A few years ago, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours to spend at the Presbyterian Historical Society, a small museum or library that on the one hand provides very practical services as the repository for all of the denomination’s official documents and archives. And on the other it’s general collections of archival records, published materials, and artifacts make it a leading partner for historians of Presbyterian and Reformed traditions in the United States.
In the collections of PHS I found the records of the Presbyterian church my mother’s ancestors helped found in 1724. I discovered a published volume of the sermons that had been preached in that church at the time of the American Revolution – including the Sundays following the announcement of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the national day of thanksgiving after the end of the war seven years later. It was a poignant thing for me to do – as a person of faith, as an American, and as a preacher – to read the words that the Spirit had given a minister to share in a congregation at such a pivotal moment in history, especially in a congregation that included my six-times-great grandparents. Poignant and daunting.
The way the news cycle works in the 21st century makes it feel like there is an endless stream of pivotal moments. Knowing which to address on a Sunday morning and how to address them can keep a preacher up all night – – or at least it kept this preacher up this last night.
The attacks the leaders of the United States of America and Israel have chosen to take on the sovereign state of Iran feel pivotal. The use of force all while talking about diplomacy feels pivotal. Pivotal enough that if one of my six-times-great grandchildren were able to find a copy of the sermon I preached in this season of uncertainty, of violence, I would want them to find that the events impacting our individual and national lives did not go by without remark.
The helpful news for preachers like me in 2026 is that, unlike my counterparts in 1776, Presbyterians have an Office of Public Witness which is staffed by people with far more insight into our nation’s political moment than I do, and along with a deep knowledge of the theologically and biblically based social witness positions and policies our denomination’s General Assembly has approved. This morning, I want to share with you a portion of the Statement on the Escalating War with Iran that was made by the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness based on these positions and policies.
We are deeply troubled by the expanding military assault on Iran and the widening regional war it now threatens to become. As Christians shaped by the reconciling love of Jesus Christ, we grieve every life lost and every family now living in terror. Decisions of war and peace are measured not in political claims but in human lives.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has repeatedly affirmed that war must never be entered into lightly. Military force must be a last resort, and international disputes must be addressed through sustained diplomacy, accountability, and multilateral engagement grounded in international law. …
We are gravely alarmed that this expanding military campaign is already resulting in civilian casualties and retaliatory strikes across the region. Reports that civilian infrastructure, including schools, has been struck heighten our alarm and underscore the devastating human cost of escalation. The people of Iran, many already living under repression and economic hardship, will bear the brunt of destruction, displacement, and fear…. Civilians, not political leaders, will suffer first and longest. History warns us that regime-toppling interventions and open-ended military campaigns often unleash consequences far beyond what leaders anticipate….
We affirm clearly: the Iranian government’s repression, corruption, and human rights abuses are real and grievous. Our opposition to this escalating military action is not a defense of authoritarian rule…. Rather, our opposition reflects our conviction that bombs do not create democracy, and airstrikes do not build just societies….
As Presbyterians, we confess that true security does not come through military might but through justice, restraint, and accountability.
As we talked about in a Presbyterian 101 class a few weeks ago, engaging in the public sphere, discussing the issues of the day, interpreting them and discerning our response to them through the lens of our faith is a bedrock practice and responsibility in the Presbyterian tradition rooted in our theological claim that God is sovereign over all of creation. There is nothing and no one who is outside the care and dominion of God’s grace and love and to carve out portions of our human experience as inappropriate for discussion or preaching or reflection would be a rejection of our theological history and tradition, an abdication of our responsibility to uphold two of the great ends of the church that we proclaim – the promotion of social righteousness and the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world, a kingdom, no doubt, of peace.
But beyond this statement I think there are elements of today’s scripture that are echoing in the news of the global violence we woke up to yesterday morning. I think some of the attitudes on display in the very small scale of this one story from Luke could be part of what can build over the long term to dangerous violence on the small and large scale. In one character we see a disregard for human dignity and inclusion, an orientation toward another person that leads with suspicion rather than curiosity, judgement rather than love, self-assuredness rather than humility, exclusion rather than welcome. In another we see an unbridled demonstration of gratitude, an over-the-top out-pouring of love that, frankly, might make us a little nervous, that we might not know what do with or understand.
