TRISTAN SHERWIN

THEME: COMPASSION AND SOLIDARITY

Here’s my longer sermon notes from this morning’s Metro Christian Centre service (dated 25th May 2025), continuing our exploration of Jesus-shaped and Jesus-shaping habits.

You can also catch up with this via MCC’s YouTube channel (just give us time to get the video uploaded).

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‘…have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts’

—Charles Dickens[i]

READ: LUKE 7:36-50 (NIV)

BLIND LUNACY[ii]

In my hometown of Skelmersdale, back in the 1990’s, there was a lady who would often roam the town centre called ‘June’.

At least, that’s what I was told her name was.

For all I know, she could have been called Jennifer, Judy, or Stephanie. She could have been married, or widowed. She may have had children and grandkids and owned a Cockapoo.

But to be very honest about the kind of teenager I was, I didn’t really care to know any of this. None of us, back then, as teenagers cared to know.

All we had was the name ‘June’. And even then, it wasn’t ‘June Smith’ or ‘June Jones’. We, horribly, only knew her as ‘June the Loon’ and, cruelly, we would holler this name at her whenever we spied her walking around the town centre.

Ashamedly, our cruelty didn’t stop there.

Along with her name, the only other so-called “fact” we knew about ‘June’ was that she would always pick up pennies. And it became a wicked game of ours to take whatever change we had and roll it, one coin at a time, along the tiled floor of our crowded shopping centre, in the knowledge that ‘June’ would chase down every single penny, bumping into and upsetting other shoppers as she did so.

Perversely, in our collective reasoning, we assured ourselves that she enjoyed playing this game as much as we enjoyed watching it.

Although, we never bothered to ask her opinion or get close enough to see what she thought.

None of us cared enough to speak to her directly.

Except, there was a time when a friend of mine once told me that a friend of a friend, of a friend of his, once knew somebody who had spoken to ‘June’, face to face, and asked her why she made a ‘fool of herself’ by chasing bits of change. The answer, my friend “reliably” informed me, was that she was annoyed at people throwing away money—if they didn’t want it, she would have it and put it to better use.

There was even a rumour going around that ‘June’ had collected enough pennies to leave ‘Skem’ for good and emigrate to a sunnier climate altogether.

I never believed this rumour, though. It was more likely inspired by Deacon Blue’s song, A Ship Called Dignity than by reality. But there’s a part of me that would love for it to be true. Whenever I remember ‘June’, I like to imagine that she is now sat on the deck of a yacht somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean, sipping on strawberry daiquiris, laughing at the idiots who had financed her grand escape.

Sadly though, I know this won’t be the case. And like the character Briony, from Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, I only imagine such an ending in a limp attempt to appease my sense of guilt.

And I do feel the guilt of it. If you ever catch me holding a penny, looking lost in thought, it’s guaranteed that I will be thinking of ‘June’, and the horrible bullying she received. My heart breaks because of my blindness and the consequences of it. All these years later, it still pains me that I can only talk about her through the lens of a label.

‘June the loon’ wasn’t a name and neither was it a real person. It was a persona my society had plastered on to this lady, entombing the real person we all refused to see.

And I bought into it. I helped reinforced that persona.

We told ourselves that it was she who made a fool of herself. But the truth is, we made a fool of her. We were the lunatics. Behind this persona was a real person with a past, a family, feelings and hopes. But, heartlessly, we didn’t care to see any of that. We showered her with pennies and insults when we should have been showering her with dignity and care.

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

It’s not just pennies that make me remember ‘June’. Whenever I read this passage in Luke 7, she comes racing to mind.

Jesus has been invited to eat at Simon the Pharisee’s home and, in the midst of the food and conversation, a woman comes in, positions herself behind where Jesus is reclining, and then begins to bathe His feet with her tears, her kisses and a beautiful jar of expensive perfume.

It is an extravagant display of devotion—one that, understandably, doesn’t go unnoticed.

Simon, the host, who has been watching this, is disgusted by what is going on and says to himself, ‘“This proves that Jesus is no prophet. If God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman is touching him.”’[iii]

Simon’s choice of words says a great deal. You can imagine the sneer in his voice as he delivers these words. Not only in his snub towards Jesus, which we often see instinctively, but also in his view of this woman, which we often miss, and maybe even automatically consent to.

Simon describes her as a kind of woman.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a description like this, or whether you’ve even used it.

We use terms like this when we want to single out an individual from the rest of humanity. Occasionally, in a positive way— ‘They’re generous, that’s the kind of person they are.’ But more commonly, and certainly in Simon’s case, it’s not said in a flattering way. It’s a slur, a way of saying that someone fails to qualify into the category of a person at all; that they are more sub-human than human, and that there is a great distance between them and us.

