Unloving Host

As a missionary, I’ve stayed in many people’s homes as I attended mission conferences or raised funds. People have different ways of welcoming and entertaining guests. I’ve had friends say, “The key is under the doormat. Let yourself in and make yourself comfortable.” Others waited for me to arrive, hugged me, showed me my room, fed me, and chatted until we were tired.

In Jesus’s time, loving hosts met the guests at the door with clean water to wash their feet (dirty and worn out from long walks through muddy or dusty streets), dried their feet with a clean towel, anointed their heads with aromatic olive oil (a sign of gladness and freshness), and gave them kisses on their cheeks to show love and hospitality. Then, in wealthy homes, they semi-reclined on cushions to eat their food. (In simple people’s homes, they stood or squatted and ate from a common plate or leaf, something still practiced in NE India.)

Jesus had dinners with tax collectors (Zacchaeus), ordinary people (Martha and Mary), disciples’ relatives (Peter’s mother-in-law), and people cured of their illnesses or diseases (Simon, a leper). Surprisingly, a Pharisee invited him into his house for dinner as well.

“Entering the house of the Pharisees, Jesus semi-reclined to eat. A woman, a sinner in that city, heard Jesus was reclining at the Pharisee’s house and brought an alabaster jar of myrrh. Standing behind Jesus’s feet, she soaked his feet with tears of cry. Then she dried his feet with her hair and anointed them with the myrrh.” (Luke 7:36–38)

Her action would have been crude in that culture since the Pharisees taught only a mother, a wife, or a male servant could touch a rabbi’s feet. That sinner lady from their village was grabbing his feet, almost like massaging (apto)! Worse still, Jesus, the rabbi, was letting her do that. (Imagine our reaction if we saw our pastor coming out of a brothel or topless bar – that would have been Simon’s feeling and response.)

He concluded that Jesus wasn’t a prophet, just another charlatan, a religious phony, or a trickster. After all,

“If he were a prophet, he would have known what kind of a woman she is who is holding his feet. S/he is a sinner.” (7:39)

The last phrase – S/he is a sinner – is ambiguous. Simon may have been saying, “What kind of a woman she is – she is a sinner,” or concluding that Jesus wasn’t a prophet; instead, “he is a sinner.” (The grammar allows both possibilities.)

But Jesus was a prophet and knew what was in Simon’s heart. He asked him who would have more thankfulness – one who had been forgiven 50 denarii or 500 denarii. Simon answered the one whose debt was the greatest.

Jesus said,

“Her many sins were forgiven; she loved much. But to whom fewer is forgiven loves little” (7:47b).

Although this passage could be read to say her gratitude (love) followed her forgiveness, the text could be read otherwise: her love brought her forgiveness. Jesus’s statement affirmed this: “Your faith saved you. Go in peace” (7:50). Simon didn’t wash Jesus’s feet or give him oil for his hair. His lack of gratitude or love brought little forgiveness to him. Perhaps he thought he didn’t need forgiveness. After all, he was a Pharisee. But she knew she needed forgiveness and loved him with all her might.

We love God with our actions to receive forgiveness. When we do, we love him more out of gratitude. Our lives should be a daily and continuous cycle of gratitude, forgiveness, gratitude, forgiveness, gratitude, and forgiveness.