(Luke 7.36 - 8.3)


36One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said 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.’ 40Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied. ‘Speak.’ 41‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ 44Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ 48Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ 49But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ 50And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

Jesus is sitting down for a meal in another man’s home and all of a sudden a woman washing his feet interrupts the meal. Jesus had such a ministry of interruptions; such incidents reoccur through out the gospels. For example, after hearing of the death of John the Baptist, Jesus and the disciples tried to get away to a deserted place to rest a while (Mark 6:30 - 44). Presumably Jesus is unhappy at John’s execution and he wants to be on his own for a while. However, his plans were thwarted; the crowds had followed them, even racing ahead and arriving before the disciples. Jesus didn’t turn the crowds away, as he might have had every right to do. Instead he sat them down in rows and miraculously fed 5,000 of them. What might have been seen as just an interruption had become holy (www.umnexus.org).

Simon the Pharisee is the host and the woman a gatecrasher – an unexpected addition to the meal. The two of them are mirror images to each other. Simon appears to be keeping his distance from Jesus. A clue to his behaviour lies in the fact that he has not instructed his servants to wash Jesus’ feet before he sat down to table. In the dusty Middle East for the host not to do this is marking coldness and a lack of warmth. He may have opened his house but he is reserving his judgement. The woman by contrast is warm, welcoming, open and uninhibited.

Simon, the Pharisee, appears slightly condescending. He thinks that Jesus doesn't really know what is going on with the woman. 'If he (Jesus) really knew what was going on, he would have nothing to do with this woman.' By so thinking, he is establishing his privileged position or mental superiority over Jesus. He may have invited Jesus to test him and now he feels that he knows the answer - Jesus doesn't: ‘Poor Jesus’, he thinks. Maybe he is also thinking that Jesus' claims to divinity or specialness are now specious because if Jesus can't even perceive what is directly before him, how can he possibly understand things of heavenly importance? It seems as if he has, as it were, "written Jesus off" as he looks at his reaction to the woman’s behaviour.

The woman appears to be very unhappy and throws herself at Jesus’ feet. She pours out her heart to Jesus, seeing him as someone who can help her. Although it is not her place to act as the host since the meal is in another man’s house, she gives Jesus an extravagantly gracious (and scandalous) welcome as she washes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, kisses them with her lips and finally anoints them with oil. She is also acting like a common prostitute - the wiping of his feet with her hair would have been seen as shockingly intimate behaviour. Jewish women did not let down their hair in public. This is an expression of devotion that would have come across as extremely improper and even somewhat erotic, as indeed it would in most cultures.

It is easy to identify with the woman and write off Simon. He is quick to judge and dismiss the woman. The woman appears happy and he appears cold. He judges her entirely on external appearances and cuts her off a person before she has uttered a word. The extravagance of her gesture may have come from the fact that she knew that this was how she would be received; marginalized people cannot tell their own story, cannot define themselves, but rather, must submit to the descriptions assigned to them by the dominant group. In his mind she is clearly a troublemaker. She is in the weaker position and we love to identify with the underdog. The trouble with reading the passage in this way is that we end up with a thin edge of complacency – we feel sorry for the woman and quite sure that we would do better were we the Pharisee. It is parallel to the way in which we interpret the history of the Holocaust – always identifying with the Jewish victim and lambasting the evil Nazi. In 1990 the sociologist Gillian Rose argued that the Holocaust was being narrated in such a way as to protect the present generation from the thought that they may have something in common with the perpetrators

What if we have more in common with the Pharisee than the woman? We size up people; we look at how they are dressed; how their body is shaped; how they come across; how they move. We construct narratives in our mind about the person based on shockingly inadequate information, information that is gleaned as much from our perceptions of them as from what is actually said. Even identifying with the woman can be uncomfortable. She is ecstatic at being forgiven. She is not forgiven because of the love she shows Jesus. Rather, she acts so lovingly because she knows she's already a forgiven person. She is way ahead of many of us in the institutional church, praying, confessing, doing penance for sins, ritually at least, long after they've been forgiven.

The fact that we are in church in the first place means that there is a high level of motivation and commitment to how we live our lives. It is salutary that those who perceive Jesus' healing power in Luke are the outsiders, those who either are the little or despised people (like this woman) or those who are not from the Jewish community (like the centurion in 7:1-10). In portraying this as the reality of his day, Luke is suggesting a truth that also holds in our day. Those who think they are secure, those who already have interpreted the world in ways that lead to their comfort, are the ones least able to be open to a word of Jesus to them.