Simon, the Self-righteous Pharisee
- sermon on Luke 7: 36-50 -
The sinful woman. That is the name the translators of our translation gave to this paragraph in Luke’s gospel. Another title would have been more appropriate however. Maybe something like ‘Simon, the proud Pharisee.’ For the deepest meaning of the story is not the anointing by the sinful woman, but the forgiveness that the Pharisee would need so badly. The conduct of the woman is indeed tremendously impressive and gripping, but the strongest appeal is made to the lack of faith and skepticism on the part of Simon the Pharisee. When we read this story, we are all focused on what the woman does, more or less the star in the story. Tonight however, I would like to put the spotlight on Simon, who seems to carry out only the supporting role.
What is the situation? Jesus has been invited to have dinner at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Luke does not tell us why Simon has extended this invitation. But commentators have suggested three possible reasons.
First, some say that Simon invited Jesus because he was very humble and sincere; that he wanted to know more about Jesus, and longed for a change in his own life. He was not like the other Pharisees, but he was an exception among them. Just like Nicodemus, he had respect for Jesus and wanted to learn from him. There is no valid ground for this assumption, in the text however. Simon was not a Nicodemus, who came silently in the night to Jesus with some honest questions. In this paragraph we meet in Simon rather a skeptical Pharisee, and certainly not a beginning follower of Jesus.
Some other scholars have defended the opposite side of this debate. Instead of being honest and sincere, Simon would rather have had bad intentions with this dinner. They suggest that he might have been looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, just as other Pharisees had done before (Luke 6:7). The dinner was meant as a trap, so that Jesus would contradict one of the laws, and he could be brought before the Sanhedrin. According to my personal conviction, this seems somewhat unlikely, because the place and time of this dinner are not indicated in the text. Controversies with Pharisees usually took place on the Sabbath, because on that day, it was easier for them to catch someone doing something wrong. Sabbath was hunting day for Pharisees.
The third reason that has been put forward, and the one that seems most likely to me, is a middle position between the two theories. Instead of having either having much respect for Jesus or having very bad intentions with the diinner, Simon was simply curious. Probably he had heard that many people were calling Jesus a great prophet, and that he was performing great miracles. He may have invited Jesus to see whether there was any substance to the fame the so-called prophet was acquiring.
Whatever might have been the deepest motive behind Simon’s invitation, Jesus accepted it and enters the Pharisee’s house. This is not as strange as it might seem. Even though Jesus had numerous conflicts and controversies with Pharisees, we shouldn’t view the situation as, "Jesus having dinner with the enemy," since there was still a considerable area of agreement between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus lived as a loyal Jew and accepted the authority of the Torah. He was a Jewish rabbi himself, who taught in synagogues and had many friendly contacts with Pharisees. In Luke 13:31, it is recorded that some Pharisees came to Jesus to warn him that the soldiers of Herod were coming to kill him. And in Matthew 23:1-2, Jesus says to the crowds and to his disciples, “the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.”
Precisely because there was much in common between Jesus and the Pharisees, their disagreements stand out boldly. One of them is the issue of the attitude towards sinners. The Pharisees attitude was well defined: a pious Jew must keep apart from those who neglected the law, who were not ceremonially clean, and who didn’t pay the religious taxes. They tried to achieve some kind of physical separation from the ones they considered as sinners. In contrast, Jesus was often in the homes of sinners and tax collectors. He didn’t separate himself from them, but he mingled with them instead! He even saw it as his main mission on earth; "for the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). Just like he said, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners” (Mark 2:17). Jesus associated with sinners in order that they might be converted and saved.
When Jesus and Simon are laying at the table, and probably enjoying a good meal, a woman enters the house, and approaches Jesus. A meal such as the one Jesus was attending was not private. People could come in and watch what went on. Nevertheless, the fact that a prostitute had the courage to enter the home of a strict Pharisee, that was something else. She was probably so eager to come to Jesus, that she just didn’t care about the social rules. The urge within her to empty her burdened soul before Jesus was so irresistable, that nothing could stop her from doing what she wanted to do. In her hands she carries an alabaster jar of perfume. Such an alabaster jar was a vase of white fine-grained gypsum. It had a long neck. To pour out its contents, this neck had to be broken.
Overwhelmed with genuine sorrow for her past sinful life, the woman stands at Jesus feet. She wanted to anoint Jesus, but as she stands there, she is overcome by emotion. In a mixture of deep awe and profound regret, she bursts into tears. This ‘water from her heart’ (Luther: ‘Herzwasser’) drops down on the feet of Jesus. Impulsively she does what, in those days no woman was supposed to do in public; she loosens her tresses. Jewish married women used to keep their long hair pinned up, and most of the time covered. The ground for this practice was a rabbinic teaching saying that the angels should not be tempted or seduced by the hair of a woman. But again the woman breaks with the accepted conventions, and she bends down with her hair down.
