Before our three children left for Sri Lanka on Thursday, we had to give them a crash course on Sri Lankan etiquette. Although two of them were born there, they have lived here almost all of their lives and have visited there only from time to time. So, we had to teach them how to address your elders and how to sit and dinner table and eat with a fork and spoon, rather than just a fork or and the fine art of eating with your fingers. They needed to know that torn jeans and unkempt hair on your face or head are unacceptable. We had to tell them what kinds of jokes are appropriate and what are not, how to avoid being taken for a ride, and even how not to flaunt their money. Despite some protests I think they took it in. It will be interesting to find out how much of that they would have retained. I am sure we will hear about it when we get there! This is for them a real cross-cultural experience.

This weekend I spent some time at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Missiologists. Missiology is the theology of missions -- that deals with questions of why and how we send and receive missionaries. Almost by definition missions is a matter of crossing cultures. This is what we have done as well, becoming missionaries from Sri Lanka to Chicago. But just as all missionaries do, we've had to learn the culture, the norms of behavior, the etiquette. Some would read Amy Vanderbilt or Miss Manners to find out which is the salad fork and how to use an oyster fork. I learned it by trial and error.

Most of us who come to this church have a cross-cultural experience. People tell me over and over again, that they have not been in such a diverse community, where our diversity is not just in the color of our skin, but in our age range, our economic circumstances, our level of formal education and on and on. We do have our norms of behavior. But too often it is more like Amy Vanderbilt or Miss Manners, than our real instruction manual -- the Bible.

It's too bad Nathan the prophet hadn't had some lessons in etiquette before he went to have dinner with the King. It's too bad that Jesus, when he went to the house of Simon the Pharisee to have a Sunday dinner, didn't have brush up on Miss Manners beforehand. Amy Vanderbilt in her Complete Book of Etiquette says under "Table Conversation" that almost anything is deemed proper table talk today except highly controversial topics like religion or politics, or squeamish subjects like accidents, illnesses, surgical operations, or real scandal!You got to stay on safe topics. Now, you may not have read these books, but I want to tell you, their influence is pervasive. Even without your thinking, you are living out those principles.

In today's stories, Jesus, Nathan the Prophet and Paul the Apostle, flunked etiquette One-O-One. They failed to avoid highly controversial topics and real scandal. Jesus does something Amy Vanderbilt would never approve of -- he underlines, in a deftly told parable, how terribly rude his pious host had been. You see, at Simon's house, while all are seated at the table, somehow a woman of the city crashes the party. Everyone knows who she is. The pious host thoroughly disapproves of her slobbering all over the rabbi's feet, washing with tears, drying with her hair, massaging them with her prostitute's flask of perfumed oil. Now, it doesn't sound like Simon voices an objection. He's read Miss Manners, you see. He does what any of us would do -- he ignores the situation, hoping that it will go away and hoping that she not come anywhere near himself to ritually contaminate him. He looks away. Now, Jesus has very sensitive antennae and is able to discern when the mood changes. He feels Simon's discomfort, pulls his coat and says, "Simon, I'd like a word with you." Then he looks in his eye and says to him, "Simon, she's a better host than you are! She's not the one whose manners have failed here. You failed to greet me with the embrace and the kiss of peace when I came in, but here she is kissing peace to my feet. "Simon, look at this woman." Don't look away from the prophetic rebuke she offers! You did not even get a servant to bring me a basin and pitcher to wash my feet and hands."

Both Nathan and Jesus tell little parables before they confront their hosts with their breaches of Shalom. Now shalom is peace and often indicates a community of peace, justice and wholeness. These are both agitations. Let me explain that word too, particularly because those of us in community organizing work use agitation as a primary too. Agitation is a confrontation that is intended to move someone to change, to be the best that God has intended them to be. "Provoke each other to good works" says scripture. That's what agitation is -- It is an act of risk and love. So, Nathan and Jesus offers powerful agitations -- but not just to Simon the host and David the king, but to all the centuries of church-etiquette and state-etiquette. They are telling all of us Miss Manners buffs -- "Take a look at this woman" or "You are the man."

Jesus tells the story of the creditor with two debtors--one who owed a fortune, the other a pittance. And what do you think? Simon can indeed judge rightly in the hypothetical situation, but flunks the lab test right there in the dining room. And Nathan tells the King about a venture capitalist who has guests for dinner but instead of serving up from his own flock, steals a poor man's only lamb, a pet he had raised with affection, as you might raise a daughter. His Majesty is angry with the hypothetical rascal, and vows he'll have him hanged! And Nathan jumps up and says, "You're the one. You stole Uriah the Hittite's lamb, Bathsheba, and sent him off to die--you, with a housefull of wives, you stole this woman."

