Lavish Love -- Luke 7:36-50 (4th Sunday in Lent)

Artwork: "LL Cool J" by Nicolette Faison, 

used with copyright permission 

A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

Last Sunday, we read the story of Jesus and the disciples feeding the 5,000, and Rev. Nancy spoke of sufficiency and abundance. There they are, sitting in the green grass, at the end of a weary day – and somehow there’s enough so that everyone can eat, and there are even leftovers to take home – all the hungry fed.

This morning’s Scripture is overflowing like that. There is no need to embellish this morning’s story. It is more than enough.^[1]

Imagine that moment: Jesus has been invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner. They are all reclining at table, mid-feast. And a woman enters – we are told a sinful woman. There would have been people coming and going at this feast – but not her – she would have been kept out. Yet there she is.

She comes with a jar of expensive perfume, and she settles in behind Jesus, weeping. She begins to wet Jesus’ feet with her tears. We can imagine the room growing quiet – just the sound of her sobbing. And she takes her hair – unbound – and she begins to wash Jesus’ feet with her hair and her tears – caressing his feet ever so gently. Perhaps the guests stir uncomfortably.

As she washes his feet clean, she begins to kiss them – to kiss Jesus’ feet. And then, she turns to the jar that she has set aside. Her crying has stopped. She takes a breath. She takes the stopper out of the jar – and begins to anoint Jesus’ feet with the expensive perfume – she pours the perfumed oil out generously – and the aroma fills the room.

This moment is more than enough. We can see that ourselves.

And then we get to see it through the eyes of the host – a Pharisee – who says to himself. “Some prophet this Jesus is. If he was truly a prophet, he would know who this woman is and she wouldn’t be touching him – she would not be in this room.”

Now the story tells us that she is a sinful woman. We don’t know what the sin is. It’s not named. Unfortunately, for too long, scholars and preachers have assumed a sexual sin – “she’s sinful woman – must be a prostitute.” But it could have been any sin. She could be a thief, or a scam artist – or it could be her husband – she could be married to a crook, which would have made her sinful in their eyes.^[2] Whatever it is – it is weighing heavy on her heart. She is weeping – her tears, the overflow of life. The point here is not the sin itself – it is that she is approaching Jesus, aware and hurting – and in need of forgiveness and healing.

But what the Pharisee sees is someone who is unclean and who should be thrown out – under their systems of separation and exclusion. There are rules. Simon the Pharisee thinks that – and Jesus responds. Some scholars say that Jesus reads Simon’s internal thoughts. I think maybe Simon the Pharisee gives Jesus the stink eye that says it all. Or maybe he mutters it under his breath – you know how that is – and Jesus does that, “What was that Simon? Did you say something?”

And Jesus asks him a riddle: There were two men. One owed 50 denarii. One owed 500 denarii. (That is 2-months wages and one-year’s wages, respectively.) The moneylender forgives both their debts. Which debtor would love the moneylender more?

Simon the Pharisee says, “I guess it would be the one who had the greater debt forgiven.” And Jesus says. “Exactly. You have spoken well.” And then, we get to see this moment from Jesus’ eyes: “You see, Simon:

·      When I arrived, YOU didn’t even give me water to wash my feet. (That would have been standard hospitality – a servant would have washed the feet of the arriving guests – washing away the dust of a dry and weary day.)^[3]

·      But this woman, SHE has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them clean.

·      YOU didn’t offer me a kiss of welcome. (Again, an expected bit of hospitality.)

·      But SHE has not stopped kissing my feet.

·      YOU did not pour oil on my head.

·      But SHE has poured perfume on my feet.

You see, Simon, this woman’s sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown.This story is about Lavish Love – and we see it in the woman’s great love. She embodies extravagant love – in her tears, and her tender care, and her kiss, the fragrant perfume, and the loving hospitality that she extends to Jesus.

Her lavish love points us back to God’s. Her lavish love is a response. She comes with her hurt and her pain – her life and all she has done in it weighing heavy on her heart – and what she has encountered in Jesus is God’s forgiveness – forgiveness of every debt, the healing of every hurt – God’s lavish love, making her whole.

And she responds, lavishing love back on Jesus.

Jesus’ challenge to Simon is actually an invitation. Simon, you’ve missed out so far, but this lavish love is here for you too – here for the one who has not welcomed Christ, here for the one who has grumbled against this woman – this lavish love is here for you to experience and to extend.

This moment of lavish love is more than enough.

Now, of course, this is not the only glimpse of lavish love that we get in the scriptures – or even this Gospel – they are everywhere.

·      There’s that moment right at the start of the Gospel. Remember: Mary sitting in that barn giving birth to her child. Shepherds and angels have crowded in, singing, but now they’ve all gone home. And it’s just Mary and Jesus – Joseph snoring in the hay. Mary counts her child’s fingers and toes, and she rests her ear on his chest and listens  -- listens for the heartbeat of God. Quiet, tender, lavish love.

