This morning we begin a short series exploring some of the parables of Jesus. But there is only so much I can cover in a Sunday morning sermon, which is why each of these talks will be followed by an opportunity here on Wednesday evenings to explore further and ask questions about the parable and, in particular, its relevance to our lives today. Make no mistake about it, the parables Jesus told are as challenging, instructive, and relevant for us today as ever they were for his original listeners.
(Yes, of course much has indeed changed since the days of Jesus and much material progress has been made; but human nature has not changed, and, sadly, society’s material progress certainly has not been matched by any moral progress: if anything, we have just become more subtle or sophisticated about excusing immoral or selfish behaviour.)
Jesus’ parables challenge and instruct us about the kind of behaviour and relationships that are appropriate in his Kingdom – that is to say, when you and I allow his teaching and his Spirit not only to inform but indeed to rule our lives. We call him ‘Lord’: we need to obey him as such; but remembering always that his lordship in our lives is never forced but, whilst all powerful, is exercised primarily in love and mercy and grace.
Now you and I are very much at an advantage over Jesus’ original listeners. Why? Well, because we know – because we possess the record of his life, death, and resurrection – so much more than they did. We know who the story-teller is; we know that he is talking about the principles and practices that characterise lives and communities where he is welcomed as Lord; and we know that with Jesus there are no grey areas: he tells it as it is and he challenges us to choose. In his own words, ‘Those who are not for me are against me’ (Matt 12: 30)
Of course, to modern day critics, taking the world and personal experience or personal fulfilment as their guide and governing principles, so much of what Jesus has to say will not only fall on deaf ears, his challenge they will find decidedly unsettling. Those of you who saw last year the TV programme with Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens, squirming, spluttering and protesting under the polite but firm questioning of Ann Widdicombe about their attitude to the Ten Commandments, will know exactly what I mean. And yet those two are two of the most widely read, watched, and respected icons of modern secular hedonism. She simply quoted a couple of inconvenient commandments: I wonder how they would have responded to a couple of our parables? But that is our task now.
The parables of Jesus are a dramatic form of theological language that presses the listener or the reader to respond. They reveal not only the nature of the Kingdom of God, or how a child of the Kingdom of God should act, they also reveal what is really going on behind the facade of respectability, or celebrity, or religion in the mind and heart of the listener.
I want to present this morning’s parable by setting the scene for you. In doing so, I will be making some assumptions about what has preceded it and what is actually happening in the scene before us based on certain cultural insights from Middle Eastern social and religious life. These are not all neatly set out or explained in the text but are vital clues to a proper understanding of what is going on here. Come along on Wednesday evening if you want a fuller explanation; but for now I’m afraid you will just have to take it on
trust! You must understand that we cannot just read off the parable at face value. Rather, we need to understand the cultural, social, and religious setting and how, given these considerations, Jesus’ first listeners would have understood what was happening – as much the things not said and not done as the things said and done. Without such background knowledge we would miss much of the power, the challenge, and the shock of the parable. But with this knowledge we can then begin to ask ourselves how the parable relates to us today.
V36 starts our parable. We are introduced to the three main characters: Jesus, Simon the Pharisee, and a woman of ill repute. Earlier in the chapter we are told how Jesus has been preaching, teaching, and healing, and, because of this and his increasing popularity, raising many questions in the minds of everyone. We can assume at least that Simon has invited Jesus because he wants to know just who Jesus is. He wants to test him and the claim that he is a prophet. The woman – who says nothing throughout – we can assume has seen Jesus healing or heard him preaching; in particular his message of God’s forgiveness, freely offered to all and received by faith.
She comes to hear him again, V37, and brings with her an alabaster jar of ointment. In the Middle East, even as late as the last century and still the case in rural areas today, anyone in the vicinity could attend a banquet for a visiting celebrity; not to eat but just to listen and observe. The doors would be open; long couches on which the guests reclined would be set around large dishes and bowls containing the food. The guests face inwards, their feet behind them because to show your feet was to give great offence.
The woman has taken her place behind Jesus, V38 and, from the moment he reclines, begins to wash his feet with her tears, dry them with her hair, and then kiss and anoint them with perfume. To everyone present, such behaviour is seen as simply scandalous. But not to Jesus. Well, as far as Simon is concerned, Jesus has definitely failed the test, V39. Given who the woman is, no self-respecting, God-sent prophet would allow such scandalous behaviour on her part: she is offending all the accepted norms of social and religious behaviour. Not only should she not be touching him, but for a woman to let down her hair in public and to do so for a man who was not her husband shocks everyone present to the core.
Jesus perceives what Simon is thinking and then shows how wrong he is about both her and about Simon himself by telling the little parable within this parable. V41 and 42 . Although Simon misunderstood the human scene in front of him, the logic of the parable is inescapable. Love, in the parable, is a response to unmerited favour, that is, pure grace. Having established this principle from the parable, Jesus proceeds to an application of it that refers back to the actions of the woman, shocking the guests with its boldness.