Whoever this lady was, Simon sees her in the same light I saw ‘June’ as a teenager.

There’s obviously a story circulating about her in her society, a story that has become her community’s way of defining her – a story that there may even be truth to. But Simon is incapable of seeing anything more than this persona and is unwilling to let her escape from this persona that entombs her.

It’s worth saying, I think, that we, you and I, know absolutely nothing about this woman.

Sure, Luke, who writes this, reports that Simon sees her as a ‘sinner’, and Luke himself also mentions her to be a sinner, too (in verse 37). But ‘sinner’ is hardly a helpful description. Afterall, we all fall into that category.

And yet, despite the ambiguity, there have been countless so-called “educational” guesses about this lady’s character and her ‘crime’, with the accusation of prostitution taking the top place. There’s a lot I can say about this. But, to avoid going off track, this says more about us than it does about her.

We even like to make a deal out of the untying of her hair, as if it’s an erotic act. But again, that’s a modern invention that says more about us than it does her. As a fourth-century writer called Asterius of Amasea pointed out, unbound hair was more of a symbol of grief than immodesty; loose and unkept hair showed humility and mourning.[iv]

To be clear, there’s nothing in this story, or the rest of the New Testament, which shows this woman to be a prostitute. Actually, Luke tells you and I nothing about this woman’s background. And that’s important! If Simon the Pharisee had wrote this account, I’m certain he would have given us all the juicy gossip we would have wanted. But Luke, God bless him, gives us nothing—nothing that would single her out from the rest of us.[v]

For all we know—and I’m not saying it is—this woman could be the widow who was previously grieving for her dead son near the beginning of this chapter, the widow from Nain, or even one of the mourners of that funeral procession.[vi] After all, Jesus is still in and around the village of Nain at this point.

Again, I’m not saying she is. But it is telling how that consideration seldom, if ever, occurs to us, and that, almost “naturally” we lean toward a more non-compassionate judgement over her character.[vii]

Unsurprisingly, all of our so-called “educated” guesses are about as informed as my friend’s, friend’s, friend’s knowledge of ‘June’s’ saving plans.

All our guesses reveal is our willingness to be led by how Simon sees this woman. Instead of asking what she is grieving about, what has moved her to tears and to loosen her hair, we, like I was as a teenager, buy into the persona this society has plastered her with.

We fail to see her.

But Jesus doesn’t.

DO YOU SEE THIS WOMAN?

Somehow, as only Jesus can, Jesus hears what Simon is thinking.

And Jesus, answering Simon’s thoughts (v.40), brings what Simon is thinking, and what everyone else is probably thinking, into the centre of the conversation.

First, he offers a short but powerful story about a man who forgives two debts. One debt is equivalent to a year and half’s wage, the other is more like two month’s wage—but they are both large amounts. Jesus asks, ‘which will love the man more?’

Simon acknowledges, ‘I suppose it’ll be the one with the larger debt.’

‘That’s right’, Jesus answers. But then he points to the woman behind him, drawing everyone’s attention to her, and asks Simon, ‘Do you see this woman?’

It’s worth pausing here.

The truth was, of course, that Simon had “seen” a great deal. He had seen this woman slip into his feast; He had seen her intrusion into his circle, his world, his unsullied company. He had seen, very clearly, and was offended by her approach to Jesus, her so-called “disgraceful” behaviour; her unbridled grief; her extravagant offering of perfume. He had seen her reputation and replayed it all in his mind and he had passed a ferocious judgment on her in his own heart, based on all that he had so-called “seen”.

But the one thing Simon had failed to see was the woman herself. He had failed to see her pain, her sorrow, her fragile hope … her humanity. Simon doesn’t even acknowledge her act prayerful act of worship.

It brings to mind the story of Hannah, in 1 Samuel, where she goes to the tabernacle and, in her desperation, is mumbling prayers to God. Eli, the priest at the time, spies Hannah relaying, in broken sentences and variations in volume, her heartache towards God and wrongly accuses Hannah of being drunk. Eli believes he sees it all, yet misses the intimacy of human vulnerability engaging with a compassionate God.[viii]

Simon, so he thought, as Eli did, “saw” everything, but in the end proved blind to the only thing that mattered.

Jesus, God tabernacling among us, on the other hand, as God did in the tabernacle with Hannah, saw this woman and the heart’s cry of her humanity.

Do you see this woman?

In purposeful contrast to Simon’s language, Jesus does not say ‘Do you see this kind of woman’. It may seem like a small detail in language, but it marks a huge difference in the perspectives of Jesus and Simon.

