Luke 7:36-50
Please find in your copy of the
scriptures, the gospel of Luke. Today’s reading is the seventh
chapter, verses 36 through 50. Luke chapter seven, verses 36
through 50. Let us give our attention to
God’s holy word now. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus
to eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s
house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of
the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining
at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of
ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she
began to wet his feet with her tears. And she wiped them with
the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with
ointment. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this,
he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have
known who and what sort of woman this is, who is touching him
for she is a sinner. Jesus answering said to him,
Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say
it teacher. A certain money lender had two
debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the
other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled
the debt of both. Now, which of them will love
him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose,
for whom he canceled the larger debt. And he said to him, you
have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman,
he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house
and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet
with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no
kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss
my feet. You did not anoint my head with
oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore,
I tell you her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she has
loved much. But he who has forgiven, who
has forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, your sins
are forgiven. Then those who were at table with him began
to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your
faith has saved you. Go in peace. Let us pray together. Our great God, we come before
you today and We bow before not only you, but before your holy
word. We recognize that you are the
great teacher, the great prophet, the one who can forgive sins
and trespasses. And so we ask now that as we
learn from Christ, as we learn from the word, that we would
see ourselves not as the self-righteous Pharisee, but that we would see
ourselves as the woman of the city whose sins have mounted
up to the sky and beyond. Yet Christ in all his mercy and
all his greatness can forgive. Help us to have eyes to see,
ears to hear, hearts to understand. And most of all lives that go
and live for your holiness and your obedience. This we pray
in Christ’s name. Amen. The other day I was in
the local Christian bookstore, and as I walked through the front
door, front and center on the display in the entryway was a
section of books on hospitality. The premise of all these books
is this, open up your hearts, open up your homes, and you will
have all kinds of ministry available to you. In fact, many will argue
you’ll have more ministry than you can handle. This ministry,
this idea of hospitality is nothing new. But if you were to stand
and look at all the copies of the books by different authors
with maybe a different twist or bent on this subject of hospitality,
you would think they have discovered something never before discovered
in the history of Christianity. Well, hospitality is not new,
it’s just been rediscovered and some might even argue it’s become
a little bit of a fad in the Christian circles of America. But hospitality is at the root
of the scriptures. Hospitality is at the root of
most ancient cultures. hospitality, having open arms,
open hearts, open homes, open schedules to receive people and
to minister to their material needs, but also their spiritual
needs, not only through food or shelter, but through conversation
and opportunities for ministry. This idea of hospitality has
even reached out into the to the everyday world. Just yesterday,
my wife snapped a picture at a at a place, I think it was
over in Chapel Hill, and we all know what’s over there, right?
But on the wall of a restaurant or a grocery store, it said something
like this, change the world every time you gather around the table,
even pagans, even Non-Christians, even people outside the circle
of faith, understand there’s something valuable, something
important about the table. And that’s exactly what’s taking
place in our passage today. A Pharisee has opened his home. A Pharisee has opened his table. A Pharisee named Simon has invited
the rabbi who spoke in the temple that day. To come to his table,
to recline at the table, to discuss theology, to discuss God, to
discuss Torah, to discuss culture, to discuss the things of the
day as they eat together. This table, no doubt, was a gathering
of the elite, Jesus being one of them as a Well, at least somewhat
respected teacher in Israel as he’s made his life and ministry
known in that part of the world. This table would have maybe been
in the courtyard of Simon’s home. It would have been an outdoor
table. It would have had gathered around it people who were invited
to eat. There would have been an elite discussion. The doors,
the windows would have been open and people from the little town
could have watched through the windows that were open or they
could have just meandered on in and stood at one of the columns
and listened to the conversation. Well, that’s exactly what has
happened. A woman of the city. has entered
Simon’s house. A woman of the city, you all
know what that means, what her profession is, what her trade
is, what her record of sins and trespasses no doubt are. She’s come, and Jesus says he’s
reclined at the table, his head toward the table, his feet away
from the table. She no doubt desires to anoint
his head with oil, to bless him, to kiss his face, to worship
him, to adore him, but she can’t get to his head. So she stops
at his feet and she she cleans his feet. She weeps with great
tears. They pour out on his feet and
she has no towel. So she lets down her hair and
uses that to clean his feet. Can you imagine how uncomfortable
this situation is? Can you imagine the shock, the
awe, the comments, the she ought to be ashamed of herself comments,
or as we might say in the South, bless her heart, or as we might
say, isn’t that precious, which is really a demeaning way of
saying what in the world is going on here? We know she should know
better. We think Jesus should know better. And Simon, the Pharisee, is analyzing. He sees and he is judging. He is running this event in his
home. This uninvited guest has entered
and is now doing these things in front of his esteemed dinner
party. And he is He is judging. Well, for Jesus, it’s teaching
time. For Jesus, this is parable moment. For Jesus, this is time
to show what’s really going on in her heart, but also what is
taking place in the heart of Simon, the Pharisee. What does Jesus tell this man? He tells him a parable. He tells,
in fact, everybody who’s there this parable, he says, you’re,
You’re broke. You’ve got no money. There is
nothing you can do to reorganize your finances. There’s no bankruptcy. There’s no chapter 11. There’s no whatever you want
to call it. There is no financial instrument
that can get you out of this mess you’re in. You’re broke
and you cannot reorganize and become solvent again. That’s what he’s telling them.
