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In his book The Kingdom of God Is a Party, Tony Campolo relates an experience he had late one night in Hawaii after arriving from a long plane trip…
Tony was hungry and went in search of a restaurant. Up a side street he found a little place that was still open. He went in, took a seat on one of the stools at the counter, and waited to be served. The owner, wearing a name tag that said, “Harry”, asked for Tony’s order. He ordered a donut and coffee.
As Tony sat there munching on his donut and sipping his coffee at 3:30 in the morning, the door of the diner suddenly swung open and, to his discomfort, in marched eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes.
It was a small place, and so the prostitutes sat on either side of Tony at the counter. Their talk was loud and crude. Tony felt completely out of place and was just about to make his getaway when he overheard the woman beside him say, “Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be 39.”
Her “friend” responded in a nasty tone, “So what do you want from me? A birthday party? What do you want? Ya want me to get you a cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”
“Come on,” said the first woman. “Why do you have to be so mean? I was just telling you, that’s all. Why do you have to put me down? I was just telling you it was my birthday. I don’t want anything from you. I mean, why should you give me a birthday party? I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”
When Tony heard that, he made a decision. He sat and waited until the women had left. Then he asked Harry, “Do they come in here every night?”
“Yeah!” he answered.
“The one right next to me, does she come here every night?”
“Yeah!” he said. “That’s Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d’ya wanta know?”
“Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday,” Tony replied. “What do you say you and I do something about that? What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?”
A cute smile slowly crossed Harry’s cheeks, and he answered with measured delight, “That’s great! I like it! That’s a great idea!” Calling to his wife, who did the cooking in the back room, Harry shouted, “Hey! Come out here! This guy’s got a great idea. Tomorrow’s Agnes’s birthday. This guy wants us to go in with him and throw a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night!”
His wife came out of the back room all bright and smiley. She said, “That’s wonderful! You know Agnes is one of those people who is really nice and kind, and nobody does anything nice and kind for her.”
“Look,” Tony told them, “if it’s okay with you, I’ll get back here tomorrow morning about 2:30 and decorate the place. I’ll even get a birthday cake!”
“No way,” said Harry. “The birthday cake’s my thing. I’ll make the cake.”
At 2:30 the next morning, Tony was back at the diner. He had picked up some crepe-paper decorations at the store and had made a sign out of big pieces of cardboard that read, “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” Tony decorated the diner from one end to the other.
The woman who did the cooking must have gotten the word out on the street, because by 3:15 every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. It was wall-to-wall prostitutes and Tony!
At 3:30 on the dot, the door of the diner swung open, and in came Agnes and her friend. Tony had everybody ready and when Agnes came in, they all screamed, “Happy birthday!”
Agnes was flabbergasted, stunned, shaken. Her mouth fell open. Her legs seemed to buckle a bit. Her friend grabbed her arm to steady her. As she was led to sit on one of the stools along the counter, everyone sang “Happy Birthday”. As they came to the end of the song, Agnes’ eyes moistened. Then, when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she lost it and just openly cried.
Harry gruffly mumbled, “Blow out the candles, Agnes! Come on! Blow out the candles! If you don’t blow out the candles, I’m gonna hafta blow out the candles.” And, after an endless few seconds, he did. Then he handed her a knife and told her, “Cut the cake, Agnes. Yo, Agnes, we all want some cake.”
Agnes looked down at the cake. Then without taking her eyes off it, she slowly and softly said, “Look, Harry, is it all right with you if I, I mean is it okay if I kind of, what I want to ask you is, is it O.K. if I keep the cake a little while? I mean, is it all right if we don’t eat it right away?”
Harry shrugged and answered, “Sure! It’s O.K. If you want to keep the cake, keep the cake. Take it home, if you want to.”
“Can I?” she asked. Then, looking at Tony, she said, “I live just down the street a couple of doors. I want to take the cake home, okay? I’ll be right back. Honest!”
She got off the stool, picked up the cake, and carrying it like it was the Holy Grail, walked slowly toward the door. As everyone just stood there motionless, she left.
When the door closed, there was a stunned silence in the place. Not knowing what else to do, Tony broke the silence by saying, “What do you say we pray?”
Tony prayed for Agnes. He prayed for her salvation. He prayed that her life would be changed, and that God would be good to her.
