suggested that David had hurt my feelings.  I suspected that he had hurt the head cooks feelings more than mine but I received a sincere apology just the same.  I thought that was the end of it.  Little did I know that it was just the beginning.  David later came back and asked my supervisor if I could be a dinner guest at his cabin’s table that night.  All 25 tables were inviting a guest to a special, festive meal.  Dinner was an Italian feast complete with grape juice funneled into old wine bottles.  David convinced his counselor and his entire cabin of eight year old boys to invite me as their special guest.  This was a rare invitation for a camp cook.

Just before serving time, I left the kitchen for the very small cabin I shared with two other staff located about 50 yards from the dining hall.  I had just changed out of my work clothes covered with food stains and kitchen smells when I heard an unexpected knock at my door.  When I opened the door, there to my surprise was David, all dressed up in a white collar shirt, nice dark pants and a little red bow tie.  He had a serious look on his face, freshly picked flowers in one hand and his other hand grasped something I could not see.  “I’ve come to escort you to dinner,” he said.  Then he uncurled his fingers and handed me a ring he had made out of Cyprus wood and put it on my finger.  As I began to take it all in I was overwhelmed by his extravagant hospitality.  I thanked him for his generous gifts.  He then took my arm and escorted me into the crowded dining hall where I sat on benches at the table with him, his counselor, and eleven other eight year old boys.  I was the center of David’s attention all evening.  I wanted for nothing, I ate all of the spaghetti and meatballs my heart desired.  The grape juice flowed like water.  David expressed his gratitude with a pure joy, a delightful spontaneity, and a profound appreciation.  With gratitude from his repentant heart, David showered me with gifts and hospitality that expected nothing in return.

Gratitude, gifts, and hospitality are all themes of the gospel story.  It is a study in contrasts about two people, a man and a woman, who meet Jesus at a dinner party.  Simon, the Pharisee invited Jesus into his house.  The unnamed woman who crashed the dinner party invited Jesus into her heart.  Simon had something he didn’t want to lose – his reputation.  The unnamed woman had nothing to lose, everyone had already written her off as a sinner.  Simon didn’t recognize Jesus as God and thought him a rather poor prophet for not being able to recognize sinners and letting them touch him.  The unnamed woman recognized Jesus as God, someone who forgave her sins and in response she expressed her gratitude.   Simon didn’t identify as a sinner, the unnamed woman clearly did.  Simon was not aware that he needed Jesus, the unnamed woman knew only too well that she did.  Two people at a dinner party with Jesus – the “respectable one” who thought he was providing gracious hospitality and the sinner who through her repentance, tears, and anointing provided true hospitality to Jesus based upon her profound gratitude.  It all started with repentance.

Repentant hearts show gratitude to God with gifts of love and hospitality.  Repentance is not a word we like to talk about much.   Repentance means we humbly acknowledge and condemn our sin, turn away from it and turn to God.  Repentance means we truly feel sorrow and remorse for our sin.  Repentance means we come to grips with the fact that we cannot by our own actions free ourselves from sin.  Repentance acknowledges that we are totally dependent upon God.  In the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness this is how we begin our prayer to God, “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves…”  Seeking forgiveness for her sins with tears, the unnamed woman repented with a grateful heart.  It does not appear that Simon ever repented or even recognized himself as a sinner.  As a Pharisee he kept the oral and written Mosaic law but no human works of the law can save or free us – only faith in Christ.

We are freed from sin in baptismal waters because in those waters we are crucified with Christ and are raised to new life to live by faith.  The old creature in us dies and the new creature within us is raised to new life before God.  We live by grace and by the transforming power of the Spirit but we know by experience that in spite of our best intentions we continue to sin and therefore we continue to need to repent.  Martin Luther said, “…repentance endures among Christians until death because it struggles with the sin that remains in the flesh throughout life.”  As long as we inhabit these mortal bodies we will struggle with sin. 

On earth, we are both saint and sinner – Saint because God has made us his children and given us his transforming Spirit at baptism – Sinner because we still live in these mortal bodies.  In spite of our best intentions we don’t do what we want to do but instead do the very things we don’t want to do.  We get caught in sin through addictions, old ways and unhealthy patterns of behavior.  We struggle daily to drown the old creature in us.  We struggle daily to live completely dependent upon God’s grace and in our dependence to live completely free of all that would cause us to sin.  St Paul sums up our situation, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord.”   

God has promised that one day our bodies will be resurrected and become new.  When that day comes and these mortal bodies put on immortality then death will be swallowed up in victory and sin will have no more power over us.  No more will we struggle with sin and all that affects our mortal flesh.  As we wait in hope we now daily live by faith in Christ Jesus – relying not on our works but through total dependence upon God’s grace –grace that enables us to resist temptation – grace that enables us to survive the pain of broken relationships, grace that enables us to survive the pain and isolation of illness and disease – and grace that enables us to survive the loss of a loved one.  When we confess ours sins and turn to God, He faithfully forgives our sins and restores us.  When we are forgiven, we experience gratitude, when we are forgiven greatly we experience deep gratitude.

Deep gratitude is pure, spontaneous and comes straight from the heart.  That is why our minds can’t always make sense of the actions of those who demonstrate extravagant gratitude and hospitality.  Even accounting for a difference between our culture and the culture in Jesus’ day, the unnamed woman was extravagant in her gratitude and hospitality– bathing Christ’s feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, kissing his feet continually and anointing them with ointment.  Water for feet, a kiss, and anointing were common expressions of hospitality in that day but she took it over the top.

Only when we are profoundly grateful can we demonstrate extravagant love and hospitality – extravagant love and hospitality like that shown to me by an eight year old boy – extravagant love and hospitality like that shown to Jesus by the sinner.  Deep love inhabits our hearts when we know who we truly are, humbly repent of our sins and receive in faith God’s extravagant love and forgiveness.  Deep love inhabits our hearts when we completely empty ourselves to receive God’s extravagant love and wholly depend upon God’s grace and freedom.

We don’t have to crash a dinner party in order to show our love and gratitude to Jesus.  We have a place at the table.  At Christ’s table, He accepts our love and gratitude from open hearts.  Here Christ shows us his extravagant hospitality, loves us, feeds us, forgives us, and strengthens us.  He has promised to never leave us or let anything separate us from his love, and one day he will resurrect our bodies, make them new and dwell with us forever.  Amen