You’re a sinner and your sin has mounted up to the skies.
It has reached the highest of heavens and continues on. And
you are due to enter debtor’s prison. You are due to enter
debtor’s prison. And so he tells the story of
two debtors. One owes about two months pay, about 50 days worth. Another owes a year and a half,
maybe 500 days worth of work. And Jesus says, which one do
you think when his loan was forgiven, when his debt was paid, which
one do you think will love the money lender more? Well, it didn’t
take Simon long to think on that. Of course, the one who was forgiven
more loves the forgiver in a greater way. And you’ve got two people. And this story, you’ve got the
moral do-gooder, you’ve got the Pharisee and you’ve got the Pharisee
whose morality is measured by what others do and don’t do.
Well, I tithe, I pray, I attend synagogue, I’ve memorized the
Torah, I know the law. And not only do I know the law
of God, I know the stories, I know the prophecies, I know the ways,
I keep the feast. List, list, list. He’s a moral
do-gooder. I’m not that bad. There are people
far worse than me. You no doubt can be assured he
has rationalized in his head. And then there’s this woman,
this woman of the city. Notice Simon has a name. But
this saint, this woman, this woman of the city whose reputation
has preceded her, but she has obviously come to faith in Jesus
and trusted in him alone for her salvation by her worship,
by her action, her thankfulness, her service to Christ. She is
a changed woman. You see, she’s been forgiven
much, and so she loves much, but she knows her condition.
She knows her condition being dead and her sins and trespasses.
She knows that she is in the grave. She knows that her her
debt has amassed to the sky. Not only does everyone in town
know who she is and what she has done, but God himself knows
who she is and what she has done. She can’t plead a single good
deed like this Pharisee Simon. She can’t speak of tithing. She
can’t speak of attending synagogue. She can’t speak of knowing the
law, memorizing the law, keeping the law, adding to it the pharisaical
way of life and way of living. She can’t do any of that. But
guess what she knows? She knows more than the Pharisee.
It’s all of grace. It’s all of Christ. It’s all
of mercy. And so we have the Pharisee who
says, me need mercy. And we have this woman of the
city who says, me, oh, oh, wretched woman that I am, who can deliver
me from this body of death? Thanks be to God for Christ. Who will love Jesus more? Well,
the answer is right there in the story, isn’t it? Who does
love Jesus more? I mean, this man couldn’t offer
Jesus normal hospitality. Oh, yes, he got invited to the
table, but his feet weren’t washed. Yes, Jesus got invited to the
table, probably so that they could hear what he had to say
and pick it apart and poke fun at it later. But Jesus’ head
wasn’t anointed with oil, another ancient Near Eastern custom,
Jesus was invited to the table, but no foot washing, no head
anointed and no greeting with a kiss. But this woman who comes
in uninvited, she comes in and she cleans his feet. She wipes
his feet with her hair. She kisses his feet. She anoints
his feet with oil. Who loves more? It’s the woman. She knows her debt. She knows
her hopelessness. She knows her lost estate. And she worships Jesus because
he can forgive her. She worships the one who can
save her. But oh, not Simon. He’s there
to pick apart the rabbi. He’s there to find, as the other
Pharisees have been doing for some time, find something wrong
with Jesus so we can kill him. Find something wrong with this
so-called savior so we can get him out of the way and continue
our way of life as the children of Israel. Oh, on the surface,
Simon is a good man. On the surface, Simon’s the man
of the city that you’d want to give the key to. Simon’s the
man of town that you would go to for advice. Simon’s the man
of town by all appearances. He’s the one you want to associate
with. But, you know, it’s this woman who gets it. She gets her
sin. She understands her need and
she has found the savior and she does what any saved person
does. They worship the Redeemer for
the redemption. And that’s what we see this dear
saint doing as she is at the Lord’s feet serving him. You know, go back to this idea
of debt, two debtors, one forgiven 50 days, one forgiven 500 days. You know what our problem is?