When Tony finished, Harry leaned over the counter and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he said, “Hey! You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?”
And Tony said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.”
Harry waited a moment and then almost sneered as he answered, “No you don’t. There’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I’d join a church like that!”
Tony concluded his story by asking, “Wouldn’t we all? Wouldn’t we all like to join a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning? Well, that’s the kind of church that Jesus came to create!”[1]
If you need any proof of that fact, consider this story from Luke 7:36-50...
When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
How can we say thanks to Jesus for the things he has done for us?
This woman in Luke 7 brought an alabaster jar of perfume, broke it and poured the contents on Jesus’ feet as a love offering—an extravagant gift of thanksgiving. This little vial of concentrated perfume was worn around the neck by first century Jewish women, and it was very expensive. This woman wanted to pour this perfume on Jesus’ feet because it was all she had to give him. Obviously, Jesus had touched her life and her heart. Perhaps, in Jesus, she had seen, for the first time, a man who really loved her for herself, not for her body. In Jesus, she saw a person who could forgive her and give her a new start in life. Therefore, she wanted to give to Jesus the most precious gift she had, out of the gratitude that flowed from her heart.
I wonder: what gift do we have to pour at Jesus’ feet? I believe he wants the gift of each of our lives. He wants all of us, not just part. He wants us to break the bottle of our life and pour out the contents at his feet. Will we do that for him? Will we do that for the one who gave his life for us on the cross? Is it too much to ask?
C. S. Lewis once wrote:
Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself; my own will shall become yours.
I wonder: have we wept at Jesus’ feet?
I can picture what happened with this woman. She came to Simon’s house to give Jesus her gift. But when she saw Jesus and remembered how much he loved her, and how much she loved him, the tears came. The tears came to this woman’s eyes because she was so filled up with love and gratitude toward Jesus that she could not contain it any longer. And so, she just let it flow.
My mother used to say, “Crying is good. It cleans out the eyeballs.”
I wonder: why are we so afraid of crying in front of others? I suppose it is because we are afraid of what others might think of us. But this woman does not seem to be afraid. Perhaps she had experienced the truth of what we read in 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…”
William Barclay tells us,
For a Jewish woman to appear with hair unbound was an act of the gravest immodesty. On her wedding day a girl bound up her hair and never would she appear with it unbound again. The fact that this woman loosed her long hair in public showed how she had forgotten everyone except Jesus… The woman was conscious of nothing else than a clamant need, and therefore was overwhelmed with love for Him who could supply it, and therefore received forgiveness.
I wonder: have any of us had such a moment where we forgot everyone else except for Jesus and just poured out our hearts in prayer to him?
If we let go, like this woman did, not everyone is going to be comfortable with it, with our relationship with Jesus. Simon, the Pharisee, was not comfortable with this woman’s relationship with Jesus. Some people just aren’t comfortable with emotion. Furthermore, Simon judged and condemned this woman in his heart as being a worse sinner than he was.
But Jesus responded to Simon by saying, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” Jesus told a little story and then applied the story to Simon. Jesus’ conclusion was simple: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
William Barclay comments,
Simon was conscious of no need and therefore felt no love, and therefore received no forgiveness. Simon’s impression of himself was that he was a good man in the sight of men and of God… The one thing which shuts a man off from God is self-sufficiency. And the strange thing is that the better a man is the more he feels his sin. Paul could speak of sinners ‘of whom I am chief’ (2 Timothy 1:15). Francis of Assisi could say, ‘There is nowhere a more wretched and a more miserable sinner than I.’ It is true to say that the greatest of sins is to be conscious of no sin; but a sense of need will open the door to the forgiveness of God, because God is love, and love’s greatest glory is to be needed.
What do you say about not even trying to be self-sufficient like Simon? After all, we were not made to go it alone in life. We were not made to be independent. We were created by God to live in dependence upon him and interdependence with others.
But it takes trust to step away from trying to be self-sufficient. It takes trust to let others into our lives. It takes trust to let Jesus into our life. But taking that scary step is worth it, because then we will hear the same words Jesus spoke to that woman so long ago: “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.”
And when we experience Jesus-sufficiency, our hearts will overflow with extravagant thanksgiving…
[1] Tony Campolo, The Kingdom of God Is a Party (Word, 1990); used by permission from Thomas Nelson Publishing
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