The Parable of Canceled Debts

Section 46
 JESUS' FEET ANOINTED IN THE HOUSE OF A PHARISEE
 (Galilee)
LUKE 7: 36-50

I'm embarrassed to admit that it's taken me three days to process this incident and that each day, I've had significant bumps in my understanding.  The first day, I made out the general outline of events, but I didn't grasp their context.  The second day, I asked myself which woman and which anointing are the focus, what is the central point that Christ wishes to convey and to whom? The third day I realized I had assumed too much---the presence of the disciples and of  Simon Peter, failing to recognize that this was a different Simon, Simon the Pharisee.  I feel obtuse.   One disadvantage of reading through the Bible over decades is that its easy to assume I already "know" a text text and to then read it inaccurately.

Three days in, the particulars are clearer.  I think I'm prone to broadly villainize  the Pharisees without differentiation.  Simon the Pharisee seems fairer than many---he invited Christ to eat with him (can't assume a purely kind intent but not evil either) and heard him about about his perception of the woman's condition and presence.  Though all of this is not fleshed out as clearly as I'd like, there is a good bit in the text to think about.

The Fourfold Gospel asserts that Simeon was kinder than some but with limits: "...he desired to avoid in any way compromising himself, so he invited Jesus to his house, but carefully omitted all the ordinary courtesies and attentions which would have been paid to an honored guest."

The reader can find lessons in studying both Simeon the Pharisee, who was of limited hospitality and lacking in love, and the woman who wept, who sought Christ in her broken state and honored him.

Beyond all of the specific context, one focus of this passage is the beauty of a broken heart that reaches for God and the love that springs from it.  The second focus is the need for this Pharisee, and by extension Jewish and Christian communities, to accept that God's forgiveness is grander and broader than we would paint it.  It's His call.  Our call is to respond with love and gratitude.

Here are several excerpt from my commentaries:

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"Christ stands here as a manifestation of the divine love, as it comes among sinners. The love of God is not dependent on our merits; frankly, Luk_7:42, is “freely.” It is not turned away by our sins: she is a sinner. It ever manifests itself as the clearing of debts. But it demands recognition and service: thou gavest me no kiss.

The woman represents those who penitently and lovingly recognize the divine love. She was not forgiven because of her love; but her love was the sign that she had been forgiven and recognized it. What will not God’s love do! The tropical sun produces rare fruit. What Jesus did for her He can do for your many sins. Pardon will lead to much love, and love becomes the gate of knowledge and the source of obedience."  F.B. Meyer

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"He meant to say, "You can see that she has been forgiven, for you see how she loves, and it is only they who have been forgiven what she has been forgiven that love as she loves. The fulness of her love is therefore the proof (not the ground) of her forgiveness."  -Pulpit Commentary

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"Now translate from the wonderful scene some lessons.

1. Your own duty. Separate not yourselves from those that have gone wrong.

2. Have faith to believe that under bad appearances there yet lurks and there yet sighs a soul, a moral conscience.

3. Never forget that when a man has gone wrong he can go right. God is on the side of every man that, having stumbled and fallen, gathers himself together and gets up; and, though his garments may for a long time be soiled, he is on his feet again, and prepared to resist again. Do not forget the all-loving heart of God." -H. W. Beecher, BI

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"To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." If we have a very imperfect sense of our guilt, and therefore of God’s mercy to us, our response in gratitude and love will be far below what it should be. It is, therefore, of the gravest importance that we should know and feel our own faultiness in the sight of God. For clearly it is not the magnitude of our past sin, but the fulness of our sense of guilt, which determines the measure of our feeling in the matter of gratitude and love.

I. HIS ESTIMATE OF JESUS CHRIST. When he found that Jesus did not resent the attention of "this woman," he came to the conclusion that he could not be a prophet, or he would have known that she was a sinner, and, knowing that, he would have repelled her. Here he was wrong in his conclusion; and he was also wrong in his reasoning. His argument was this: a man as holy as a prophet would be certain to repel such guilt as is present here; when the Holy Prophet comes, the Messiah, ha will be more scrupulously separate from sin and from sinners than any other has been. Here he was completely mistaken. The Holy One came to be the Merciful One; to say to guilty men and women, "Your fellows may despair of you and abandon you. I despair of none, I abandon nobody. I see in all the possibilities of recovery; I summon you all to repentance and to life. Touch me, if you will, with the hand of your faith; I will lay my hand of help and healing upon you."

By action as much as by language he made it clear that the guiltiest of men and the worst of women might come in penitence and be restored. That is the valuable and lasting significance of his attitude on this occasion. His treatment of this woman, together with his gracious words to her (Luk_7:48), are to us, as they ever will be, the strong assurance that those whom we most unsparingly condemn and most scrupulously exclude may find mercy at his feet. -Pulpit Commentary

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We draw two main lessons.

1. That Christ makes much of love. Dwelling on the various manifestations of this woman’s feeling, he declares they are the signs of her love, and he then traces her love to her deep sense of forgiven sin. God wants our love, as we want the love of our children and of our friends, and cannot accept anything, however valuable, in its stead: so Christ wants the pure, deep, lasting affection of our souls. No ceremonies, or services, or even sacrifices, will compensate for its absence (see 1Co_13:1-13.). And the measure of our love will depend on the depth of our sense of God’s forgiving love toward us. Hence it is of the first importance that we. -Pulpit

(2) should recognize how great and full is the Divine forgiveness, how much it includes—how much in the sense of overlooking the past, and in the way of granting us present favour and of promising us future blessedness. Our wisdom and our duty, therefore, is to dwell on the greatness of God’s mercy to us in Jesus Christ, to rejoice much in it, to let our souls bathe in the thought of it, be filled continually with a sense of it. For they who are (consciously) forgiven much will love much; and they who love much will be much beloved of God (Joh_14:23).

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

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 For this also we must pray; asking for that enlightening Spirit who will show us our true selves, and fill us with a due sense of our great unworthiness and our manifold transgressions.—C.

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After three days, I'm still not to the bottom of it, but at least I making gains.  This morning it reminds me much of the story of the widow's mite---the attitude of the heart and our perception of our broken condition is key.