·      There’s that moment when Mary’s son will feed 5,000 people – last week’s scripture. What I noticed last week was that Jesus invited them to all settle in on the green grass. The tired and hungry resting and feasting in the green grass. Lush and lavish love.

·      Just after the story we read to day, there’s that little note in the Gospel of Luke that the church over history has forgotten. It says that across all these stories, a group of women was following Jesus, and they were paying for his ministry. Constant, sustaining, lavish love.

·      There is the lavish love of the Good Samaritan, caring for a stranger.

·      There is the lavish love of the father welcoming home the prodigal.

·      And there’s the moment toward the end of the gospel, where women will tend to Jesus’ body after crucifixion – as loved ones do. Stark and silent – but lavish nonetheless.

Glimpses of lavish love – to name a few.

And we have those glimpses in our own world too:

·      The parent who sits up with a sick child through the night – with words of comfort, and a lullaby – a cool cloth on a fevered forehead.

·      Or maybe it’s the friend or deacon who drives us to the doctor and sits with us and helps us hear hard news.

·      I think of Jo Gross and her insistence as a part of the REST Shelter that when we feed those who are hungry, we bring out the cloth table cloths and cloth napkins, real dishes and silverware, flowers, and we sit at table together and feast. Lavish hospitality, lavish love.

·      Or maybe some days, lavish love looks more like resistance – thousands of folks, millions of folks coming out to stand together on behalf of the vulnerable, standing together for justice, and for peace.

·      Maybe it looks like Alex Pretti – comforting a woman who has just been pushed to the ground by ICE agents – helping her up, just before he’s shot.

What are the moments of lavish love that you have seen and known?

Jesus turns to the woman and says – in her outpouring of lavish love – “Your faith has saved you.” We’ve said before that “faith” in the gospels isn’t so much signing-on to certain tenets of belief – it’s more trust – trusting in the love of God. Here – as one writer says – this woman’s faith is more “her participation in the rhythms of receiving forgiveness, and responding with equally lavish and uncalculating love.”^[4]

It is that lavish love that will set us free.

The glimpse we get in this Scripture is more than enough, so I thought we’d spend time in that moment as one artist has expressed it.

This is a work by Nicolette Faison. I’m going invite us to pray with this work of art – much like we would pray with a written text. If you’ve prayed lectio divina here – we pray with a Scripture, listening and looking for a word, a phrase, or an image that is shimmering for you. The prayer that we are going to experience is the sister of that practice – visio divina – we pray with visual art in much the same way.^[5] So this is our text – this artwork by Nicolette Faison.

I invite us to settle in – take a deep breath. Relax. Breath in and out. Arrive again in this place and in this moment. Feel the pew or chair you’re sitting on – and the earth below you – supporting you.

(pause)

Breathe in and out as we “read” the image – this work of art.

Notice the visual qualities of what you see: the colors, the shapes and forms, the spaces in between, the texture. What do you notice?

(pause)

Now take a deep breath; close your eyes, if that’s comfortable, and picture the image in your mind’s eye.

(pause)

Open your eyes again. Take another look, a deeper look.

What parts of the image are you most drawn to?

What parts of the image did you brush by on your first look?

What do you notice? What is shimmering?

(pause)

And now, use your imagination. We’ve heard this Scripture in words spoken, and sung. This is how one artist imagines it.

Imagine yourself in this piece – or at that table. Where would you be and how would you react... or interact with what is happening?

Look at the figure(s). What part of their story is speaking to you? What emotions do you sense they might be feeling?

(pause)

And finally, take a moment to notice your own emotions. How does this image make you feel? This glimpse of lavish love?

(pause)

The artist says that she chose the colors of a church’s stained-glass window, come to life in this moment. She has deconstructed the story and then woven it back together, as she describes it: “The woman was intimately entwined with the feet of Jesus, her hair entangled with his leg. She released tears that would have nourished his toes, as the rich oil replenished his skin. To be cared for, to be seen, to be loved, that is something good.”

That... is good news.

© 2026 Scott Clark

^[1] For background on this scripture and the Gospel of Luke, see Brian Blount, Commentary, Tell Me Something Good Lenten Resources (A Sanctified Art, 2026); Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, “The Gospel of Luke ” in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008); R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. ix (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Justo L. González, Luke (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010); Sharon Ringe, Luke(Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).

^[2] See Buckhanon Crowder, p.167.

^[3] See Blount, pp.12-13; Culpepper, pp.168-170.

^[4] See Ringe, p.110.

^[5] This practice of visio divina is adapted from the “Visio Divina Study Guide,” developed by Lauren Wright Pittman & Lisle Gwynn Garrity (A Sanctified Art).