THE PROSTITUTE AND THE PHARISEE

It’s a simple story told in Luke’s characteristically lucid style. Jesus is dining with a Pharisee named Simon. A woman who has obviously heard Jesus’ preaching steps into the room. Her name is not given but it is not needed. Everyone knows her, the town prostitute. But she is not composed, not there to impress or seduce. She is weeping with gratitude, on her knees over the feet of the reclining rabbi from Nazareth, pouring out years of pent-up guilt, little rivers of happiness, down upon his ankles and between his toes. She bends further now and wipes the watery dirt away with her hair. Then she withdraws an alabaster jar of expensive perfume and empties it on his feet, rubbing it in with her hands as the sweet aroma fills the room.

Simon is aghast. The Pharisees were known for their righteousness, their religious purity and high moral character. They were the successful middle class evangelicals of their day. They didn’t hang out with sinful people and didn’t approve of those who did. Scenes like this were too much for such men. “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is…” he groused within.

Jesus heard Simon’s thoughts. He knew exactly what she was, a broken woman who had experienced forgiveness and freedom through her faith. But Jesus also knew something else: exactly what kind of man Simon was, a successful man in need of humility, a man every bit as lost in his pride as the prostitute had been in her immorality. The only difference between the two was that the woman knew her sin and knew she needed a savior. Simon’s success blinded him to both things in his life.

Jesus tells Simon a story of two forgiven debtors, one who owed eighteen months wages and one who owed about two months. “Now which of them will love the forgiving moneylender more?”

Simon can’t help but answer, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

Then Jesus said the most important thing in the whole story, the thing that reveals who he really is. “Correct!” He looked at the woman. “See this woman? I came to your house yet you have not offered to me the least of common courtesies. But she has not ceased, since the moment I walked in, to show me the greatest love and devotion. Therefore I tell you, her sins which are many have been forgiven, for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

In other words, “Simon, in the grand scheme of things I’m the lender, I’m the one that everyone is indebted to. I’m God. Your achievements in life and religion matter very little. Your relationship to me is all important.”

And as if to put an exclamation point on it he said to the woman something only God has the authority to say, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

It isn’t what we’ve done or not done in life that determines our salvation. It isn’t how religious we’ve been or how irreligious. The only thing that matters is our ability to acknowledge our sin to the one who “holds the note” on it and trust him to forgive it. Then every room we enter will be filled with the aroma of our love for him.