Michael A. Walrond, Jr. - "Transformed by Faith" (June 14, 1998)

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-	Reading is from the gospel	0:03
	according to Saint Luke chapter seven.	0:04
	One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him,	0:08
	and he went into the Pharisee's house	0:10
	and took his place at the table.	0:12
	And a woman in the city, who was a sinner,	0:14
	having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house,	0:16
	brought an alabaster jar of ointment.	0:19
	She stood behind him at his feet, weeping,	0:23
	and began to bathe his feet with tears	0:25
	and to dry them with her hair.	0:27
	Then she continued kissing his feet	0:29
	and anointing them with the ointment.	0:31
	Now when the Pharisee, who had invited him saw it,	0:33
	he said to himself,	0:36
	if this man were a prophet,	0:38
	he would have known who and what kind of woman	0:40
	this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.	0:42
	Jesus spoke up and said to him,	0:46
	"Simon, I have something to say to you."	0:48
	"Teacher," he replied, "speak."	0:51
	"A certain creditor had two debtors.	0:54
	"One owed 500 denarii, and the other 50.	0:56
	"When they could not pay,	1:00
	"he canceled the debts for both of them.	1:02
	"Now which of them will love him more?"	1:04
	Simon answered,	1:07
	"I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt."	1:08
	And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly."	1:11
	Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon,	1:14
	"Do you see this woman?	1:17
	"I entered your house.	1:18
	"You gave me no water for my feet,	1:20
	"but she has bathed my feet with her tears	1:22
	"and dried them with her hair.	1:25
	"You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in	1:27
	"she has not stopped kissing my feet.	1:31
	"You did not anoint my head with oil,	1:34
	"but she has anointed my feet with ointment.	1:37
	"Therefore, I tell you, her sins,	1:39
	"which were many, have been forgiven,	1:41
	"hence she has shown great love.	1:43
	"But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."	1:46
	Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."	1:50
	But those who were at the table with him	1:53
	began to say among themselves,	1:55
	"Who is this who even forgives sins?"	1:57
	And he said to the woman,	2:00
	"Your faith has saved you, go in peace."	2:01
	Soon afterwards he went on through the cities and villages,	2:05
	proclaiming and bringing the good news	2:08
	of the kingdom of God.	2:11
	The 12 were with him as well as some women	2:13
	who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities.	2:15
	Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,	2:19
	and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza,	2:23
	and Susanna, and many others,	2:26
	who provided for them out of their resources.	2:28
	This is the word of the Lord.	2:32
-	Thanks be to God.	2:35
-	Good morning.	2:46
	Good morning.	2:48
-	Good morning.	2:49
-	It is always a joy and a pleasure to be here	2:50
	sharing with you in worship of our Lord	2:55
	and Savior Jesus the Christ.	2:58
	If you would this morning, permit me to read	3:02
	a portion of the gospel lesson	3:05
	that was read in your hearing.	3:06
	In the seventh chapter of the gospel according	3:09
	to Saint Luke, I want to read	3:12
	through verses 36 through 50 once again.	3:14
	One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him,	3:22
	and he went into the Pharisee's house	3:27
	and took his place at the table.	3:29
	And a woman in the city who was a sinner,	3:32
	having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house,	3:35
	brought an alabaster jar of ointment.	3:40
	She stood behind him at his feet, weeping,	3:43
	and began to bathe his feet with her tears	3:46
	and to dry them with her hair.	3:49
	Then she continued kissing his feet	3:52
	and anointing them with the ointment.	3:54
	Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it,	3:57
	he said to himself, if this man were a prophet,	4:01
	he would have known who and what kind of woman this is	4:06
	who is touching him, that she is a sinner.	4:10
	Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon,	4:15
	"I have something to say to you."	4:18
	"Teacher," he replied, "speak."	4:22
	"A certain creditor had two debtors.	4:25
	"One owed 500 denarii and the other 50.	4:28
	"When they could not pay,	4:32
	"he canceled the debts for both of them.	4:33
	"Now which of them will love him more?"	4:36
	Simon answered, "I suppose the one	4:39
	"for whom he canceled the greater debt."	4:41
	And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly."	4:44
	And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon,	4:48
	"Do you see this woman?	4:53
	"I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet,	4:55
