Monday 05 February 2024

Background

This story and parable invite us to reflect on the true nature of faith, and how it ‘works’ when love is present and doesn’t when it is absent. It is also a story about hospitality, confusion, repentance, forgiveness, and finding peace.

The story takes place in the house of a Pharisee. A Pharisee was someone who took the detail of the law seriously, with its intention to enable Jews to live faithfully with forgiveness within God’s covenant. We don’t know why the Pharisee invited Jesus to his house. Presumably he was curious. But the story tells us in his heart, he judged Jesus negatively when Jesus let the uninvited woman bathe his feet with oil and dry them with her hair. This was not acceptable social convention. Meanwhile we are told his hospitality was lukewarm in a culture that prided itself on hospitality.

We know nothing about the woman. She is called a sinner. But the nature of her sin is not spelled out. A sin is the breaking of the law. Clearly, she has met Jesus before and is deeply grateful to him and it pours out in this extravagant gesture.

Jesus perceives what is happening in the heart of the Pharisee and of the woman and tells the story of the debtor whose debts were cancelled. Many people were poor in this society and economic debt was a reality for people.

The Pharisee perhaps has been lucky, with no debts and a disciplined approach to following the law. Because of this, he maybe has little real sense of dependency of God. He trusts his own resources and self-righteousness and doesn’t feel he needs anything else to be righteous. The woman has no such illusions. She recognises her debt, the offer of forgiveness, and she wholeheartedly repents, and her gratitude spills out.

Jesus points out the two different attitudes. One recognises how much she really owes, the other not at all. One sees a new start; the other doesn’t feel they need a new start. One shows much love in gratitude, the other not even conventional kind hospitality.

We don’t know what happened next and how the Pharisee ultimately responded. We imagine him outraged, confused, challenged, perhaps embarrassed. The story ends with Jesus offering the woman the ‘wholeness’ of shalom, of peace.

To Ponder:

• Can you remember a time when you were deeply grateful for being forgiven and given another chance? What happened and how has it changed you?
• Can you remember a time when you were outraged that someone you didn’t think deserved it got the praise you thought you deserved. What happened and how has it changed you?
• How far do you think it is true that those who are forgiven a lot, love a lot, and those who are forgiven little, love little? 

Prayer

Loving God, teach me to recognise that I depend on and am sustained by your love for every moment of my life. Forgive my obtuseness and meanness of heart in the times I think I don’t need you. Amen.