She’s not sub-human in Jesus’ view. Jesus addresses her directly, tenderly, speaking to her pain and her hope. Jesus highlights her humanity.

In addition to this, as Jesus describes why she had just washed his feet, he elevates her to a role model of faith and devotion (v.44-47). And so, turning the tables back on Simon, Jesus is saying that if she is a ‘kind of person’, then she is the kind of person that Simon the Pharisee, and we also, must become more like.

This is not some random act of kindness from Jesus. Jesus did not do “random” acts of kindness. He was intentionally consistent. This tender approach characterised the way Jesus moved throughout his days.

Jesus never loses sight of people.

Jesus never buys into, and never imprisons people within the personas and the problems that their societies, their sin or their stories have entombed them in.

We see this happening repeatedly throughout the Gospels.

We’re told that, one day, the scribes and Pharisees drag before Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery. They are blind to everything but the controversial issue at stake. For them, the only relevant question when they look at her is whether to stone her, or not to stone her? But Jesus, with his famous ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’, manoeuvres all her accuses away, and is the only person in the story to address her directly. Jesus alone sees the human person in her.[ix]

On another occasion, while in a synagogue one Sabbath day, Jesus sees a man with a withered hand. For Jesus’ enemies and critics, the man’s withered hand, his condition in life, his day-to-day experience, is just an afterthought. All they’re interested in is if Jesus will break their ideas about keeping the Sabbath. Jesus, though, speaks of the man’s condition as being the more important issue. As Mark tells us, when narrating this story, Jesus looks at his critics ‘angrily, because he was disturbed by their hard hearts.’[x] None of them address the man directly to see what he thinks about it all, nor do they ask him if he thinks Jesus should heal him or not. Jesus, again, is the only one in the story who addresses this man directly, dealing with him on a personal level.

Then there’s the story of the paralyzed man who is lowered through the roof—a man that Jesus speaks forgiveness to.  As in Luke 7, the crowd is abuzz with questions — are Jesus’ words blasphemous, or not? But, other than the man’s friends, Jesus, again, is the only one to see and deal with the person before him, rather than the issues and questions.[xi]

One day, as Jesus is walking along with his disciples, his disciples see a man who has been born without eyesight. All his disciples see is a case study for a theology lesson. But Jesus has to remind them that, first and foremost, the man, whatever his predicament, was made for the glory of God.[xii]

There’s also the story of the woman who had been bent double for eighteen years. Jesus, again, we are told, sees her within the sea of faces in the synagogue, He speaks to her directly, and heals her. But, from the viewpoint of the synagogue leader, a person hasn’t been healed, rather a rule has been broken.[xiii]

At the pool of Bethesda, we are again told that Jesus saw a lame man, who had been crippled for thirty-eight years, and has been waiting, day after day, not only for a certain ripple to happen upon the water’s surface, but for someone to notice him and offer aid in climbing into those waters. Everyone else around the pool only sees themselves and their own condition, viewing everyone else as competition. But Jesus sees him, Jesus addresses him, and Jesus transforms his life.[xiv]

Again and again and again, in the Gospels, we meet these stories of Divine compassion tenderly meeting human frailty.

As Matthew’s Gospel described Jesus, using the words of Isaiah, ‘He will not crush those who are weak, or quench the smallest hope,…’[xv] Or, as you may be more used to hearing it, ‘A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.’

We look at people and, like I did as a teenager, we see the labels we or others have placed upon them. We look at people, like the woman in Luke 7, and like Simon we would rather recall the scandal or wonder about the nature of her immorality, rather than seeing and seeking out the person caught up within it all. We see people, and we see their failures and not their possible futures.

We see people, but we don’t really see at all.

But Jesus saw people.

Moreover, every person Jesus saw, he saw as redeemable and as a receiver of his love.

CUM PATI

I’m saying all this because I want to say something about this rhythm of compassion, and, to be truthful, I wasn’t sure where to start or what to say.

A part of me, initially, was going to begin with Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem, and contrast that with Jonah who refused to shed a tear for Ninevah but who was enraged when his own comfort was disturbed. Or, when Jesus weeps with the family and friends of Lazarus; though Jesus knew what was coming, he fully feels the sorrow of the scene. He wept—not out of hopelessness, but out of sympathy for those he loved and out of anger towards pain, suffering, and death. In both stories, Jesus’ tears reveal that he is not a detached deity. And, having started there, I would have then asked, ‘when was the last time you or I wept for our towns, or even for anyone other than ourselves?’[xvi]

I was also tempted to just turn to all those obvious places in the Gospels which speak of Jesus being moved with compassion; like when he feeds the five thousand or when he touches the man with leprosy.[xvii]

Of course, I could have turned to that ultimate example of compassion: the cross itself, and talk about how God not only suffers on behalf of others, but with others. After all, that’s what our English word compassion means; it comes from the Latin cum pati meaning ‘to suffer with.’

