“Moderation – the Most Overrated Virtue”
By Joanne Leatch
Sermon – June 14, 2026
Reading: Luke 7:36-50
I have a confession. And my confession is that something that many, maybe most people would think is a good thing, drives me wild. So here it is: When someone says, and it’s usually in a self-righteous tone of voice, “everything in moderation.” And then they will take a bite of a cookie and wrap the rest up and put it in the freezer for some future date when they will pull it out, all stale and dried out and freezer burned, for another moderate bite. And my head wants to explode. I just want to yell, “Stop it! Get out of the shallows! Live a little! Eat the whole cookie!”
Don’t you think that maybe a better motto than everything in moderation would be, “If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.” I hear the objections going off in the church like fireworks. But Joanne, it’s bad to have too much salt, too much sugar, too much alcohol, too much anything. Okay, I get it. But, you know, we have all read news reports from someone who is 106 and still mopping their own floors and hanging curtains. When asked the secret of their healthy longevity they usually answer something to the effect that they drink three fingers of Scotch a day and have smoked since they were 12. And, of course, there are things that we have to be careful of – alcohol, drugs, gambling and more. And sometimes even there, moderation still is not the answer, but total abstinence is.
But that isn’t what we’re thinking about today. Today I want us to look at things where we maybe shouldn’t be moderate but much more effusive. Things like empathy, compassion, generosity, love. Today’s Bible passage is about a woman who had never heard the word moderation. I should also tell you that there are two distinct stories about two different women anointing Jesus in this way. One is recounted primarily in the book of John, and it involves Mary, the same Mary of Mary and Martha, with Lazarus as their brother. Mary is a respected woman, a property owner, the sister of one of Jesus’ best friends, a place where he chooses to go to teach and relax. This story is relatively calm and occurs near the beginning of Holy week before the crucifixion. There is some criticism that the money could have been spent on the poor, but Jesus explains that the anointing foreshadows his death and the preparation of his body for burial. But today we are looking at a different anointing story in the gospel of Luke. And this is a whole different story, different woman, different time and place, earlier in Jesus’ ministry. It is much more dramatic, much more detailed and anything but moderate.
Let’s set the scene. Jesus is invited to dine at the home of Simon, the Pharisee. And this woman crashes the dinner party. She clearly wasn’t invited. We read that she is a woman of the street. She is probably a sex trade worker, prostitute, a woman who knows that she is considered a sinner. She has heard about Jesus. She wants to see him. She gets in and she gets right down to business. What do the verses say?
37 And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.
She is all in. I think that I like it because it’s so over the top, without filters as we now say. She knows who Jesus is and she’s not afraid to say so. Well, you can imagine the shock. They’re all just so offended. A whole flask of fragrant oil. I love this Bible translation because it emphasizes the fragrance. A whole flask? It would have filled the whole room, been intoxicating, even overpowering. And she just pours it on Jesus and she’s weeping and then she takes her masses of hair – and she dried his feet. You have to remember that even unbinding her hair and letting it flow everywhere in that time was not done. It could show one of two things – either a woman of disreputable moral character, such as a prostitute or someone who was in extreme distress, extreme mourning. I think that in this case it was both.
This act is also one of extreme intimacy. It’s as if she and Jesus are alone in the room. She is completely distraught, look at her face, loving him, she is worshipping him, she is seeking forgiveness. Someone this week raised a really interesting point with me that I hadn’t thought of. They said that Jesus should not have seen her because she wasn’t polite, she didn’t ask to come in and see this famous teacher. With complete respect, I think that’s the whole point. This is not nice, polite or moderate. This is desperation. She wouldn’t have been one of the pillars of society anyway. But this was so important to her that she was willing to throw aside any decorum that she might have had. In any event, I’m pretty sure that if she had asked the owner of the home if she could come in, the answer would have been a resounding “no”. They would have known who she was, with her unbound hair, everyone knew she was a woman who was a sinner. And Jesus didn’t seem to mind. Look, he’s reaching out to her, touching her, comforting her.
We’re pretty polite, I realize that. But even we realize that there are times when you just can’t be polite. I remain convinced that if women like Emmeline Pankhurst and other suffragettes had been polite, had not tied themselves to fence posts and disrupted Parliament, women might still be asking nicely for the right to vote. It certainly would have taken a lot longer. Our own Nelly McClung, in a slightly more polite way, joined a court case that went all the way to the British Privy council so that women could be declared to be persons and therefore allowed to sit in the Senate. This was not even 100 years ago. And by the way, we have our own bridge to that history, here in our congregation with Marcia McClung, the granddaughter of Nelly. Marcia gave me permission to mention her. So, I think that there is a time to be not so polite, not so moderate if you will. If you think that I might be exaggerating about the vote, Swiss women were nice about it. They didn’t get the right to vote in their federal elections until 1971 and – the last canton – or province or state in Switzerland did not grant the vote for local elections until – I’m glad you’re sitting down – 1990. But this woman knew that the only way she would get in, the only way to see Jesus, to communicate with him, would be to crash the dinner. And isn’t it amazing that this woman, this small-town prostitute from Galilee, who felt that Jesus was the only one who could save her, is one of the stories chosen to be recounted in the Bible. That more than 2000 years later, this is someone we would be talking about. It’s really quite remarkable.
