It's a wonderful story. At least, it is to me. Others might not like it so well. It is certainly astonishing.
Put it in the context of a dinner party at your own home or even a supper in the church's fellowship hall. By this time in Jesus' ministry, he had garnered quite a bit of public notice. All sorts of people had been attracted to him — rich, poor, educated, illiterate, from the highly respectable to the lowly riffraff. To have this famous rabbi come to dinner was very special and everyone would have been excited and perhaps a bit nervous at the same time — after all this teacher had had some not too complimentary things to say about the religious folks who were his hosts at the moment.
Suddenly, an uninvited guest appears — a woman described in the text as one "who had lived a sinful life in that town" (Luke 7:37). It does not take too much imagination to figure what kind of sinning that life entailed. She comes over to Jesus, begins to pour expensive perfume on Jesus' feet, weeping as she does so and then wipes his feet with her hair. The other guests just stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
If you think this would be uncomfortable in our day, it would have been almost unimaginable back then. Women did not intrude into the company of men who were sitting at the table for dinner; in fact, even wives were often not included. As to her very public show of affection, it would have been excessive in the extreme — letting down her long hair in public (not done), wiping his feet with it and kissing them (please — this is getting just too intimate). On top of all that, what does this do to Jesus' stature as a holy man and rabbi to be known by this lady of questionable reputation?
Jesus could have brushed her off. The story makes plain that this is precisely what his dinner companions and host expected. But, no. Instead, Jesus jumps to her defense with a little story.
"Simon ... Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty [a denarius was about a day's wage]. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" — Luke 7:40-42
Simon replies, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled" (Luke 7:43).
You suppose, Simon? You suppose? Then Jesus tells his host the reason for this woman's remarkable behavior. She had been forgiven ... a lot! The story does not tell us, but certainly this was not the first time she and Jesus had been together. She had heard his word of forgiveness at some previous encounter and had come to experience the remarkable sense of liberation that came with it — thus, the outpouring of affection (not to mention the expensive perfume).
But more was necessary. For this woman's life to really change, the rest of the town had to know she had been forgiven as well. She would not be truly whole again until she was no longer a social leper. Thus, the meeting at the party. The woman may not have been invited by Simon, but I would be willing to bet that she had been by Jesus. The scene Simon and his friends witnessed that day was Jesus' clever way of beginning that process of restoring her to the community. That is why the story ends with Jesus telling the woman, "Your faith has saved you" (Luke 7:50). Not pie-in-the-sky bye-and-bye saved, but wholeness, healing, shalom in the here-and-now saved.
Put yourself in the story. Who are you? Jesus? The woman? Simon and friends? For myself, I know my tendency would be to be Simon. I can be terribly judgmental and self-righteous without much prompting at all. But a story like this reminds me that this is not what the church I serve or I should be about. Contrary to what far too many people think, the church is not in the morality business. The church is in the grace business. Or in the context of this vignette, the forgiveness business.
If you take nothing away from this text but that, it will be sufficient because, quite frankly, when the church forgets it, we get into trouble. That is precisely why churches continue to have these internal (and seemingly eternal) squabbles about social issues — human sexuality, abortion, gay rights, and so on. When we are tempted, we would do well to remember a certain party at the home of Simon the Pharisee.
Several years ago, Tony Campolo wrote a book titled The Kingdom of God Is a Party[1] in which he tells of flying to Hawaii to speak at a conference. He described checking into his hotel and trying to get some sleep. Unfortunately, his internal clock woke him at 3 a.m. The night was dark, the streets were silent, the world was asleep, but Tony was wide awake and his stomach was growling. He gets up and prowls the streets looking for a place to get some bacon and eggs for an early breakfast. Everything was closed except for a grungy dive in an alley.
As the story goes on, Tony quickly learned that this place, in the wee small hours, was regularly frequented by prostitutes who came by at the conclusion of their night's work. One, on this particular night, mentioned that tomorrow would be her 39th birthday and that in her entire life she had never had a birthday party. When the ladies left, Tony asked the man behind the counter about what they had just witnessed.
The man confirmed that they were all regulars, including the birthday girl, Agnes. Tony wondered about the possibility of throwing a birthday party for her the next night. So they did.
At 2:30 the next morning, Tony was back. He had crepe paper and other decorations and a sign made of big pieces of cardboard that said, "Happy Birthday, Agnes!" The counter man had prepared a cake and gotten the word out on the streets about the party so the place was jammed — wall-to-wall hookers.
At 3:30 on the dot, the door swung open and in walked Agnes. Everybody was ready — they all shouted and screamed, "Happy Birthday, Agnes!" Agnes was blown away. She was stunned, her mouth fell open, her knees started to buckle, and she almost fell over. Wow!
Once things settle down, Tony Campolo got up on a chair and said, "What do you say that we pray together?" There in a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon in the middle of the night with half the prostitutes in Honolulu listening, he prayed for Agnes, "that her life would be changed, and that God would be good to her."
When he was finished, the counter man leaned over, and with a trace of hostility in his voice, said, "Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?"
In one of those moments when just the right words came, Tony answered him quietly, "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning."
The man thought for a moment and said, "No you don't. There ain't no church like that. If there was, I'd join it. Yep, I'd join a church like that."
Now. One more time. What business is the church in?
1. Anthony Campolo, The Kingdom of God Is a Party (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990).