	"but she has bathed my feet with her tears	4:59
	"and dried them with her hair.	5:01
	"You gave me no kiss,	5:04
	"but from the time I came in,	5:06
	"she has not stopped kissing my feet.	5:08
	"You did not anoint my head with oil,	5:12
	"but she has anointed my feet with ointment.	5:13
	"Therefore, I tell you, her sins,	5:17
	"which were many, have been forgiven.	5:20
	"Hence she has shown great love.	5:25
	"But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."	5:29
	Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."	5:34
	But those who were at the table with him	5:39
	began to say among themselves,	5:42
	"Who is this who even forgives sins?"	5:44
	And he said to the woman,	5:49
	"Your faith has saved you,	5:51
	go in peace."	5:55
	This morning I want to share from the thoughts	5:59
	transformed by faith,	6:03
	transformed by faith.	6:07
	There is something within me	6:13
	that is frequently drawn near	6:17
	to the gospel according to Saint Luke.	6:20
	Maybe it is Jesus's concern in this gospel	6:25
	with the social and religious outcasts.	6:28
	Maybe it is the frequent theme	6:33
	in the gospel of Luke of Jesus's sympathy with the lowly.	6:35
	Maybe it is even the passion that Jesus has	6:41
	for the least and the lost.	6:44
	Perhaps it is what some have labeled	6:50
	as Jesus' radical discontinuity.	6:52
	It is true that both continuity and discontinuity	6:56
	with his past and with his contemporaries	6:59
	characterized Jesus.	7:03
	He was a woman, a man born of a woman.	7:05
	He was a Jew.	7:08
	He was nurtured in a Jewish home of piety.	7:10
	He went by custom on Sabbath day to the synagogue.	7:15
	He worshiped at the temple	7:19
	and drew heavily upon Jewish Scriptures.	7:22
	The continuity is unmistakably there.	7:25
	But there is something radically different,	7:28
	a radical discontinuity that one sees	7:33
	when they look closer	7:36
	at this person known as Jesus the Christ.	7:37
	Jesus was bodily evicted from his home synagogue.	7:42
	His family seemed to not have understood him	7:48
	or to have been fully supportive of him during his lifetime.	7:52
	The inner circle of 12 lagged behind	7:58
	and sometimes openly opposed him	8:01
	even at crucial points in his ministry.	8:04
	He was crucified by his own people.	8:08
	He crossed conventional lines and social boundaries.	8:11
	He did things that you were not supposed to do.	8:16
	He befriended people who were not to have any friends.	8:20
	He made friends with people	8:26
	like Peter, James, and John, fishermen.	8:27
	He made friends with a woman from Samaria	8:32
	who was not only an enemy, so-called,	8:35
	of the Jewish people, but she was a woman	8:38
	whom he dared to speak to publicly,	8:41
	people whom sometimes the world rejected,	8:43
	Jesus had an uncanny and remarkable ability	8:46
	to embrace and befriend.	8:51
	Maybe it is that reason	8:54
	that I find myself	8:57
	drawn towards Jesus.	9:00
	Because of his ability	9:02
	to embrace people that the world sometimes rejects.	9:05
	His ability to love people	9:10
	that the world sometimes does not love.	9:13
	His ability to save people	9:18
	that the world would rather not be saved.	9:21
	This is why it is not surprising,	9:26
	and as we read the gospel lesson,	9:28
	we find Jesus at a banquet where the host	9:31
	is one of the Pharisees who are characterized	9:35
	as those who rejected God's purpose	9:38
	for their own lives.	9:41
	There were people even amongst his own people	9:43
	who thought that it did not make sense	9:45
	for he a Jew to even be sitting down eating	9:48
	with a Pharisee who was despised by many of the Jews.	9:50
	But I want you, if you can this morning,	9:55
	to just imagine what the scene must have been like.	9:58
	It was not unusual for there to be a crowd	10:04
	gathered in the courtyard of the Pharisees.	10:07
	The crowd is around the courtyard,	10:11
	and inside sits Jesus with one of the Pharisees	10:15
	preparing to eat a meal.	10:20
	And from among the crowd there is one woman.	10:24
	I'm not sure of everyone else's rationale and reason	10:29
	for being there and observing the banquet feast	10:33
	which was a very public event.	10:36
	But I do believe I can understand	10:38
	why this one woman was there.	10:40
	She was an outcast.	10:44
	She was one of the rejects.	10:48
	She was a woman, and the record tells us	10:53
	that she was a sinner who had many sins.	10:55
	And you can imagine that at this time	10:58
	she was despised by many.	11:01
	But she was still there to get a glimpse	11:03
	of someone whom she believed could change her life.	11:06
	She was there to get a glimpse of someone	11:11
	whom she thought could help restore the peace in her life	11:13
	that she longed for, but could not have.	11:18