So, what happens next. We read that Simon, the host, sniffs to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” Jesus hears him of course and uses the moment to instruct, to correct. He tells him a parable about two men who owed money, one a little, one a lot to a moneylender. The moneylender forgave both their debts. He asks who would be most grateful. Simon the Pharisee somewhat sulkily says, “I suppose the one who was forgiven more”. “You’re right” says Jesus and then adds:
“Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
Many theologians have written about this story including N.T. Wright, one of the most influential living New Testament scholars, and they agree on many points. First, Wright talks about the buttoned-down approach of the Pharisee, Simon, who apparently feels pretty good about himself. And because of that, he doesn’t feel the need to be forgiven for much, nor does he feel the need to provide much hospitality to Jesus even though he invited him to his house. He’s not going to go out of his way. Wright also talks about the woman and the inclusivity of grace. He writes that a socially stigmatized woman crashes an exclusive upper class dinner party to lavish Jesus with tears, perfume and kisses. And Jesus ignores all the cultural taboos to embrace her. This is timely for us here at TEMC because we are working on being more intentionally inclusive. Some of you have come to roundtable discussions, some have emailed or phoned to share your vision of who we should be. More inclusive of everything – physical and mental disability, physical and mental illness, race, gender, age, socio economic status, neurodiversity, sexual orientation. Everything.
Wright says that Luke shows us the true nature of a disciple in this woman. She knows what it is like to be hated by the world, spurned, excluded and scorned. She has made bad decisions, stupid decisions, she’s a hot mess who has blown her life. Wright says that this is who Luke wants us to see, this is who the Holy Spirit wants us to see, and this is who Christ wants us to see – someone who is a complete wretch. And in her tears and her kisses and her completely immoderate, out there, over the top behaviour we see for all generations of Christians, an example of how we should worship. She is returning the extravagant love that God has for us – and she does it extravagantly.
Does God love us in moderation? Absolutely not. Does God love extravagantly. Oh, you can bet your last nickel on that. Listen to a few of the psalms.
Psalm 36:5 – Your love Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies!”
Psalm 103:11 – “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him”.
And how are we to love God back? Extravagantly! Desperately!
Psalm 42: 1 – 2 – As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
Was Jesus ever lukewarm in his ministry? Did he ever phone it in? Did he ever minister with moderation? He did not. He hung out with children. He healed to the point of exhaustion. He was all in, all the time, even to the point of death. Does Jesus really prefer this sinning woman to the pharisee, living a temperate life? He does. And that may be hard for some of us to hear. But Jesus says hard things.
On June 4, we had an amazing concert here with our own John Arndt and Jon Guerra. In some of the speaking between songs, Jon Guerra said something that I have been chewing over ever since. He said, “Jesus said difficult things. He said them so that there would be something at stake, so that we won’t skate over the surface of our lives, but we will delve deeply.” American priest, author and spiritual teacher Richard Rohr says that God loves and creates each one of us as a unique being with different gifts and challenges. If we stay small and timid and hide our light under a bushel basket, there is almost no place for God to move in, through and with us for the sake of the world.
So, what about us and our faith? I love one of poet Mary Oliver’s most famous phrases, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.” Even if you remain a devotee of moderation, what if we were a little less moderate in our faith? What would that look like? Maybe we could tell people more. Maybe we could say, here is my church, this is what we do, and we do this because we worship and follow the living God. And we do it boldly and extravagantly. God is still with us. Right here. Right now.
A few years ago, I went to Stephenville, Newfoundland to look after my eldest grandson, Finn, while his parents were off at the hospital, which was an hour and a half away, having their next baby. As it turned out, they were there a few days, so I got to spend all that time with Finn. One morning at breakfast, he turned to me and said, “Grandma right here. Finn right here.” And we were. We were both so right there, so living in the present. And I have remembered that ever since. Well, we are right here, right now. The living God is right here, right now. Even if you are still a devotee of moderation, maybe we could toss it away in just this part of our lives? You can still wrap up that cookie if you want, but maybe once in awhile eat the whole thing while it’s fresh. But maybe let’s make our spiritual prayer this: “Gracious, loving and living God, here is my jar of the absolutely most expensive perfume I could find. Please – take it, in fact, take my life, forgive my sins and show me what you want me to do. We pray this in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.