As many of you know, we are looking for an office administrator. One of the candidates I interviewed caught me a bit off guard when she asked what the members of the congregation would think about a secretary who was divorced. I hadn't really thought about that question. Then a fellow pastor told about the secretary at his church whom he learned had been a prostitute. She was a very good secretary, and very few members of the congregation knew anything about her former life. But she did not feel very good about herself. She despised what she had done and she despised the men who paid her for the use of her body. She also despised the people she believed would condemn her if they knew of her former profession. She was desperately looking for love and acceptance.

One week my friend preached on the Gospel lesson for today, and it was the secretary's job to type up his sermon. When she finished typing it, she asked to talk with the pastor. She didn't understand the statement he had made that Jesus accepted all people knowing who and what they were. For she could not believe that God or God's people could accept her, knowing who she was and what she had done. The pastor read her from this text from Luke 7. The secretary got tears in her eyes. "How I wish I was that woman," she said. "That woman is you!" he replied and she cried. "Would you baptize me, knowing what I am?" she asked. He did, and her baptism was one of the most moving events in his ministry.