The fella, I know some of you listen to about finances says
you’ve got to hate debt, right? You’ve got to you’ve got to get
mad at it. You’ve got to attack it. You’ve got to get rid of
it. You’ve got to not let it in your lives. Well, friends, we
need to do that with sin. You see, we don’t have an understanding
of the depths of our sin before Almighty God. We don’t understand
that we, by birth with a sin nature and by account of all
our actual sins, have have committed cosmic treason. We have committed
treason against the Holy One of Israel. It’s in our nature
and it’s in our actual sins. And it condemns us from the get
go. That’s what this woman came to
understand, but Simon never seemed to get. And yes, her sins mounted
up to the sky. But you see, in God’s sight,
we’re all sinners. We’re all deserving of his wrath, his curse
of death, of a life eternal without him, but she’s been forgiven. She’s been saved. She’s been
set free. She has found mercy or well,
mercy has found her. And she knows, she knows. What a contrast between the two. And what does that look like
in our world today? Well, we come to church and we’re
all buttoned down. We’re all pressed and neat and
dry cleaned and shoes spit polished. We, you know, we get a new outfit
for Easter. We get something for Christmas.
We sit in our pew. We have our leather bound Bibles.
And there’s nothing wrong with any of that, by the way. But
it’s just the, it’s the outside, isn’t it? Wouldn’t we rather
be in church? Yes, with spit polished. We like
that. It’s Sunday. We wear our best.
We’re meeting the king. That’s a good thing. But wouldn’t
we rather know I’m sitting in a room full of people who know
the depths of their sin, who know the weight of their debt?
We used to sing a song in church when I was growing up. I owed
a debt I could not pay. I owed a debt I could not pay.
I needed someone to wash my sins away. And something about Jesus
coming, he paid a debt he did not owe and he washed all my
sins away. We need to think about sin. We
need to think about our depravity. We need to think about. who we
are before God without Christ. Otherwise, we will not worship. We will not adore. We will not
weep. We will not wipe the feet of
Jesus. We will not worship him and serve
him. We’ll be just like the cold, dead Pharisee, Simon. He says,
I’m fine, thank you very much. And in fact, I’m well equipped
to be the greatest religious critic of the day. You see what
Jesus is doing for the Pharisee, but you see what he’s doing for
us. He’s showing us the way we think. He’s showing us the way
we feel, the way we act. You know, we size people up,
don’t we? Oh, they’ve sinned more than
me, I can tell it. We size people up and we put them into social
classes, we put them into Categories, right, but in the Christian world.
Particularly in the South, right, what is it? What is the mark
of a Christian? You know, drink, smoke, cuss, chew, hang out with
those that do, go out with girls that do whatever, dance. We’ve
got our categories, right? But they’re not Jesus categories.
We need to look at Jesus categories and we need to look at ourselves
first. And Jesus says in this parable,
those who are forgiven much will love. In fact, notice how he
puts it in verse 44. He turns toward the woman and
he says to Simon. Isn’t that interesting? He turns toward the woman, but
he’s speaking to Simon. Do you see this woman? Can’t
you imagine it’s a little difficult for Simon to look at her? I mean,
it’ll disrupt his holiness. His shirt will get wrinkled,
right? His shoes will become unshined.
His place in the pew in the synagogue will be given to someone more
holy than he because he looked that way. Do you see this woman?
I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet.
But she’s wet my feet with her tears. She’s wiped them with
her hair. You gave me no kiss. But from
the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did
not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet
with ointment. I don’t know if you caught this,
but what she brought in was out of her riches, out of her, out
of her, her treasure. She brought great cost to this
anointing of the Lord Jesus. She has been forgiven much. And
so she loves much. Think about the Apostle Paul,
what does he call himself? The chief of sinners. We might think of the Apostle
Paul as the chief of saints. He met the resurrected Christ
on the road to Damascus. He was tucked away in Arabia
for some time where he was spoon fed the word of God and he preached
with power. He taught with power. He did
the work of an evangelist with power, but he calls himself the
chief of sinners. Think of Paul Bunyan. Some of
you maybe this week will come Watch Pilgrim’s Progress. Paul,
I’m sorry, John Bunyan. Paul Bunyan is the guy with the
axe. John Bunyan, the Puritan, the tinker who was jailed for
preaching in England when it was illegal to preach outside
the Church of England. He spent much time in jail and
wrote many books, including Pilgrim’s Progress, but he wrote his own
autobiography. And you know how those titles were in those days.