	She was there, because of the possibility	11:22
	that she would leave there different than how she came.	11:27
	But in actuality isn't that why many of us	11:33
	are drawn to Jesus, because of the possibility	11:36
	that once we have an encounter with Jesus,	11:41
	we might leave definitely than how we arrived at Jesus?	11:44
	The possibility that we might have our hearts transformed,	11:51
	the possibility that we might be more	11:56
	than what we seem to be now,	11:59
	the possibility that Jesus the Christ could take	12:03
	our fruitless lives and transform them	12:07
	into fruitful existences.	12:12
	There's a story that I've heard about Michelangelo,	12:16
	and he said, and when Michelangelo would walk	12:20
	through the marble quarries,	12:23
	that it was as if lifeless marble	12:26
	was reaching out to Michelangelo,	12:29
	because it was as if the marble knew	12:33
	that when Michelangelo would take the hammer	12:35
	and the chisel, great things could be designed	12:37
	and that lifeless marble could be transformed	12:40
	into even angel's wings if need be.	12:43
	Now, I don't know a whole lot about Michelangelo,	12:48
	but I do know that where Jesus walks,	12:53
	people reach out to touch Jesus,	12:56
	hoping that their own lives might be transformed.	13:01
	Where Jesus walks, wrong is sometimes made right.	13:06
	Where Jesus walks, blind people regain their sight.	13:11
	Where Jesus walks, lifeless limbs now bring forth new life.	13:16
	And where Jesus walks, hopeless lives	13:21
	are given a new lease and hope in life.	13:24
	So she was there, because of the possibility	13:29
	that her life would be changed.	13:33
	She comes in,	13:36
	she stands behind Jesus,	13:39
	and just being in the presence, she begins to weep.	13:42
	The tears meander down her cheek,	13:46
	and the tears begin to fall	13:48
	on the feet of Jesus.	13:52
	She's overwhelmed.	13:56
	She begins to wipe the Savior's feet	13:58
	with her own hair,	14:03
	and then anoints his feet with oil.	14:06
	And immediately the Pharisee,	14:11
	who is observing all of this,	14:14
	begins to do what many of us find easy to do,	14:15
	and that is to not look at the beam	14:19
	that is in your own eye, but the mote	14:22
	that is in your brother's or sister's eye.	14:24
	Jesus, she is a sinner.	14:26
	How could you even dare associate with her?	14:30
	You see, I have not lived a long time,	14:36
	but I have lived long enough to know	14:38
	that we don't like pointing the fingers at ourselves.	14:41
	It is easier to point the finger at someone else's fault	14:46
	than to look at the mirror and to see who you really are.	14:49
	No one likes to talk about their own sin,	14:55
	no one likes to talk about their own faults,	14:57
	no one likes to talk about their own shortcomings,	15:00
	so it is easier to point the finger at others	15:03
	whom we believe have greater sins than we.	15:06
	It's easy to point fingers at so many	15:11
	of our young African- American males,	15:13
	because we believe that their sins are greater	15:15
	than our sins based upon what we see in the media	15:18
	and in the newspapers.	15:21
	And it is so easy to point the finger at people	15:24
	who are homeless and then conclude	15:25
	that they are homeless because of their own doing.	15:28
	It is easy to point the finger at young teenage mothers	15:31
	and say that these are just bad girls,	15:34
	they should've known better.	15:36
	Instead of trying to transform the harsh realities	15:37
	they see every day, that many times leads	15:40
	them down paths of destruction.	15:43
	It is easy to point the finger at the big sins,	15:45
	the big wrongs, but hard to look at our lives,	15:49
	because of our pious attitudes.	15:53
	But here is the reality.	15:58
	And I learned this firsthand myself.	16:01
	Last week I had the pleasure of making	16:05
	the acquaintance of a reporter	16:08
	from the News and Observer who was writing	16:09
	an article on the work I was doing at the church.	16:11
	And he asked me to share about my life.	16:15
	And it was hard.	16:20
	When I reflected on it, sharing on my life became easy.	16:22
	Because above everything else I have done in my life,	16:28
	the one thing I know to be true	16:32
	is that God's grace has been gifted to me,	16:34
	and I should be quick to bear testimony	16:39
	to what God has done for me,	16:43
	because there was a time in my life	16:45
	when many of you would've looked upon me	16:47
	in fear and trembling, because of how I used to be.	16:50
	But I am so glad that God does not look at me as I am,	16:54
	but God looks at me for the potential that I possess	16:58
	and does not get concerned with what I am right now,	17:01
	but looks at what I can be when God begins to mold me	17:04
