Scripture Daily

Context No. 413 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 7:41-50: in context

41“A certain lender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42When they couldn’t pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?” 43Simon answered, “He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most.” He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” 44Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered into your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” 48He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49Those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Jesus is at dinner in the house of Simon, a respectable Pharisee, when a woman known in the town as a sinner comes in and does something scandalous: she weeps at Jesus' feet, wets them with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and pours expensive ointment on them. Simon is disgusted, and he judges silently that if Jesus were really a prophet he would know what kind of woman this is and pull away. Jesus, reading his thoughts, tells a small parable. Two men owed a moneylender, one five hundred coins and one fifty, and neither could pay, so he forgave them both. Which one, Jesus asks, will love him more? The one who was forgiven more, Simon answers. Exactly, says Jesus.

Then he draws the contrast that is the point of the whole scene. Turning to the woman, he lists what Simon did not do: no water for his feet, no kiss of greeting, no oil for his head, the basic courtesies a host owed a guest. And he lists what the woman did: tears, unceasing kisses, costly ointment. Her many sins are forgiven, Jesus says, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little. There is the diagnosis. The woman's extravagant love flowed straight out of her keen sense of how much she had been forgiven. And Simon's cool, dutiful, minimal love revealed something about him: he did not think he had much to be forgiven. The danger in the room was never the woman's great sin. It was Simon's respectable assumption that he needed little forgiveness, which left him unable to love much.

That is a searching mirror, because most of us who consider ourselves decent are far closer to Simon than to the woman. If my love for God and for others is thin and dutiful and cool, it may be telling me something uncomfortable: that I quietly think I have only been forgiven a little. Do I love little because, deep down, I imagine my debt was small, or have I let myself see how much I have actually been forgiven, which is the only thing that ever produces the kind of love the woman poured out?

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