We, church people have learned our etiquette well. We know how to come to church and sit quietly and respectfully at worship and go away and do nothing about it. We've learned to avoid the agitation and preachers have learned that it is better not to agitate -- not to take that risk. And so we all sit happily at church and feel good.

In a passage of Scripture notorious for its name-calling, Paul writes all the names on the blackboard for the whole class to see. Of Cephas (Simon Peter) he says "I opposed him to his face," for his hypocrisy. Hypo = under, and crisis = judgment. A hypo-crite is under his own judgment, for his acts are judged by his own pretensions to doing right. Peter ate with Gentiles until the church in Jerusalem sent a fact-finding mission to find out what was going on with this gentile mission and to put a stop to it. This came from James, the Lord's brother himself, the leader of the church in Jerusalem. And what do you think happened? Peter wimped out. And kept kosher just for the sake of appearance. And Barnabas, the kindly man whose name means "son of encouragement" even he got his head turned around and he too went along with Peter conforming with this practice of excluding others. Now look at this -- Paul, who was so conscious of his inadequacies -- that he was not in the original band of disciples, that he was a sinner, that he had a physical deformity, this Paul who could have the lowest self-esteem of the bunch, calls the foremost leaders of the church Peter, James and Barnabas, out of on the carpet -- for what? Their hypocrisy! Its an old problem, folks.

Tough stories aren't they? These are not just some namby-pamby bible stories. These are stories of real confrontation and hard agitation. Don't let any one let you think that the church is for wimps. Nathan goes to the king and tells a crafty little parable and at the end comes out with "You are the man." Jesus pulls Simon aside and confronts him about his lack of etiquette and tells him to learn from the prostitute. Paul takes the top leaders of the church to task for their hypocrisy.

I think we as a church have come to an important time in our life cycle. Last year, we lost a lot of members, although for some of us the grief of that still remains, we have turned a very important corner. We have begun to claim the promise that came to us right at the core of that conflict, where we heard from God "Look, I am going to do a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it. I will make rivers in the wilderness and streams in the desert." It looks like we believed it. Looking towards that new thing, we went ahead and changed our name. And although Becky's leaving comes with great sadness, God is bringing us new people to work with us. So, God is sending us Amy. God is sending us Sarah, who is coming to be a ministry intern with us next year. God is not done with us yet!

So, looking towards the new things, I wrote down the other day, some things we might change or do in our church, this August in preparation for next academic year. And you know the top item that came to mind? That we need to laugh and play more. I ran this by my colleague, Rev. Bonnie Perry, who is pastor of All Saints Episcopal Church in the northside. It seemed to me that they know how to laughs and play a lot. And she said, its not about laughing and playing, its about being real with each other. Its about being able to express our feelings to each other and not be afraid. It is about loving each other enough to be able to agitate each other to be the best that God has called us to be.

So, here's the point -- that puts a new light on everything. For it is not David's hypocrisy, or Simon the Pharisee's self-righteousness or Peter's two-facedness that are the points of these stories, but God's forgiveness. But did you notice, there isn't much chance of forgiveness without confrontation, exposing their sinful behavior in the light of the gospel. The table etiquette of yesterday, the repressive ways of relating with women, even street women, with foreigners, with gays and lesbians, and with the poor and oppressed, have been changed forever by the agitation the gospel brings.

At the end of these stories, we find David humble and repentant. He goes to God to seek forgiveness and Psalm 51, among the most poignant poetry in the world, is his prayer for repentance. And by all accounts God's reconciliation with him is swift and gracious. Similarly the woman -- she came in already broken. She had already been confronted of her sin perhaps by Jesus, and received the healing and wholeness she needed We don't know about Simon the Pharisee. He stands out as someone who even after such a powerful agitation may not change. Even Jesus couldn't convert everybody, you know. And then, Peter, James and Barnabas needed a little more doing. And God has to put some of us through even more challenging experiences before we can change, and like them come to accept that indeed the gospel is indeed for all people -- yes, even those with whom we don't usually associate.

Everybody receives this grace differently. But its there for us. But notice this, folks. There is no forgiveness without confrontation and agitation. Etiquette help us to stay where we are -- in the broken, unjust, unhealthy situations we find ourselves in. But Jesus showed us how to forgive sins, and would say "fiddlesticks, bunk, and nonsense" to those who say we can't forgive. Jesus says of the loving woman with the ointment "Her sins which were many are forgiven--so it is she can show great love." And then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." He got into trouble because he forgave sins, and often pointed them out before he did that. Even now, our very first calling is to forgive sins--indeed that's why we baptize and anoint and share the Lord's Supper and lay on hands, and shake hands, and give the kiss of Shalom--they are all about forgiveness--and to accept the subsequent grace of having our own sins forgiven. He says to all of us, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."