She dries Jesus’ feet by wiping off the tears with her hair, and she even kisses them. The bottle with expensive perfume that she had brought with her, is already broken, and finally she anoints Jesus’ feet with the perfumed oil. Normally the anointing should have been on the head, because the care for someone’s feet was considered a slave’s obligation. But by kneeling down at his feet, she shows her humility before Jesus.
What a remarkable contrast of personalities! A despised prostitute with many sins, in the house of a respected teacher of the law, with many pious works of law!
Simon is deeply offended by what the woman is doing. His sense of social propriety is wounded by the fact that Jesus tolerates such behaviour from the woman. "Such a disgraceful thing ought not to happen in my house!"
If Simon had been wondering whether Jesus is really a prophet, he wonders no longer. A prophet would know to which riffraff such women belong! "We people of the law, cannot tolerate to be defiled by so many apparent sins around! If Jesus were a prophet, he would have pushed away this infamous wretch."
In the following verses, Jesus exposes Simon’s error. He shows that he knows this woman, with her past history and her present condition. He shows that he even knows what Simon has been saying to himself, and that he therefore is a prophet, and is discerning of hearts and minds.
When Jesus says to Simon, “I must tell you something," the host is curious to know what it could be. So he answers, “Go ahead, Teacher." Then Jesus tells him the parable of the two debtors.
Once upon a time two men owed money to a moneylender. One debtor owed him the salary of five hundred days of work, and the other a salary of fifty days of work. Since neither of them was able to pay, the moneylender very generously canceled the debt for both. Jesus looked probably straight at Simon and asked him, “now which of them will love him more?”
“I suppose," Simon answers, “the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” The Greek word
"Hupolambanoo," meaning, "I suppose," suggests that Simon answers with an air of proud indifference. With his indifference he might have tried to mask that he felt uncomfortable with the parable. This question is too easy, there must be a snag in it! And right he was.
Very dramatically, Jesus exposes before everybody the snobby and shabby treatment he had received from his host. Simon had omitted all the customary obligations of hospitality to which, as everyone knew, an honoured guest was entitled. Simon had not provided water to wash Jesus’ feet, and had not anointed his guest’s head, even with cheap olive oil. The reception had been cold, minimal, and discourteous.
Jesus shows that in all three aspects he had received the very opposite treatment from the penitent woman. Instead of water from the ground, she gave him tears from her heart. Instead of an equal kiss upon the cheek, she gave him many humble kisses on his feet. And instead of cheap olive oil for the head, she poured precious perfumed oil on his feet!
It would be interesting to examine, with which of the two characters in the story we can identify ourselves most. When we read the story, all our attention goes to the beautiful and moving gesture that the sinful woman makes. We try to imagine how she must have felt in the moment that she stood behind Jesus. And later on we are rejoicing in our own hearts with the happiness that she must have felt after her sins were forgiven. Somehow we are more inclined to identify with the woman than with the Pharisee. She is, after all a believer, and he is not. She shows repentance, probably like most of us present here tonight once did. Simon did not show any sign of repentance. If I would ask you now, “which of the two do you like most,” I am almost sure you would reply, “the sinful woman. I like the sinful woman more than that proud and indifferent Pharisee.”
The reality is that we are like the Pharisee, and not like the woman! We look much more like Simon than like the sinful woman. It is crucial to realize that tonight. We are not like her, we are like him! Also, we often think that our sins are not so big. We fall short in loving our Lord. And like him, we feel respected by other people. We are not outcasts from society. We don’t have a bad reputation. In fact, most of the time we have a very good reputation as converted Christians. We don’t smoke, we don’t drink, we don’t beat our wives, we don’t steal, we don’t cheat; so we are respected by society. We are good citizens, with a good reputation. We feel just like Simon. A respected man, regarding himself as a sensible person, and fairly righteous.
Of course, we all have our small sins, don’t we? We are not perfect. Nobody is perfect. But we are not doing so poorly after all. We never did anything like that sinful woman, a harlot. Neither did we ever do something like Zaccheus the tax collector, that big mafioso.
That may be true in our own eyes, but it is not the way that God looks at us. He doesn’t see small sins, medium sized sins, large and extra large sins. In the Kingdom of God it isn’t like in the kingdom of the hamburger, McDonald’s. Small hamburgers, medium sized and large. God doesn’t make differences. He just sees sin. And he sees us the way we are. Usually we see ourselves through the eyes of other people. We think of how we can look most respectable in the eyes of our colleagues at work, in the eyes of our children, and maybe (mostof all), in the eyes of our brothers and sisters in church.
God doesn’t look at us that way. He sees us the way we really are. That is also what the prophet Samuel had to learn. God told him, “the Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7b). God knows every heart, and he sees every sin. For him the smallest sin is still sin. Sin is sin, that’s it. And only when we realize that every day again, we can have the right attitude towards God, and love God with a sincere heart.
