THERE IS SOME KISS

A Sermon on Luke 7:36-8:3

From the poet Rumi: There is some kiss we want with our whole lives; the touch of Spirit on the body.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “kiss”? Sealed with a kiss. Kiss and ride. Kiss and tell. Eskimo kisses. “Give us a kiss!” “Love and kisses!” “You must remember this; a kiss is just a kiss…” And a rock band called Kiss?

Why do we kiss? Who do we kiss? What does a kiss mean? These questions and more are the ones we’ll ask (we asked) in our Bible Drama class in the Junior/Senior High classroom today. Forgive me, but here’s a public service announcement: We’re offering some simple, drop-in Bible study this summer in between the 8 and 10 a.m. services, looking at the lessons we hear in church. For the adult version of Bible study, you can go to the Parish Hall at 9 a.m. For the “children of all ages” version, go all the way downstairs in our newer building and follow your ears to our Bible Drama.

A kiss. Now, THERE’S drama. There are few things more dramatic than watching and waiting for that first kiss in, for example, a movie theater. That might be an on-screen kiss, or it might be off-screen . . . three rows down. Some of the most memorable photographs are of a famous kiss, like the one in Life magazine showing a sailor and a nurse in Times Square. That one captured a moment of spontaneous joy on August 15, 1945, the end of World War II.

What’s in a kiss? A moment of spontaneous joy? A moment of love or desire? A moment of betrayal? A kiss can be all of those things. And in today’s powerful story from Luke’s gospel, we learn that a kiss can also represent a moment of deep thanks, a moment of gratitude and forgiveness.

Here’s the story’s script. Jesus has been invited to a dinner party, thrown by Simon, a wealthy Pharisee. He has just healed a centurion’s slave and resurrected a widow’s son. Now, it’s time to take a break. So he arrives at Simon’s house and sits down at the dinner table. What we find out later in the story is that Simon was not very welcoming to Jesus, even though he had invited him. He did not greet Jesus or provide anything to help him freshen up from his journey. He did not treat Jesus the way Jesus tended to treat others.

Now we are not prepared for what happens next: And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment (Luke 7:37-38).

What we need to remember about Jesus’ day is that there were no socks and shoes. If you were walking the roads of Bible times, you wore something like sandals, which meant that your feet got really dirty and needed some kind of tending to, whenever you came indoors. We 21st century travelers don’t tend to think about the fact that basic human hospitality back then was to provide water for washing and perfumed oil for transforming foot odor into fragrant feet. Imagine what that was like, to be treated with such deep dignity and respect.

Simon the host did not show any hospitality or respect to Jesus. And he definitely had no room in his heart for the woman. Now when (Simon) saw it, he said 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” (7:39). Simon is not the only one who disregards her. She is, unlike the women at the end of the story but like so many other women in the Bible, unnamed, a sign of disrespect. She is also called a “woman in the city,” a phrase that countless commentators since that story was written have interpreted to mean a town harlot, a prostitute. Just like Mary Magdalene, this woman has been assigned more sin than she deserves.

Jesus tells us she is a sinner. The other sinners in today’s scriptures are Ahab and Jezebel, scoundrels and braggarts, liars and deceivers, Jews and Gentiles and Paul. And so is Simon. The real issue here is that Simon does not know how sinful, how full of the sin of disrespect he is. So, Jesus speaks up. “Simon, I have something to say to you.” Uh-oh. This does not sound good for Simon. Simon says simply, “Teacher…Speak.” Is there a hint of disrespect in his voice? We can’t know for sure. But we do know how Jesus feels – about the way Simon has treated him, and about the way this grateful woman has welcomed him – not into her home, but into her life.

There is some kiss we want with our whole lives; the touch of Spirit on the body. There are ways in which we show other people what they mean to us. A gift, a card, a few words, even a touch of the hand, perhaps a hug. But hugs are one thing, and kisses are another. I remember the day some years back my new friend, a rabbi, kissed me on the cheek when we greeted each other in a local café and sat down to share a meal. It was a small thing, that kiss, but it was more meaningful to me because of this simple fact: my rabbi friend was another man. One man kissing another man in public, albeit on the cheek. Without thinking about it, I realized in that spontaneous moment of hospitality that I loved the fact he would dare to kiss my cheek publically. Better than privately. Better than a handshake or even a hug, which we also shared. His kiss said, “I truly regard you not only as a friend, but as a precious child of God.” And that’s what Jesus did. Jesus was the one being kissed, yet he was willing to receive that kiss as a sign of affection, respect and love. Because he did not judge or disrespect her, this unnamed woman had a name for Jesus, and it was beloved.

Perhaps there is some kiss you have wanted your whole life. Maybe there is some kiss you have wanted to give someone else, like this beloved, forgiven woman gave to Jesus. Perhaps you seldom experience a moment when you kiss or are kissed in gratitude, forgiveness, joy, love. If so, my prayer for you is that today, before you leave this sacred space, that you find someone or allow someone to find you, during that moment in this Eucharistic service which the church first called “the kiss of peace,” and share some kiss with someone else.

For those of us who are not ready, willing or able to do this, for those of us for whom there is some kiss we want, but not right here, right now, let me make another suggestion: take a walk. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to this phrase that also comes from Rumi, a phrase familiar to countless poetry lovers: There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

This week while on my morning walk I saw a mother rabbit with her three babies. I saw them, and I stopped, because I have learned to do this, most of the time, when something beautiful crosses my path. So I stopped, and they all stopped, and we just looked at each other for awhile. I took what mystics and contemplatives call “a long loving look.” Now, I don’t and won’t ever know about them, but for that one, precious moment, I wanted to kneel down and kiss, if not those bunnies, then at least the ground.

Today, I am grateful to God beyond words for this moment with you, this one, precious moment, when we come together, all together in this sacred space, to seek God’s forgiveness and one another’s. I am grateful to God for this sacred story of a woman who was so filled with gratitude for the forgiveness she had received, she knelt and kissed the feet of Jesus, the Ground of All Being. I am grateful to God to be on this journey, with Jesus and with you. There is some kiss we want with our whole lives; the touch of Spirit on the body. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.