And that would have led into a nice word study, maybe, and I could have looped back to one of my favourite Hebrew phrases, rehem—which is not only the Hebrew word for compassion and especially God’s compassion, but also the same word that is used to speak of a woman’s womb. That, in the Old Testament scriptures, God’s compassionate nature in likened to the womb; a place of care and protection, a place of nurturing and nourishment, of being cradled and sustained by the life of another.[xviii]

Into the mix of all that, I would have slipped in a wonderful definition of compassion by the Dutch Priest, Henri Nouwen, where he talks about us crying out with those in misery, mourning with those who mourn, and being weak with the weak. That, as Nouwen describes, compassion means going where it hurts, sharing in the anguish, not merely being bystanders, but fully immersing ourselves into the brokenness and frailty of others, bearing it with them.[xix]

And the icing on the cake would have been to share the story of Jürgen Moltmann, who, as someone who was fighting with the German forces during World War II, ended up being taken captive and becoming a POW in Scotland. But who, through the goodness of the camp’s Chaplain, and through the kindness and hospitality of Scottish Christians who saw past the prisoner’s number on his back, underwent a powerful transformation, becoming one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the twentieth century.[xx]

And maybe all of this would have been wholesome and educational, with a slim possibility of being inspiring.

It dawned on me, however, that none of this is the right place to start. Because the truth is, we are incapable of such an immersion, incapable of carrying others, incapable of caring and protecting, of being womb-like; incapable of suffering with others and being moved by their plights; and will find it intolerable to feed others, unbearable to touch their lives, and even unthinkable to weep for them, if we fail to see others as people at all.

Jesus’ question is profound: ‘Do you see this woman?’

If the circumstances were different, it could equally be, ‘Do you see this man?’

‘Do you see this human being?’

We need to learn to see people.

Or, to speak more clearly, we need Jesus, daily, to help us to see.

Left to my own devices, I often don’t.

Like Simon, in this story, there are things that block my vision:

Sometimes it’s prejudices—the stories and lenses I’ve inherited or adopted that taint how I view others.

Sometimes, it is because I can be so self-absorbed and self-centred that I’m blind to the needs, struggles, and pain of those around me. Too pre-occupied to care.

Sometimes, it’s ingratitude. I do not recognise the kindness and mercy God has already shown toward me. Leaning on the parable Jesus taught Simon in this story, no matter how tempting it is to measure my sin against the sins of others, I should never forget that I have also been shown great and extraordinary kindness by the One who has cancelled my large debts.

And sometimes, it’s because I have this twisted, fallen, un-Christ-like idea that people ought to be deserving of compassion and love before they should receive any compassion and love. That, they ought to be worthy of it or that there should be some form of return from my investment. And so, I make these wrong decisions of who’s a good “investment” and who’s a “dead loss”.[xxi]

I’m not immune to any of this—maybe I’m not alone. But thankfully, God doesn’t view people the way I do. And so, for me, the Jesus-shaped rhythm of compassion always begins with the daily habit of asking Jesus to help me see people through his eyes.

Or as we occasionally sing,

‘Heal my heart and make it clean | Open up my eyes to the things unseen | Show me how to love | Like You have loved me | Break my heart for what breaks Yours…’[xxii]

It reminds of a wonderful lady called Lynne Whittle, who some of us had the pleasure of knowing. I had the joy of having a cuppa with Lynne on a few occasions, and I have never forgotten that she told me that she started her day with the same prayer:

‘Holy Spirit, help me to really love people today’

This is the best place to start—everyday, and consistently throughout the day.

With that start in mind, I will end.

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‘Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.’

—1 Peter 3:8 (NIV)

‘The Christian faith grows directly out of, and must directly express, the belief that in Jesus the Messiah the one true God has revealed himself to be—love incarnate. And those who hold this faith, and embrace it as the means of their own hope and life, must themselves reveal the self-same fact before the watching world. Love incarnate must be the badge that the Christian community wears, the sign not only of who they are but of who their God is.’

—Tom Wright.[xxiii]

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ENDNOTES AND REFERENCES

[i] Miss Jenny, defending the good character of Miss Lizzie Hexam, in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, book 3, chapter 2 (Kindle Edition). The full quote is, “‘And if it’s proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts,’ Miss Jenny struck in, flushed, ‘she is proud. And if it’s not, she is not.’”