There was once a very pious monk with the name of John, who spend most of his days in meditation and prayer. He was old, and had a beautiful long, white beard. No one else in the monastery had such a beautiful beard. Now and then, between his Bible reading and praying, he used to take out a small mirror from his cupboard, in order to have a closer look at his beard. While he examined it carefully in the mirror, he stroked his hand over the white hairs, and sometimes even went over them with a fine comb, to take away some tangles. John was really proud of his long white beard. On a certain day, when he was in prayer, he thought of watching his beard again after that he had finished. But then he heard God speaking to him, “dear John, you are a faithful son, and you please me with your many prayers. The only thing that makes me sad, is that you sometimes think more of your beard than of me.” John felt terribly guilty and ashamed that he had hurt God with his beard; so he decided to remove it immediately. He took some water, soap and a sharp knife, and cut it off completely. When he looked in the mirror again, his face had changed, and he was pleased that he even had some small wounds from the knife. “Now God will be pleased with me”, he thought with himself. In the weeks that followed, John prayed more intensely and passionately than ever before. Every time he praised God, “O dear Father, thank you for showing me how my beard hindered my spiritual life with you, please accept me now, with my beard shaved off. Anyway it was not such a nice beard in the end, so I am glad I took it off.” After a while in the silence of his meditation he heard God’s voice speaking to him again; “It was useless to cut it off. I see you are still thinking of it all the time.”
The life in a monastery is rather monotonous, so small things are important. For monk John admiring his beard was one of the small pleasures in a day. This rather innocent thing however, became a sin as soon as he started to be proud of it and thought more of his beard than of God. In the eyes of the other monks, John could well have been very respected and esteemed. But he made God sad, because God saw what was in his heart and mind.
God sees us the way we really are. For him the smallest sin is still sin. Being in love with your beard, or living a promiscuous lifestyle; in God’s eyes, both are wrong. Realize that every day, we can repent, and receive mercy so that we keep in the right relationship with God. It would be a pity if we wouldn’t know how to repent anymore; if we have forgotten how to examine our hearts every day.If that happens in our lives, we will slowly discover that we will move further away from God. Our self-righteous mind will deceive us, and will slowly take us away from God. Every Christian is a sinner, and every sin needs forgiveness.
Simon was also a sinner, and needed God’s grace. Simon regarded himself as righteous and looked upon the woman as a much bigger sinner than himself. Jesus shows that it is Simon, who by his lack of love proves that he needs God most. And that the woman is in fact, in a much better situation because she realized her need for forgiveness.
Jesus does not gloss over her past life however: he says explicitly that she has done many sins. But it is a New Testament truth that, no matter how many and how great the sins, God’s grace can forgive them. We must carefully understand the words, "for she loved much." It is the same love that the debtors in the parable showed. They loved because they were forgiven, and the woman loved because she realized that she could take her sins to Jesus to be forgiven.
We don’t know if she was already a follower of Jesus or not, Luke doesn’t tell us. But even if she had been forgiven before, it might well be that she wanted to hear it from Jesus’ mouth, because of the gravity of her sin. She was very well aware of the fact that she had so many sins, and needed God’s grace very badly. Perhaps she thought that she could only be sure about it when he would tell her to her face that she was forgiven.
It was by God’s grace that she realized that she had to come to Jesus to get rid of her many sins once and for all. Whereas we would go to the cross, to lay down all our sins, she went to the living Jesus with her burdened heart, and emptied herself before him. The woman’s humble trust in Jesus, her act of committing herself entirely to him, is the faith that saved her. She didn’t speak a word, but Jesus, the discerner of hearts and minds, saw her repentance and saved her. God, in Christ, embraces this penitent woman with the arms of his protecting and adopting love.
The forgiveness that Jesus bestowed on the woman provoked an anger from some other Jews who were lying at the table as well. In their hearts, there was no room for sharing the joy of this forgiven woman. The Jews were right in considering the remission of sins as a divine prerogative. The Old Testament teaching is chrystal-clear in this: it is God alone who forgives. Thus Jesus’ act of forgiveness implies a direct claim to be the God of Israel himself. This is, for them, blasphemy. They said within themselves, "who is this who even forgives sins?” This time, Jesus ignores their criticism. He will deal with it on many other occasions. But now his interest is with the woman and with Simon.
"Go in peace," says Jesus, as she leaves. The original word that Jesus must have used here is "Shalom," peace. But it means more than peace. Shalom also means prosperity for both soul and body. This peace is the smile of God reflected in the heart of the saved sinner. It is a shelter in the storm, a hiding-place in the cleft of a rock, and and eternal joy in the heart of every repentful sinner. May God bestow His peace upon us all.
AMEN
