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How do
you measure beauty? How do you decide who is beautiful?
Our media-saturated culture gives us the formula. And
according to that formula beauty is having the figure and
features of Nicky Watson or Tom Cruise, the charisma and
charm of the entire cast from Friends, and the
intelligence and income-earning ability of Helen Clark or
Bill Gates.
But what
about the woman in the news recently who miraculously
survived the September 11 attack on the World Trade
Centre. She was horribly burned, terribly disfigured. By
these standard criteria, what happens to her? And what
about the senior citizen fighting the weight of gravity?
What about the pimple-ravaged teenager? What about the
vast majority of us?!
This
month we’re focusing on the needs of people in places
like Thailand and India. In the insert in your leaflet,
Rob Kilpatrick from Tranzsend writes about the
red-light districts in those cities. Areas packed with
beautiful women, filled with music and lights and what
looks like a good time. But the beauty and glamour mask
slavery, humiliation, and ugliness. Many of those
“beautiful” women were sold into the sex trade, and
within a few years those of them who escape AIDS and
other STDs are cast-offs, hags, who ply their trade down
filthy dark alleys. No longer beautiful…
At least
that’s what Simon the Pharisee thought. He throws a flash
dinner party and invites as his special guest the
controversial young rabbi, Jesus. On a balmy evening in
the open courtyard of Simon’s impressive lakeside villa,
the guests recline on their sides around a low table,
Mediterranean style. A fountain bubbles, palms sway; the
kebabs are done to a turn and the live string quartet is
in full cry. Everyone’s having a great time. Until she
comes in. Suddenly the conversation dries up. The string
quartet dies away. And everyone just stares. What’s she
doing here? She’s a prostitute, a filthy whore. And there
she is, of all places, kneeling at the rabbi’s feet.
She’s
attractive, I suppose, in a raw physical sort of way. But
whatever beauty she had has been misused, defiled,
stained. And whatever she touches will also be
contaminated. Hang on … she’s touching Jesus. Sobbing
heavily, she lets her tears drizzle onto Jesus’ feet.
Then, unloosening her long hair, she dries his feet. For
a Jewish woman to let her hair down in public … she may
as well have taken her top off. Then, from around her
neck, she takes a little marble phial and pours perfume
on the rabbi’s feet and kisses them. It looks like she’s
doing overtime, fondling Jesus’ feet in a sensual sort of
way. No wonder Simon is frowning. If Jesus is a holy man,
a pure man, a prophet, he wouldn’t let this sinner touch
him, this filthy, ugly woman.
And yet
he does. That’s what’s so surprising about this story.
Jesus doesn’t recoil in disgust. He accepts this woman.
Loves her. He sees a beauty in this “sinner.” Maybe
Desmond Tutu was right when he said, “We may be surprised
at the people in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners.
His standards are quite low” (NZ Herald, Feb 2001).
This
story reminds me of an article by Patricia McGerr. She
tells the story of Johnny Lingo, an intelligent young
Pacific islander…
Johnny lived on the tiny
little island of Nurabandi. On the neighbouring island of
Kiniwata he was well known and highly respected. Sheshkin,
the manager of the local guesthouse said to me, “If you
want to buy pearls, or fish, or anything for that matter,
get Johnny Lingo to help you. Let him do the bargaining.
He knows how to make a deal.” “Johnny Lingo!” A boy
nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter. “What?”
I said, “I don’t understand. Everybody tells me to get in
touch with Johnny Lingo and then they burst out laughing.
If Johnny’s the smartest and richest young man in these
islands, why do people mock him?”
“Five months ago,” Sheshkin
said, “Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife.
He paid her father eight cows.” Now I knew enough about
island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would
buy a fair-to-middling wife, and four or five a highly
satisfactory one. “Eight cows!” I said, “She must be
breathtakingly beautiful.” “She’s not ugly,” he conceded,
and smiled a little “But the kindest you could say is
that Sarita is plain. Her father, Sam Karoo, was afraid
she’d be left on his hands.” “But then he got eight cows
for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?” “Never been paid
before.” “Yet you call Sarita plain?” “She’s skinny. She
walks with shoulders hunched and head cowed. That’s why
the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get
special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest
trader in the islands was beaten by dull old Sam Karoo.”
“But how?” “No one knows and everyone wonders. All the
cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold
out for two until he was sure Johnny would pay only one.
Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, “I’ll give you
eight cows for your daughter, Sarita.” “Eight cows,” I
murmured, “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.”
