A Tale of Two Sinners

It is not an “oops”; it is apparently an intentional slight, Simon indicating that he considers himself to be on a much higher social level than Jesus.

One of the onlookers is a woman, a sinner plying her trade in the town.

Everyone in the town knows who she is and what she does.

But she has heard something that strikes her to the very core of her life: she has heard the Good News of God's love for sinners, even ones like her, and this has so overwhelmed her that she wants to offer a response of gratitude.

But she sees the insult that has been made to Jesus when the host ignores the foot-washing that Jesus needs and deserves as a guest, and she moves to do something about the insult.

She washes Jesus' feet and dries them with her hair, the only thing which she had available, and anoints them with the perfume of her business, perfume now put to the best possible use.

Her actions are not the defiling caresses of an impure woman, but the outpouring of love and care from a repentant woman.

She does these things because of what has happened inside of her from the gift of God that came to her from the Lord Jesus.

Our church word for it is “grace,” and it means God's forgiveness and time for amendment of life.

Notice that Simon does not rejoice that the woman has repented.

He is too busy maintaining his superior attitude toward her to even realize it.

What is supposed to happen when one is repentant is that a person is then able to be restored to the community that was broken by sin.

But Simon and his friends fail to restore her; they are much too superior for that.

There are other stories that make the same point about restoration to community.

The good shepherd restores the lost sheep to the flock. (Luke 15:3)

The younger prodigal son is restored to the family and the community. (Luke 15:24)

Zacchaeus is also a “son of Abraham”, and cannot be rejected as an outsider. (Luke 19:9)

And so the woman should have been restored to community, and the Pharisee as a teacher and leader in the community and the one who witnessed her outpouring of joyful response to the good news, should have been the one to begin that process.

But he did not, and that failure is as significant as the woman's notorious life had been earlier.

This is not to say that the woman's life would have been easy if the Pharisee had acted appropriately.

It is still going to be difficult.

She had the one way of making a living with her body, but after she hears gladly God's great love for her, and expresses her gratitude for it, how will she make a living tomorrow without returning to her old way of life?

The story does not tell us, but it must have been very difficult.

Being a faithful person is clearly hard work for the reclaimed sinner, and also for the community that has to change its attitude and relationship with her.

Next, we need to talk about the word “love” in this story.

Our love is defined here as a response to God's unmerited love for us.

“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19ff)

Some have called into question which came first, the forgiveness or the woman's love.

The translation we use has it right: Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. (Luke 7:47)

Some other translations try to turn it the other way to say “her many sins are forgiven because of her great love.”

This would not be good news at all; it makes everything depend on the quantity and quality of our loving.

That is a quite depressing thought, because my loving is not so great in either quantity or quality!

We would be right back there wearing the shackles of works-righteousness, having to work our way to earn salvation.

That is in great contrast with how Jesus ends the scene:(1) the sinner hears that God forgives,(2) in joy the sinner gives thanks to God, (3)and then moves to amend her life.(4)Jesus summarizes the good news with the comment “Your faith (not your works) has saved you; go in peace.”

We said that this was a tale of two sinners.

The first is the woman, and we see the change in her.

The other is Simon the Pharisee, who doesn't think that he needs to have anything changed about himself.

He is afflicted with pride, arrogance, un-graciousness as a host, hostility, a judgmental spirit, a rejection of sinners, misunderstanding the nature of God's forgiveness, and hardheartedness.

Since he doesn't see himself as a sinner in need of grace, he has grabbed hold of very little of the grace offered to him, and he is therefore become the great unrepentant sinner, the defiled one.

The woman, the one considered to be outside of the law, is the joyful, repentant person, leaving the dinner party in peace.

What a wonderful, upside down world this Jesus brings!

Where are we in this story?

Which kind of sinner are we today?

Do we take up the offer of God's love and forgiveness, or do we think we don't need much of it?

What is our response to hearing that Jesus forgives you and me, the big things known to the public as well as those little secrets we keep hidden?

Do we recognize that God's forgiveness is big enough for them all?

Do we welcome each other here, and also, do we welcome those outside of the usual gathered folk, and thus recognize that it is Jesus who makes of this the most unusual community ever seen, the church?

Our hymn-writer has it right:

Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving,

Offer your service faithfully,

And trust his word; though undeserving,

You'll find his promise true to be.

God never will forsake in need

The soul that trusts in him indeed. [LBW 453.4]

Let all joyfully say. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.