[ii] The initial chunk of this sermon has been developed from an older blog post of mine called June and Lunacy

[iii] Luke 7:39b, NLT. Italics mine.

[iv] Charles H. Cosgrove, A Woman’s Unbound Hair in the Greco-Roman World, with Special Reference to the Story of the ‘Sinful Woman’ in Luke 7:36-50, (Journal of Biblical Literature 124.4, 2005), pp. 675-92

[v] As Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III state, ‘Commentators are quick to judge: the woman must be a prostitute, as if that is the only sin a woman is capable of committing. Luke recognises that women are not so unimaginative: Sapphire along with her husband sins against the Church by withholding part of her pledge (Acts 5.1-10). Conversely, earlier in the Gospel, Peter identified himself as a sinner (5.8), and few would identify Peter’s sin as prostitution. Indeed, the only time Luke mentions prostitutes is in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, in which the older brother accuses the prodigal of “devouring [the father’s] property with prostitutes” (15.30). That is, the prostitutes exist only in the imagination of the elder brother and the reader. … The identification of the woman as a sinner says nothing about the particular types of sin. It does, however, evoke Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in 5.32. “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” We might therefore see the women as already repentant and thus coming to Jesus to express her gratitude. Like Zaccheaus in 19.7, this repentant sinner will be acknowledged before others who would judge her without knowing the full story.’ [Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke: New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, New York USA, 2018), pp. 210-211]

To add an additional thought, if the women’s sin was prostitution, and again, I have no reason to suspect it was at all, why do we solely blame the woman for this as if this was a “career choice”? As with modern forms of prostitution, so with more ancient forms, there is little in the way of voluntary “choice”. Shouldn’t we lament the sort of society that exploits the desperate situations of others and forces people into such pathways?

[vi] Luke 7:11-17.

[vii] Again, I do not believe this lady to be the widow of Nain. Luke, who has already mentioned this widow in the preceding verses, would surely have mentioned it being her if it had been so. While we’re guessing at names, it’s also worth stating that this lady is not Mary Magdalene, too. Luke is about to mention Mary Magdalene in the very next passage (Luke 8:1-3), as he lists the female followers of Jesus. Had this woman been Mary Magdalene, Luke would have connected the two, but he doesn’t. Furthermore, I don’t believe this woman to be Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’ sister, either—that particular anointing takes place much later and in a different location.

[viii] 1 Samuel 1:9-18

[ix] John 8:1-11.

[x] Mark 3:1-6.

[xi] Mark 2:1- 12.

[xii] John 9:1-7.

[xiii] Luke 13:10-17

[xiv] John 5:1-13

[xv] Matthew 12:20, quoting Isaiah 42:1-4 (NLT)

[xvi] Luke 19:41-44; John 11:17-37

[xvii] Matthew 14:14; Mark 1:41

[xviii] For more on the connection between God’s compassion and the womb, I’d recommend Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, chapter Journey of a Metaphor (Fortress Press, 1978).

[xix] ‘Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.’—Henri Nouwen, Show me the Way: Readings for Each Day of Lent (Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, London, UK, 2001), p.33.

[xx] You can read something of this story in Moltmann’s first chapter of The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life.

[xxi] I’m reminded of, and continually challenged by, the following words from theologian, author and Palliative Care Physician, Dr Shelia Cassidy: ‘If I, as a doctor, spend an hour of my clinic time talking to a woman who has only a few weeks to live, I am making a clear statement of her worth. I am giving her time that could have been spent with people who will get better, who will be able to contribute once again to the common good. I am affirming the worth of the individual person in a world in which the individual is at risk of being submerged or valued only for his strength, intellect or beauty. It is a prophetic statement about the unique value of the human person, irrespective of age, social class or productivity. It is an affirmation that people matter just because they are people, because God made them and loves them, just as they are, not because they are good or witty or physically beautiful.

We isolate the handicapped on the pretext that they will disturb the peace – when the reality is that their presence disturbs our desire for the beautiful. We isolate our dying on the pretext that they want peace – when the reality is that their presence disturbs our sense of omnipotence and immortality.

Meanwhile there will always be those who find themselves called like Mary of Bethany to disturb the peace by pouring out over some dead loss to society that which could have been sold for three hundred denarii.’ [Dr Sheila Cassidy from The Little Book of Lent: Daily Reflections from the World’s Greatest Spiritual Writers (WilliamCollins, An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014) Kindle Edition. Thursday, Week 1]

[xxii] Taken from the song Hosanna, words and music by Brooke Ligertwood (Hillsong, 2012)

[xxiii] Tom Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John and Judah (SPCK, London, UK, 2012), p. 158.