They were really long. Here’s his autobiography. Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. The brief relation of the exceeding
mercy of God in Christ to his poor servant, John Bunyan. When’s
the last time you spoke of yourself that way? Grace abounding to
the chief of sinners. The story, the brief relation
of the exceeding mercy of God in Christ to his poor servant. Brian, fill in your name. Or
St. Augustine, the great theologian
of the third and fourth century, probably one of the greatest
theologians who’s ever lived, who was a sinner par excellence. You read his autobiography, The
Confessions of St. Augustine. He loved his wine.
He loved his women. He loved his worldly ways. And
in fact, I was mentioning this to the new members class this
morning, as he was being drawn to Christ, as he was reading
the word, as St. Ambrose and others were influencing
him to come to faith in Jesus, he would pray to God this prayer.
And you can relate to it, I think. Lord, save me. But not yet. He loved this present world.
He loved his vices, he loved his sinful ways, and he knew
that it would be radical if God saved him. He’d lose it all.
Lord, save me, but not yet. But he knew. He knew his wickedness. Or John Newton, we just sang
a little bit ago. Let us love and sing and wonder. Let us praise
the Savior’s name. John Newton, a slave trader,
wicked man before his conversion, did so many things, many crimes
against humanity. But when he got saved, he sought
to repair it. But you get out your hymnal.
Here’s a good exercise for you. Take that hymnal home this afternoon,
go in the back index, look up every John Newton hymn and you
see if that’s a sinner who doesn’t know he’s been saved. You say
to yourself, is this a man forgiven 50 days of work or 500? Oh, he’s five million. Read every John Newton hymn and
you’ll see a sinner saved. And he knows it. And we could
go on and on and on through examples of people who realized they’re
the second debtor. A lot of us, you see, live in
that line of thought of the first debtor. I’m not that bad. I mean,
after all, I got a first ARP. I mean, after all, I give a tithe. After all, I’ve got a giving
envelope with my number on it. After all, I have a leather bound
Bible and I’m pressed and prim and proper on Sunday. I mean,
after all, I’ve sit in the same pew, I’ve sat there for all these
years. Friends, that’s the first debtor. I’m not that bad. So I haven’t been forgiven that
much. And so Jesus gets a little of me. We should be the second
debtor realizing that we were dead and have been brought to
life. We were in chains and have now been set free. Friends, we are sinners in need
of a savior and we have been forgiven much. And so we ought
to love God much. We ought not love him grudgingly.
We ought not love him with constraint. We ought not love him with fences
and parameters. And well, he gets this amount
of my time and I get the rest. No, what does it say in that
song we sing from time to time? His love demands my life and
my all. I think of James Montgomery Boyce,
who wrote a hymn that we sing from time to time. You can look
at it in your hymnal. It’s on page 437. He speaks of How marvelous, how wise, how
great, how infinite to contemplate Jehovah’s saving plan. He saw
me in my lost estate yet purpose to regenerate this faithless
fallen man. You skip to verse three. He bore
my sin on Calvary’s tree and righteousness bestowed on me. Stop and think about that for
a moment. Someone has paid for your sins. Someone has not only
paid for your sins, but they’ve given you their perfect record
of righteousness. And it goes on to say that I
might see his face. When was the last time a human
saw the face of God? It was before Adam and Eve sinned
in the garden. And we’ll see his face again
because paradise will be restored one day in heaven. God justified
me, God set me free and glorified I soon will be. How marvelous
this grace. These ought to be the words that
we wake with each day. I’m not just awake, but I’m saved. I’m not just awake, but I do
not face the wrath of almighty God. And verse four brings it
home. What have I now but to embrace
the God who saved me from disgrace? and love him evermore. And with
contentment run my race, my eyes fixed ever on his face to praise
him and adore. Dear friends, if you’re revolted
by this woman and her actions, maybe you’re like the first debtor.
Yeah, I’m grateful. Church is all right. But we need
to be like that second debtor. Oh, Jesus, you demand my life
and my all. Friends, the gospel truth hurts.
Jesus, no doubt, has offended his host. He’s offended Simon. He’s probably going to get kicked
out of the house before long. There’s a conversation the passage
tells us that follows. But the challenge for us is this,
if you’ve been saved much. You will love him much. Pray with me. Our Lord, our God,
we we’ve seen our hearts, we’ve seen our actions, we’ve reviewed
in our minds, our checkbooks, we’ve reviewed in our minds,
our pages of scripture, we’ve reviewed in our minds, our neighbors,
our evangelism, our faithfulness in the world. And you for sure
have found us wanting. We have been forgiven little
in our minds. So we love you a little bit.
Oh, Lord, let us be Let it be clear to us that we have been
forgiven much and so help us to love you more. We ask for
your help and your blessing and your grace and we pray for it
in Christ’s name. Amen. We want to respond to God’s goodness
by singing number 470 from our hymnals when this passing world
is done.