So the next afternoon I
beached my boat at Nurabandi. A slim, serious young man
welcomed me with grace into his home. “You come here from
Kiniwata?” “Yes.” He smiled gently. “My wife is from
Kiniwata.” “Yes, I know.” “They speak of her?” “A
little.” “What do they say?” “Well, just … they say the
marriage settlement was eight cows.” I paused. “They
wonder why.”
But then I saw her. I watched
her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She
stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me.
The most beautiful woman I had ever seen – the lift of
her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her
eyes. I turned back to Johnny. He was looking at me. “You
admire her?” he murmured. “She … she’s glorious. But … I
heard she was ordinary. They all make fun of you because
you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo.” “You think
eight cows were too many?” A smile slid over his lips.
“No. But how can she be so different?” “Do you ever
think,” he asked, “what it must mean to be a woman and
know that your husband settled on the lowest price for
which you could be bought? And then later, when the women
talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them.
One says four cows, another maybe six. How would you feel
to be the woman who was sold for one or two?” “Then you
did this just to make your wife happy?” “I wanted Sarita
to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. In
Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she
knows she is worth more than any other woman in the
islands.” “Then you wanted…” “I wanted to marry Sarita. I
loved her and no other woman.” “But…” “But,” he finished
softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”
Jesus
paid more than eight cows for the prostitute. Mark and
Luke, who also recorded this story, explain that the
anointing was preparation for Jesus’ burial (Mark 14.8;
John 12.7). Jesus was to die for this prostitute at his
feet, for the selfish and self-righteous Simon, for
Sarita of Kiniwata, and for every single person in the
world. He would die to demonstrate God‘s love and to
bring God’s forgiveness. Although we are all sinners,
debtors, scarred or stained or stooped by sin, we are all
beautiful to God – precious enough to die for. He loves
us, chooses us, and has forgiven us.
That is
what this prostitute had learned from Jesus. And like
Sarita from Kiniwata, it transformed her. She had
received God’s forgiveness and she responded with love.
Extravagant love. Compare Simon, Stingy Simon, the
religious leader and host at this party. According to the
laws of hospitality, he should have greeted his guests
with a kiss on the head or hand, provided water for them
to wash their dusty feet, and anointed their heads with
olive oil. But Simon had neglected all these courtesies.
Ironically, it’s the prostitute who comes to the party
and fulfils that role. Simon didn’t provide Jesus with
water for his feet, but she washes them herself with her
own hair. Simon didn’t kiss Jesus’ cheek, but she kisses
his feet. Simon didn’t anoint his head with common olive
oil, but she anoints his feet with Calvin Klein. In fact
her expensive perfume may have cost as much as a year’s
wages. No wonder that in the other versions of this
story, in the biographies written by Matthew and Mark,
Jesus says, “She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Matt
26.10; Mark 14.6).
Just
like the Short family from Christchurch. They did a
beautiful thing for God. David and Joy Short were
childless. They went to Romania looking to adopt two
girls. They were shown a lot of gorgeous young kids, but
they had a sense that they should take on children with
serious needs. At the little out-of-the-way hospital,
someone quietly mentioned the “dying room.” It turned out
to be a dark enclave out the back where really sick
babies were literally left to die. David and Joy returned
to New Zealand with two of them, two little Romanian
girls with major health problems. Hard work and loads of
love saw both girls make great strides. The Shorts then
took on a little boy with significant behavioural
problems, but three was still not enough. Next came twins
from the Pacific Islands, little girls with severe eating
disorders.
And the
cost to this once reasonably wealthy couple was enormous.
They went from owning a debt-free home, cars, and boats
to overdrafts and a net worth of next to nothing. But bit
by bit, the five adopted children have been overcoming
huge needs, in the hands of two remarkable parents. Why?
David and Joy have gone from prosperity to the breadline
because they trust in a heavenly Father who has given
them so much, a God who died for them will continue to
care for them. And so they are can be extravagant in
laying down their lives for God’s other children.
Look at
this bag, made out of beautiful Thai silk. Designed to
carry the gifts that we give to save prostitutes and poor
people in Thailand and India and Bangladesh. This week,
how can we be beautiful containers for the love of God?
Although we are all scarred by sin, like that prostitute,
we can all do beautiful things for God, if we will trust
in his love for us, and give of ourselves extravagantly –
sacrificially – to meet the needs of others. Beauty does
not depend on the size of our gifts. The most beautiful
gift that we can give is simply to offer our lives to God
in response to his love for us. For you today, does that
mean entrusting your life to Jesus? Does that mean being
baptised, like Stephanie and Gillian? Dying to your self
and living a new life, a clean life, a life of love
through the power of God? That’s what God offered a
prostitute. That’s what he offered Simon. And that’s what
he offers every single one of us. “Your sins are
forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
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