First impressions
Luke 7:36 – 39
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
36 Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to eat with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 aAnd there was a woman in the city who was a 1sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, 38 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 began kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were aa prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a 1sinner!”
In chapter 7 of Luke’s gospel starting on verse 36 and only going to verse 39 we have an interesting story about Jesus being at a home. He was reclining at a table which indicates that a meal was about to occur. We were also told that he was in a Pharisee’s house. This reminds us that Jesus came for everyone. He came for those who came to love him and appreciated the salvation and forgiveness of sin he offers, and he also came for those who didn’t understand who he was or might have flat out rejected him.
To continue with the story, he was having dinner with these Pharisees there would’ve been men around the table and the women would’ve been serving the men, sorry ladies that’s just the custom of the day, and Mary Magdalene comes into the house uninvited and pours perfume oil on Jesus’ feet. Let me stop at this point of the story because there’s some customs here you need to be aware of. The first is that when a dinner was held in a house the women of the house would prepare the meal and serve it to the men. The men would sit at the table in a reclined position.
The reclined position comes from the understanding of what happened during the exodus from Egypt. If you were to go to a Passover Seder, you would find that if the people being true to the tradition they would be at the table reclining. Of course, today it’s a little difficult to recline because we’re in chairs where in Jesus’ day they were sitting on the floor so it’s easy to recline. Why were they reclining? Because free men and women reclined when they were at a dinner table. It’s a custom that goes all the way back to Egypt and is still used today in certain places.
The other custom to understand is that only certain people were allowed in the Pharisee’s homes. Mary Magdalene was considered a harlot and there was no way she was going to get invited to come into a Pharisee’s home. Therefore, she had to barge in while the dinner was going on in order to do what she did. We know from the story that the Pharisee head of the household, tried to stop her. And Jesus said no let her do what she’s doing. By Jesus allowing her to stay in the room and anoint his feet he was demonstrating the mission that God had sent him on and that is God sent Jesus to be for the entire world not just a small population.
The other part of the culture that I want to inform you of is that women did not touch men who were not their husband or a very close family member. The same thing goes for men touching women. One exception to this custom I must say is that if the woman was a harlot, then man would touch her and that was not considered a violation of the customs of the day which I think is pretty odd. However, without the ability to touch the harlot then you wouldn’t have prostitution, and you would not have any harlots. Does that sound really strange or what. The culture made an exception for women who were prostitutes. Remember we don’t have to agree with what they did 2000 years ago we just have to understand that’s what they did and that’s how they felt.
Let’s get back to the story now that you have all the culture in place. There are many ways I can go from here and I’m going to pick one which I call first impressions. The Pharisees in that house might not have known anything about Mary Magdalene. They were not in the town that Mary lived in. The Pharisee host probably did not know she was a harlot because she didn’t blacken her eyes or wear a colorful dress which was the custom of the day for harlots, so they were easily to be identified. However, the Pharisee host said no to Mary entering the house.
So, Mary Magdalene was on the outside because the first impression that the Pharisee host of the house had when she was a harlot. He probably figured why else would she be following this band of 13 men around if she wasn’t earning a living let’s say. Of course, she was not a harlot and was forgiven for her sins and turned to the ways of God. However, the Pharisee host would not have known that any may not have believed it even if Jesus himself told him so. The fact that she’s outside the house tells us that the Pharisee host thinks that she is a harlot.
Think about it for a moment, the first impressions we are told are lasting ones sometimes. You meet someone and you get a first impression of them which can at times determine whether you like them or not. I remember in my business workdays a new project manager came from corporate down to the plant and I was asked to set a computer up for her. And I did. She spoke to me for a couple minutes and her first impressions of me were not very favorable. She also made it well-known to her boss that she didn’t like me. That’s just the way life is. However, she didn’t give me a chance, she went strictly on that first two-minute chat.
Three years later we were both in an interpersonal skills class together and I brought this up because the understanding of how first impressions can be detrimental came up. And I looked her in the eye and said sometimes we don’t like a person were talking to because we get this first impression within the first 15 or 20 seconds and then we shut down from trying to understand them. After the class she came up to me and apologized for what she did to me three years ago and said she had a very favorable impression of me after the three years. That was wonderful to hear. Admittedly we were never close buddies but at least I was given a second chance.
Think about how many times you met someone for the first time and developed your entire view of them in their lives based on that first impression, that first 60 seconds of talking to them. It happens all the time and it’s something we should think about. The reason that we should think about it is because it prevents us from sharing Christ’s love with them. Let’s be honest with ourselves even though Jesus says we have to share goodness and joy and forgiveness and all these things that he gives us as gifts with every person we meet there were going to be people who at the first impression your and have such a negative view of you’re not going to talk to them about Jesus. If you’re truly honest with yourself the answer is yes. There may even be people in your own congregation who you refuse to talk to because you don’t want to be around because at first impression was just bad. What would Jesus say to us today? The answer would be we have to get over ourselves and give that person a second chance and at this second chance listen deeply and longer and get to understand who you’re talking to.
I’m going to share one more thing out of my life and that is that I developed a first impression about a person that I didn’t meet face-to-face to later on. When I was going through my church ordination process, I had to meet a committee of three to discuss my theological views. One of the three persons was absent. The other two gentlemen each had one very minor question for me and they understood where I was coming from. The person who was absent had 17 questions that I had to answer. My first impression was not good about this person who came up with 17 questions when the other two guys came up with one each. That is a horrible way to decide about a person.
Within a year of that event, I got the opportunity to meet him personally. For the last 25 years he has been my pastoral mentor, and I could not have gotten to this point in the ministry if it wasn’t for his guidance. So, this person who I never met face-to-face gave me a bad impression because he asked me all these questions turned out to be not only my pastoral mentor, he also is a very close and perhaps I can say best friend. Today we discuss the research I’m doing in the theological positions of Christianity because he is so well versed and so open to any possibility. I value his opinion and his friendship. I’m not going to give you his name because he would just blush and tell me about humility, which he really has a lot of. He probably will read this message because I send him everything that I research and write, and he knows I’m talking about him. I know he understands how much he means to me because I’ve told him this more than once. So, a big thank you to my pastoral mentor of all these years.
If there is someone that you had judged based on a first impression, especially if it’s a bad one, Jesus would want you to go back and talk with them again. If that person is not a follower or disciple of Jesus Christ, I believe Christ would want you to share his love and God’s love with this person anyway. We should be sharing God’s love every day with every person we meet. Jesus said love your enemies. Why would he say this? Because everyone can have God’s greatest gift of forgiveness and eternal life through a fellowship and discipleship to God’s son Jesus Christ.
