In the gospel according to Luke, we meet Simon the Pharisee, who is filled with self-righteous indignation at a woman whom he regards as, quite simply, "a sinner." In his self-righteousness, he says to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him-that she is a sinner." Jesus perceives Simon's anger, and responds in kind: Jesus shows righteous indignation at Simon's hypocrisy. Jesus points out that Simon failed to provide the fullest possible hospitality: water for his feet, a kiss of greeting, an anointing-all signs of respect accorded an honored guest. But the woman has exceeded all standards of honor and hospitality, with tears and kisses and ointment…

In Galatians, we also have a story of self-righteous indignation responded to with righteous indignation. Cephas, whom we know better as the Apostle Peter, had been eating with Gentiles, which was forbidden under the Jewish law. When a faction of Jewish believers in Christ (who insisted that before converting to Christ, Gentiles first had to become Jews and be circumcised) came to Antioch, Cephas-slash-Peter and Barnabas feared this faction's self-righteous indignation against Jews who ate with Gentiles, so they stopped doing so. When Paul heard that Cephas had stopped eating with these Gentile converts, he was filled with righteous indignation, for he was convinced that Peter was acting hypocritically and not "consistently with the truth of the gospel."

While we're on the subject of self-righteous indignation and hypocrisy, we might as well remember the first reading. The back story to what we heard is this: David had an affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a Gentile commander in David's army. When Bathsheba gets knocked up while Uriah's off to war, David first tries to cover it up by inviting Uriah back home from the front, getting him drunk, and sending him back to Bathsheba for a little R&R. But Uriah feels guilty for taking it easy while his men are fighting, so he sleeps on David's porch instead. This forces David's hand, and he orders Uriah's commander, Joab, to put Uriah on the front line and then to sound a sudden retreat when Uriah's out in the open. And you can imagine what happens to poor Uriah the Hittite, David's loyal foreign-born commander.

That's where today's reading picks up. David marries Bathsheba, and then my favorite prophet, Nathan, comes to David with a parable about a rich man who steals a poor man's lamb to feed it to a guest. The parable is designed to convict David of his hypocrisy in sitting in judgment over the anonymous rich man when he has acted in the same way. Predictably, David gets all worked up over Nathan's story, and, filled with self-righteous indignation, pronounces this sentence: "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Filled with righteous indignation, Nathan invents that timeless phrase, "You da man!" Except he doesn't mean it as a compliment.

So far, so good. In each story, we've got a character who is supposed to be righteous but isn't: David the good king is cast as David the adulterer. Peter the bold Apostle is cast as Cephas the wimp, and Simon the observant Pharisee is cast as Simon the bigot.

Notice also that each story has to do with hospitality: Nathan's parable is about a stranger who becomes the guest of a rich man, who exploits the poor man to provide hospitality. The conflict recounted in Galatians is about Jews alternately accepting and rejecting hospitality from Gentiles. The gospel story is about a righteous Jew who offers incomplete hospitality, while an unrighteous Jew offers not just complete, but overflowing, hospitality.

So what can we get out of these stories? Well, I guess the first lesson is that it's really easy to fall into the trap of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy isn't just about being inconsistent in one's actions, it's about failing to show the same hospitality and respect to people whom you regard as lesser as you do to people whom you regard as your equals or betters. And let's face it, we all have people we regard as lesser, whether that be around education, socio-economic status, political convictions, lifestyle choices, morality, et cetera, et cetera…

Thus, hypocrisy keeps us from loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, and more importantly, it keeps us from loving one another as Christ loves us. David's neighbor in Jerusalem was the Gentile, Uriah the Hittite. Peter's neighbors in Antioch were Gentiles (whom even Paul labels "Gentile sinners"). Simon's neighbor in Bethany¹ was a sinful woman, most likely a prostitute. Who are our neighbors?

Among our neighbors, there's a sub-set of people whom we regard as our enemies. Loving our neighbor is hard enough, but when you pile on top of that the injunction to love our enemies, it's a wonder that anyone can call himself a Christian without some sense of hypocrisy. This is particularly true if we view our enemy as "unrepentant," a judgment that seems to excuse our hatred of our enemies.

