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Awkward Dinner Parties Can Lead To Greater Understanding


In Luke 7, we read about Jesus having dinner with a Pharisee. There's a lesson to be had there, because I rarely eat with those whom I disagree, but that may be part of the problem we see in our politically divided country today. But I digress. 

On this occasion, dinner was interrupted by a woman, known to be sinful, coming in and anointing Jesus  with perfume and then crying all over His feet. What's telling is what Luke wants us to remember about this story, because he focuses on the subsequent conversation between the Pharisee and Jesus and not the awkwardness of a woman interrupting dinner to wash the feet of a dinner guest with her tears and her hair.

But the bigger problem is that I imagine most of us read this story and say something like, I need to love God more. While this is true, what we really need is to understand how depraved we really are. I'm convinced if we understood the depth of our depravity, we would be moved to chase after God more than we are currently moved.

Jen and I learned, a long time ago, a little test to see what kind of understanding children had when we were talking to them about salvation. It was a simple question. Do you believe you have sin in your life?

See, many kids will respond when you ask them if they want Jesus in their life. Jesus is awesome, so who wouldn’t respond? But when we ask them if they believe they have sin in their lives, their answers are telling. Because many of them will say no.

If they say no, we pray with them and send them on their way. But we understand biblically they don’t yet have a full understanding. And that’s ok. They’re young.

But I would guess many of us still wouldn’t admit to having sin in our lives. We prefer to say things like;

  • We aren’t perfect.  
  • We’re not as holy as some people, sure, but we can point to people a lot worse.
  • Yeah I was a sinner, but not like some people you hear about.

I have to wonder if we understand that our sin, even the ones we see as small sins, were enough for God to call us depraved. They are enough for us to be sent to Hell. They are enough that God would not and could not be in our presence. They are enough that Jesus willingly sacrificed His life in exchange for ours. 

Because if we don’t understand our sin like that, then we have to ask what we believe Jesus really saved us from.
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