Sermon: 21st March 2004

Extravagant Love

Scripture - Luke 7: 36-50

Philip Jones

The Setting

Today's gospel story takes place in Galilee at the home of Simon the Pharisee.

Why did Simon - a Pharisee - invite Jesus to dinner? He probably didn't do it because he admired him, or wanted to honour him - or even because he wanted to entrap him. The invitation may have been made out of curiosity on Simon's part because Jesus was, by then, a celebrity - some were even calling him a prophet. So, probably Simon wanted to get the measure of this young prophet.

Now there was a custom in those days that a visiting rabbi would have delivered a short sermon - setting out his debating stall - so to speak. So Jesus may have preached to the invited guests on the inside and been overheard by others who had gathered outside the wall of the house and who had come to listen. Jesus probably preached on the forgiving love of God that goes out unconditionally to all people - no matter what they have done - without earning it through good works or keeping the Law. Simon was probably impressed by the talents of the young rabbi, but slightly cynical about his teaching and not especially affected by it.

But there was a woman who had been listening outside the house who was moved to floods of tears. She may even have heard Jesus preaching on previous occasions in the Galilee region. And this time his message caused her to break down. She ran inside the house, knelt at Jesus' feet and washed them with her tears. For a woman to unbind her hair in public was considered, in those days, the trademark of a harlot. But this woman was so touched by the words of Jesus that she lost all self-consciousness. She no longer cared what people thought of her, and she wiped her tears from his feet with her long hair; then she bathed his feet with costly perfume.

This is where the paintings get it wrong. Rather than sitting upright around a dining table, the guests would have been reclining on pillows with their feet away from the food, so their feet were accessible. Remember Luke tells us that the woman stood behind Jesus as her tears started to fall on his feet. This could only happen if his feet were raised and pointing away from him.

But that setting would not have made a good picture for the artist who wants the focus of the story - the woman - in the centre and in the foreground, rather than tucked away at the back. But in reality, that's where the woman would have been - at the back of the group, a distraction, an embarrassment perhaps, but not the focus of everyone's attention.

Through the eyes of the Pharisee

So, how did Simon react?

The Pharisees were intensely religious, carefully keeping every detail of the law. In fact, their point of view was hardly different from that of many 'pillars of the church' today. They believed that their salvation depended upon keeping God's law and staying apart from those who failed to maintain the same standards which they did.

Simon kept himself "pure," and expected other religious leaders to do the same. He was embarrassed at the provocative behaviour of the sinful woman and was shocked that Jesus did nothing to rebuke her. He must have been especially offended that she committed her indiscretions at his dinner table.

In the early stages, Simon had kept his mind open to the possibility that Jesus was a prophet of God, but his mind snapped shut the moment that Jesus tolerated this woman's behaviour. Her poor reputation made her actions even more provocative and Jesus's failure to respond even more suspect. In fact, the woman's behavior and Jesus's response were scandalous, and Simon was scandalized.

Simon was a scrupulous man, determined to follow God's law as exactly as possible. He was a proud man, having avoided so many temptations and seeing how frequently other people failed.

Simon was intolerant, but he believed his intolerance was based on faithfulness to God's law. We must not forget his single-minded devotion to God's law. Tolerance would not help Simon to obey God's law, but would only encourage carelessness.

Living a disciplined life himself, he found it difficult to tolerate indiscipline in others. He might tolerate the indiscipline of the unwashed masses (what can you expect from such people), but not of a religious leader.

Through the eyes of the woman

The woman intruder lived at the other end of the spectrum. Luke describes her as a sinner. Tradition has regarded her as a prostitute, but we have no evidence for this. She may have simply violated Sabbath law or broken the rules regarding ritual cleansing. A rather dubious tradition has also identified her as Mary Magdalene, who appears in the next chapter of Luke where he describes her as "from whom seven demons had gone out". Again, there is no evidence that Mary had been the woman at Simon's house. Luke keeps the two women entirely separate in his narrative: one had been possessed by demons, the other was sinful. In the language of the day, they're not the same condition!

Whatever the woman's sins might have been, her behaviour was clearly provocative, all her inhibitions had gone, and Jesus was the unswerving focus of her attention.

Through the eyes of Jesus

Jesus then told Simon a story about forgiveness and gratitude, and reminded him that the woman had done for him all the things that Simon had failed to do for him as his guest.

Jesus asked Simon, "Do you see this woman?". Simon does not answer the rhetorical question, but the answer would have been "No." Simon saw the reputation that preceded her. He saw her unseemly behavior. He saw the interruption of his carefully planned evening. He saw the failure of the young prophet to respond appropriately. He saw many things, but he did not see the woman - not really. Simon pigeon-holed people and related to them according to their status. Jesus saw people as individuals and related to them as human beings - not categories.

Jesus interpreted the woman's acts as evidence of gratitude for forgiveness already received, contrasting it with Simon's lack of appreciation as evidence of little forgiveness received.

Jesus is not saying that those who love much are forgiven much, but that those who are forgiven much will respond with much love. This is the heart of the Gospel: God comes to us on God's own initiative with free forgiveness, and when we realize this and accept it, gratitude overflows in extravagant deeds of love and devotion.

For us today


Simon's problem - and I think ours, when we are honest with ourselves - is that we spend so much time counting other people's debts that we have no idea how large our debt is. In Jesus's parable, Simon might actually be the one who owed five hundred denarii instead of fifty. But he spends so much time knowing about other people's debts that he doesn't see how large his own is. He doesn't respond in love because he has no idea how much he is forgiven.

Isn't our thinking more usually like Simon and his friends in this story? To be forgiven, we think, we need to say we are sorry; we have to confess. But the woman hasn't done this. And Jesus hasn't even said anything to her about her sin. The order is all wrong - Jesus has turned it on its head. The forgiveness comes first as the means for a changed life. It's not repentance in order to receive forgiveness; it's forgiveness first so that one may be empowered to repent, to begin living a life of love for the one who forgives us.
Jesus doesn't even give the woman a lecture before sending her on her way. He doesn't list her sins and tell her what she needs to do to get her life straightened out. He apparently trusts that her faithful response to God's love will help her begin to sort all that out.
Isn't that the question for us? Do we believe that we have been forgiven, that our debts to God are cancelled; and are we ready to demonstrate extravagant love and devotion?

The woman in today's Gospel - the outsider, the embarrassment to the upright folk at the dinner - is an example for us in learning to be disciples of Jesus and to respond to the forgiveness of our debts through lives of loving worship to the one who forgives us.

We are to live lives of love with one another, so that together we form communities of loving forgiveness in which we might continue to find healing.

We are to live lives of worshipping our Lord together, worshipping the one who has forgiven our debt, so that we might forgive our debtors.

We are to live lives of rejoicing and singing and praising and thanking God for the Good News of forgiveness first - a forgiveness which empowers lives of repentance and healing.

Amen.