But it seems to me that the larger message in these three lessons is about our role as Christians in community: what that role is, and perhaps more importantly, what it's not. When we baptize, the community is asked, "Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?" (BCP 303) When the bishop confirms, he asks us again, "Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?" (BCP 416) At every wedding, the celebrant asks, "Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?" At every ordination, the community is asked, "Will you uphold him in this ministry?" (BCP 539, 527) Each and every time, the expected response is a resounding, "We will."

Two verbs, synonyms: "support" and "uphold." That's our role in community. We are to support and uphold each other in keeping our vows and promises, in living out our commitments to Christ and to each other. Notice that we aren't asked to control anybody in his or her life in Christ. The clearly defined role given to the Christian community is to support people in becoming more and more who God is calling them to be, not necessarily in becoming more and more whom we would be most comfortable being around.

In Galatians, Paul condemns the circumcision faction precisely because its members aren't interested in supporting the Gentiles in their life in Christ, or in helping Gentile converts in becoming the people God would have them be. They are interested only in maintaining the boundaries of their own insular community. In so doing, they attempt to control Cephas and Barnabas and the Gentiles themselves, shutting the Gentiles out of any meaningful participation in the church unless they first agree to conform to the standards that the circumcision faction has set. Even then, these converts would likely be regarded as second-class Christians.

In Luke, Simon the Pharisee isn't interested in converting the sinful woman at all, let alone forgiving her. He wants to control the situation by excluding her altogether, and he expects Jesus to exclude her as well. Instead, Jesus chooses to support the woman in her life in God-a new life of faith, through which she experiences the forgiveness of her sins.

What Simon and Cephas don't recognize is that if they exclude any person from community based on the pre-judgment that that person is "a sinner," that person will never become a part of the community in the first place. In our own attitude toward those outside the church, therefore, it is particularly important for us to keep in mind that repentance and forgiveness and membership in the community do not come in any fixed order.

Paul Nuechterlein, commenting on Raymund Schwager's book Jesus in the Drama of Salvation notes that:

[A] key point of Jesus' message was to reverse the usual order of penance and forgiveness. With Jesus, forgiveness comes first and is what enables us to begin living lives of penance. It's not an "if-then" logic-'if you repent, then you will be forgiven.' It's a "because-therefore" logic-'because you have already been forgiven, therefore you are freed to respond with a changed life, a heart that turns to God.' Schwager also is insightful in connecting this to the other aspect of Jesus' message which is so unique: love of enemies. We are called to love our enemies because God has first loved us in that way; God has forgiven us while we were still enemies (cf., Rom. 5:8-10).

This is life-changing. It challenges all of our usual assumptions about who is "in" and who is "out." No longer can we dismiss our neighbor because he or she is "unrepentant." The radical good news of the Gospel is that even unrepentant sinners have already been forgiven. It is by embracing that forgiveness that sinners have any hope at all of being changed. This changed life, this heart that turns to God, is itself the repentance, for the word "repent" means, literally, "to turn around."

At the same time, we can believe that certain behavior is not appropriate, either for us or for our community. We can hold fast to our conviction that certain things are wrong and hurtful, but our promise is to support all people in finding God's will for their lives, not in controlling them so that they follow our wills. As Christians, we are called to live by example, to give our love as example, and to give people the space, within a caring community, to make of it what they will, with God's help.

"Thy will be done"-we say it every week. But do we really mean it? David, Cephas, Simon-they all acted in one way or another as if they knew what was best-their prayer was never "Thy will be done" but "my will be done." In our prayers, we need to be mindful of this very thing, that we are not imposing our own will, but are looking for opportunities to support God's will insofar as we can see it being worked out in another person's life. Ultimately, we must ask ourselves, "In my actions and in my prayers, am I truly responding out of love for this person, or am I trying to conform him or her to my will?" If we are acting out of love, we will be able to trust that God will give each of us the grace to lead a holy life, and will show us how to support each other in our common life in Christ. Only then will we be "acting consistently with the truth of the gospel." Only then may we expect to hear Jesus address us saying, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."