Apples of Gold

Many Americans have started trying to eat healthier in the last few years. Some are watching their salt intake, or trying to avoid certain ingredients.The savvy shopper has likely found themselves spending more time reading labels in the grocery store, and unfortunately many of the food manufacturers are working overtime to confuse us by placing misleading labels on their products. These companies count on the fact that the average consumer will think words like “natural” and “fat-free” translates into a healthy product.

Labeling doesn’t stop at the grocery store it is something we often do to each other and this practice is nothing new.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!” Luke 7:36-39

A quick glance at the label society had placed on this woman convinced the Pharisee that Jesus should have nothing to do with her. Certainly her past was rough and she had made some serious errors in judgment and in his eyes she should be labeled sinner.

We all know that our phones listen to our conversations and sometimes, judging by the sudden gush of relevant advertising, it even seems like they know what we are thinking! Thankfully technology hasn’t advanced that much yet, there is one however, who does know our every thought. Notice in our text the Pharisee hadn’t commented on the woman but rather had passed judgment on her in the realm of his mind.

Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.” “Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied. Luke 7:40

Jesus goes on to tell him a parable about forgiveness and concludes by telling the woman:

“Your faith has saved you go in peace.” Luke 8:50

Here is another example from the New Testament:

Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum? When Jesus heard this he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor-sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous but those who know they are sinners”. Mark 2:13-17

The Pharisees didn’t hesitate to reveal their true feelings. Scum is a pretty harsh description. That is not a label any of us would want to carry around.

In both instances we find the religious leaders mislabeling people. They couldn’t see beyond the past of the woman-Jesus looked directly into her heart. They categorized the lost as scum-Jesus saw their desperate need for help.

If he had been left on his own Samuel would have chosen the wrong man to replace Saul as King of Israel.

I Samuel 16:6-7 when they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”.

How often do we mislabel those around us? How many people are having a hard time fully accepting that God has forgiven them for repented sin because we act as though we can still see the mud clinging to their clothes?

I am sometimes guilty of mislabeling myself. I have struggled at times grasping the finality of God’s forgiveness for my foolish behavior. We often don’t “do” forgiveness very well. It can be difficult for us to feel justice has been served when someone hurts us deeply and turns around and simply asks us to forgive them. Sometimes we might say we do, but we continue to carry resentment or bitterness. We can carry this over into our view of how God forgives us.

My understanding of the character of God is that He is always after restoration. He doesn’t partially forgive us, requiring ongoing penance rather:

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:12

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by mailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:14

Let’s extend just a small portion of the grace that God so freely gives us to those around us, and even to ourselves. The cross is more powerful than our sin.

The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each morning. Lamentations 3:22-23.