My dad rarely cries. So, it’s easy to remember when he does. I’ve seen a few of his tears at funerals – those of his parents and other relatives and close friends. More tears were shed as we put the family dog and truly my dad’s best friend, Carter, to sleep. But these all pale in comparison to that night in the kitchen when I was in high school.
     We had moved over a year prior to this night – something we did about every four years in my family during my school years as my dad climbed his career ladder. The move had been difficult for me, but I had found my footing and had made friends in my church youth group and in high school marching band. I was doing well.
     So, to this day, I have no idea what triggered my dad’s tears that night. Our conversation began with simple questions about how I was. Did I like school? Did I miss my friends from our previous home town? What followed was one of the most unique experiences my dad and I have ever shared. This strong, in-my-eyes-perfect, always confident man broke down into not tears, but sobs. Wondering if his decisions about his work were the best ones for our family. Regretting any hardship his decisions had caused me. Needing my understanding, forgiveness and affirmation that I was OK. Allowing me to see his rarely divulged imperfection.
     Both the Old Testament and Gospel stories today are stories of imperfection – of sin, if you will. These stories are our stories. They are our stories because as difficult as it is to admit sometimes, we are all imperfect. We all sin.
     Maybe we don’t commit murder or adultery like David, but we sin nonetheless. Our lives are imperfect and marked up with lying, cheating, stealing, making decisions that hurt others, blinding ourselves to our neighbor, not caring for God’s creation and so much more. Or worse, like Simon, the Pharisee, we try to make our lives look perfect (as if!). We seek perfection at the expense of loving our neighbor because, when we boil it all down, we don’t really trust in God’s grace or forgiveness in our lives.
     These Biblical stories, not to mention the stories of our lives, can sometimes paint a pretty grim picture, but only if we forget that God is part of all our stories. And because God is part of both of our stories, they are also stories of forgiveness and grace. God ultimately forgave David. His actions had their consequences, but David went on to follow and lead very closely to God’s ways. His exposed sins of adultery and murder were not the end of his relationship with God. Instead, they allowed him to experience God’s grace and forgiveness at an even deeper level.
      God’s grace works in proportion with the amount that grace is needed. That’s one of the lessons of the Gospel story for today as well. Both the woman and Simon, the Pharisee, were in need of forgiveness. The woman knew her sin. She was ready to make repentance for it. Her tears told Jesus she was sorry. Her act of drying his feet with her hair told Jesus she was ready to direct her life and actions in the way that Jesus commanded. Her bathing of Jesus with kisses and ointment told Jesus that she knew he was the Messiah and that she needed the grace and forgiveness that he had come to give.
      And give it to her he did. “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace,” he told her. Simon, on the other hand, did not know his sin. He was so busy following the law to a “T” and doing everything right himself that he couldn’t even see his own sin. He was so busy judging others that he couldn’t imagine that he needed judgement or grace or forgiveness. His search for perfection precluded him from God’s grace. His attitude of judgement on everyone but himself created a wall around him off of which God’s forgiveness bounced. He didn’t receive Jesus’ forgiveness in this story because he couldn’t even admit or imagine that he needed it.
     How many of you out there are the first child or the oldest in your family? Raise your hand. I am, too. The textbooks say that one of our traits is that we’re perfectionists. We’re overachievers, responsible, organized and born leaders, just to name a few. These are great traits. Yet, like anything, if we take them too far, they can get us into trouble.
     I want to finish today by talking about the Galatians reading for the day. I love this passage not only because of its theme on justification and forgiveness, but because it really helps roll out a really important part of our Lutheran faith and tradition. “We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” In other words, it’s not what we do, but what Jesus Christ does for us, in us and through us that matters.
     We perfectionists, we who think we can handle everything ourselves, run the risk of denying God’s grace as an active force in our lives. When we think we can justify ourselves by living perfectly, we’re saying that Christ died for nothing – that he was nailed to a cross and endured suffering for no reason. That is not the lesson from Scripture for us today.
     The lesson is that it’s OK to say that we need help. It’s OK to admit that we might have screwed up. It’s OK to confess our sin and imperfection. It’s OK because God’s response always includes grace. God’s grace works in proportion with the amount that grace is needed. If you need a lot, you receive a lot. If you need a little, you receive a little.
     Justification, forgiveness, grace. These are beautiful gifts that God give us. And they are not just gifts between God and us, but between us and other people as well. Take the story of my dad’s tears, for example. Many people would describe this as a night of weakness for my dad. Yet for me (and I hope for him), there was incredible power in those moments that we shared.
      His decision to be vulnerable with me allowed me to pour grace and forgiveness over him that he needed to receive more than I needed to give. One of my favorite quotes says this, “Vulnerability and grace walk hand in hand.” It’s one of the lessons of these Bible stories. It’s something my dad taught me first hand. Amen.


Have two of the same kind of flower – put both in vases with water. Ask kids how we know which one is real and which one is fake. It helps to be able to look closely. What would happen if neither of them had water? (real one would die and fake one would live) When you look really closely, the real one has imperfections and the fake one doesn’t.
We can learn from these flowers. As real people, we need God’s help to live just like a flower needs water. Also as real people, we are imperfect. That’s part of being human – it’s a good reminder for us that we need God every day to grant us forgiveness.