	and make me after God's will.	17:08
	All that I am now is not all that I ever will be,	17:13
	but what I will be will be what God has made me to be.	17:18
	Anyone	17:25
	can have their lives redeemed.	17:27
	There are no hierarchy,	17:30
	or there is no hierarchy of sin.	17:33
	The one who commits the little white lie	17:37
	is on equal standing with the one	17:41
	who even shoots and kills a little girl.	17:44
	Now, there may be some who don't believe that this morning.	17:48
	But as a preacher of the gospel,	17:51
	and as a pastor, I have to believe that,	17:53
	because the same person who commits the little white lie	17:56
	and the same person who even commits the act of murder	18:00
	has the same right to forgiveness by Jesus Christ.	18:04
	And Jesus does not look at the level of your sin,	18:08
	for the record tells us if we believe in our hearts	18:12
	and confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord,	18:15
	then we shall be saved.	18:19
	Salvation is open to anyone.	18:21
	So all we must do is ask for forgiveness.	18:24
	The liar, the adulterer, the fornicator,	18:26
	the murderer, all they must do is ask for forgiveness	18:30
	and it can be granted by Jesus the Christ.	18:33
	This Pharisee fell in the trap of trying	18:38
	to establish a hierarchy of sin,	18:40
	not looking at his own shortcomings,	18:42
	his own faults, but looking at someone else's faults,	18:44
	but not realizing that God has the uncanny ability	18:48
	of looking beyond our every fault	18:52
	and seeing just what we need.	18:55
	Jesus looks at the woman,	19:01
	tells her her sins	19:05
	are forgiven.	19:08
	He has an impromptu discipleship lesson.	19:11
	He begins to tell the Pharisee of the story	19:14
	of two men who are both in debt,	19:18
	one in debt by a large sum,	19:22
	and one in debt by a small sum.	19:24
	And they are forgiven.	19:27
	Their debt is wiped away.	19:29
	He said, who forgives more?	19:30
	He said, the one who had the greater debt.	19:32
	He said, you have judged rightly.	19:35
	And he looked at the woman, he said, your sins are forgiven.	19:36
	And immediately those in the midst began to say,	19:39
	who is this, who can even forgive sins?	19:43
	Jesus looks at the woman,	19:49
	and he says, your faith	19:53
	has saved you.	19:56
	Your faith	19:59
	has transformed you.	20:01
	Don't worry about the enormity of your past sin,	20:04
	you now have a new lease on life.	20:10
	You now have a new way of being,	20:14
	a new way of seeing, a new way of living.	20:18
	She was transformed by her faith and belief	20:23
	that Jesus could save her,	20:29
	that Jesus could redeem her.	20:32
	He said, your faith has saved you, now go in peace.	20:37
	Where your life was once filled with chaos,	20:40
	now I bid you go in peace.	20:43
	Where your life was once filled with pain,	20:47
	I bid you now go in peace.	20:50
	Where your life was filled with confusion and destruction,	20:53
	I now bid you to go in peace.	20:57
	No longer be burdened down by the weight of your sin,	21:01
	but now go assured that your sins have been forgiven.	21:05
	And that is the good news of the gospel.	21:09
	That is why we sit here even today,	21:12
	because of the possibility that because of our faith	21:14
	and our belief in Jesus Christ,	21:18
	we too can be transformed	21:20
	and made new creatures in Christ.	21:24
	That is my prayer.	21:29
	Not only that morning by morning new mercies	21:31
	I can see in Jesus Christ,	21:34
	but that moment by moment, day by day,	21:37
	I am ever changing and ever being transformed	21:40
	by my faith in Jesus the Christ.	21:44
	There's a song I love so much,	21:47
	it says,	21:51
	I heard the Savior say,	21:55
	thy strength indeed is small,	21:58
	child of weakness, watch and pray,	22:02
	find in me thine all in all.	22:06
	Jesus paid it all.	22:09
	All to him I owe.	22:12
	Sin had left a crimson stain,	22:15
	but Jesus washed it white as snow, amen.	22:19
	(solemn organ music)	22:34

Item Info

Title:

Michael A. Walrond, Jr. - "Transformed by Faith" (June 14, 1998)

Description:

In Jesus we have hope and promise of forgiveness from our sins and transformation into a new way of life. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 02:46. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 22:24.
Key quotation: “Where Jesus walks, people reach out to touch Jesus, hoping that their own lives might be transformed.”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4hq3sd00

Date:

June 14, 1998

Speaker:

Walrond, Michael A., Jr.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 CS-0910
ref9969_uvw
uachapelsermaud
duke:321095
dcrau001554
ark:/87924/r4hq3sd00
33e22130-a4da-4de0-891c-c71618113537

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