Jesus’ words are addressed to Simon but are delivered facing the woman. It is a speech in praise of her kindness and worth. Jesus shocks the assembled company by making a comparison between Simon and the woman that demonstrates to all present how it is Simon, not the woman, who has truly offended against any religious or social norms worth having. How is this so? Well, Simon has completely failed to honour his guest, Jesus, with the usual and expected social courtesies. V44 When Jesus entered his house, he did not give him a kiss of greeting; he did not anoint Jesus’ head; he did not have Jesus’ feet washed. In intention and effect then he is slighting Jesus, showing that he has invited him not on equal or open terms but in order to embarrass him.
It is a grave insult.
The woman has come to hear Jesus again. She comes with little jar of perfume. She would probably have worn it around her neck for her own use in plying her trade in the city. Now, having heard from Jesus that
God can forgive and accept even women like her, women used by yet treated as unclean and despised by the community, she comes to anoint his feet with that same perfume. It is an illustration of the change of heart in her that the message of forgiveness has brought about. But on arrival she discovers that this agent of a forgiving God has been slighted by this pillar of the religious establishment: he has not even observed the common courtesies offered to any guest, let alone this unique guest. She is deeply hurt by this treatment of
Jesus and takes on the role that ought to have been Simon’s. She has no water; she has no towel: but what she does have is great love because she has been forgiven much. V47 ‘Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence (for that reason) she has shown great love.’
All Simon can see, because of his pride in himself and his disdain for this woman – he knows how she makes ends meet – are her defiling caresses, not the outpouring of love from a repentant woman. What’s more, his pride also prevents him from seeing that she is compensating for his failures: he is unable to register that the likes of her can repent. How are the mighty fallen here! The story leaves no doubt about the authenticity of this woman’s repentance, but it leaves a huge question mark about Simon. And in V49 we can see that the other important guests, again on account of their pride, prejudices, and preconceptions, are still none the wiser. Yet again, Jesus uses an outsider to shame the insiders.
A word or two about the little parable within the parable. The two debtors are levelled in their need and neither is able to pay. The same grace is extended to each. But the one who is forgiven more we would expect, would we not, to love the forgiver more? Jesus then picks this point up again in V47, referring to Simon.
What he is saying in effect to Simon is this. ‘You, Simon, have many sins (some of them you have so recently demonstrated) but you have little awareness of them and have not repented. Thus you have been forgiven little and, naturally therefore, loved little.’ Below his sophisticated exterior lie deep levels of pride, arrogance, hard-heartedness, hostility, a judgemental spirit, a slim understanding of what really defiles a person, a complete misunderstanding of God’s forgiveness. Perhaps the most damaging criticism of all however is the fact that Simon witnessed the woman’s dramatic and very brave action yet still labelled her a ‘sinner’. In short he is blinded by his own conceit. Jesus has not only read the woman’s heart, he has read Simon’s heart. There is a cluster of theological ideas or motifs within this parable for us to consider:
1. Forgiveness (salvation) is a freely offered, unearned gift of God. Salvation is by faith.
2. When truly accepted, this salvation by faith immediately triggers costly acts of love. These acts of love are expressions of thanks for grace received, not attempts to gain more.
3. Jesus is God’s unique agent through whom forgiveness is announced. A grateful response would seem appropriate. How will the other guests respond? How will we respond?
4. Repentance comes hardest for the proud; for those who are righteous in their own eyes. It is because Jesus is a friend of all sinners that he accepts Simon’s invitation.
5. In an encounter with Jesus the options are faith or offense: there is no middle ground, no sitting on the fence. This last does not go down well in our modern relativistic world.
This is a surely a sobering and cathartic passage for anyone who is not so full of themselves and their own worthiness that they are blind to its message. The proud really only love themselves: that is their problem. This is why they find it so difficult to accept God’s forgiveness and love, yet so easy to look down on those less able, less successful than themselves. Jesus leaves each one of us to choose - because that is the way of love.
For me the passage raises two very important practical issues about the Christian life and how we treat others. I give you these to ponder; and perhaps you will want to raise them and others on Wednesday evening.
First, we must be very careful not to restrict, by our attitudes and behaviour, God’s offer of forgiveness and
reconciliation only to those whom we deem socially or personally respectable or loveable. We must always be on our guard against pride, whether personal, social, or religious. Secondly, we need to ask ourselves how we react today, whether at home or at work or at leisure, when Jesus and the principles of his Kingdom are snubbed or insulted? Do we look the other way for fear of being ostracised socially, or do we state or somehow even express our love for him?
As I said at the beginning, the parables of Jesus are as challenging, instructive, and relevant for us today as ever they were in his day. We must not expect an entirely comfortable ride: indeed, if they do not make us feel at least a touch uneasy, then either we are more than a little blind and deaf - or else already perfect! But however uneasy they do make us feel, let us console ourselves with the heart warming knowledge that he loves us, can forgive the greatest and worst of sinners, and is longing for us to return his love in order that he may heal us and strengthen us so that we may become more like him.
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