The story begins with another dinner party to which an unnamed woman shows up presumably uninvited. And she doesn’t just sit in the corner hoping to catch Jesus to talk to him real quick after dessert. No, she pours out the contents of her heart, her tears, and her jar to wash and soothe his feet. She lavishes him with attention and comfort, despite the fact that the narrator tells us she is a sinner. Embarrassed for her or maybe himself or maybe them both, the Pharisee mutters under his breath that he KNOWS she is a sinner, but he doesn’t seem to think Jesus has any idea. Yet Simon (we finally get his name at this point in the story when Jesus addresses him) Simon must not have hidden his disapproval very well.
Jesus sees or knows or feels what’s going on in Simon’s reaction to the woman and her actions, so he tells a little parable. Now, I’ve been bumping up against the parable all week. The participants in the Wednesday Bible study can attest to it. It has not been sitting well with me because I don’t like what I thought I was hearing Jesus say, what I felt like he was affirming as the “moral of the story.”
“Which of them will love him more?” he asks Simon after telling the story of two people who had large and small debts forgiven. I don’t like this quantification and comparison of love. Simon gives the answer that makes sense to him, the one who was released from a larger debt, and then, then! (This is the part that really riles me up.) Jesus seems to affirm his answer! “You have judged rightly.”
Well, I don’t like that! How do we know what the small and large debts represented to the people who owed them? How do we know the extend of their love? It doesn’t seem like a very satisfying answer to me, nor a very kingdom-oriented parable and it left me stuck for a good long while.
But what finally unstuck me was a realization that maybe Jesus didn’t like the answer either. He said it was right. It was correct. It was an accurate representation of what it might look like in the real world, but he didn’t say it was righteous. He didn’t say it was ideal. He didn’t endorse it with those important words, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” Actually, I am beginning to think he does the exact opposite.
First of all, he “affirms” Simon by pointing out one of Simons mistakes. “You have judged….” Simon has judged this woman, her actions, her presence, and many even Jesus’ welcome of it from the minute she showed up. He has assumed he knows everything important about her and that she is a sinner in a manner that seems to outweigh his own reality as one who does not live in perfection. The irony of the scenario is that while he seems to think the woman should hold back or even be held back, he is the one who is bound by his pride, his sense of superiority. He is restricted, constricted by them, these sins that can hold us tightly as we hold tightly to our ourselves, our ideas, and our perceived status. It’s when these hold us that it is easier to question the status of those we see as different. It’s easier to disregard their lives and their worth, justifying to ourselves, even if no one else buys it, why the don’t deserve our time, our attention, our respect or our peace.
Second Jesus asks Simon if he sees this woman. Of course, he physically sees this woman; it’s seeing her and what she is doing in his house that has him so upset. But what he failed to see, is that this woman, right in front them, is performing the acts of welcome that Simon should have provided for Jesus as the host of the dinner. This woman is caring for Simon’s guest in the manner he should have been caring for Jesus. His right answers are much less important than his missed opportunity to show righteous hospitality.
And thirdly, his knowledge of the woman and her many sins is old news. The new news, the good news is that Jesus has already forgiven those sins, and she knows it, and she is showing great love because of it, extravagant love, unrestrained love, uncontainable love. Her release from sin has freed her from the captivity of pride that might find her behavior embarrassing. Knowing and trusting her forgiveness releases her from the temptation toward exceptionalism that we see in Simon who is comfortable ranking levels of love and sinfulness, as long as he is on the right end of those rankings. And sin no longer artificially holds her at a distance from her community. She belongs. She is welcome. She is free.
This is the good news that Jesus tries to tell us, over and over, again and again. These artificial rankings, these judgements of one person by another, these competitions to see who loves most, who sins the least, who deserves grace and status or honor, they make no sense to the one whose grace flows as freely as the woman’s tears. They deny the humanity and dignity of those we are called to welcome and care for. They stand in the way of the love we are called to lavish on God and one another. They build barriers that we use to block some from the blessing and resources of the community and even bombs that we lob at the ones we call enemies. They even keep us from seeing ourselves as recipients of the extravagant, unrestrained, uncontainable love of God that we know when we realize the one who is perfect desires to be in relationship with us even though we are not.
Friends, we do not need to be bound this way. And really, the good news is that we are not. We are not bound by our judgements of ourselves nor the judgements of others. We are not bound by our sense of superiority that holds us at an arm’s length from God and others. We are not bound by our fear that is too easy to turn into violence. We are free from them by the forgiveness of the one who creates us, and knows us, and guides us in wisdom and grace. We are released from them by the one who knows and declares our worth and value to God and in the world.
This is the good news – that our sin is forgiven, that we are welcome at all the tables where Jesus reclines, that because we are so extravagantly loved, we are free to love God and love neighbor the same way.
The good news is great love for God & neighbor!