Jesus defends the faith of sinners.

Bible scholar Ken Bailey is certainly correct when he asserts that today’s gospel story of the woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee is one of the most fascinating and memorable accounts in the entire New Testament. Let me share some of Dr. Bailey’s insights with you this morning.

First of all, we must recognize the fact that Jesus in intentionally snubbed and deliberately insulted by Simon, the Pharisee, as Jesus himself points out near the end of the story. As a Pharisee, Simon was especially proud of the fact that he was as zealous a law-keeper as any of his fellow Jews, and yet on this occasion, when he invites him to a meal in his own home, he deliberately refuses to extend common courtesies to Jesus as a fellow Jew, let alone the even more respectful treatment required of a host when a rabbi is his guest. Simon doesn’t greet him with a kiss. He doesn’t anoint his head with oil. He doesn’t wash his feet with water. These are common courtesies in the Middle East. Not to do them was the fifty denarius sin that Jesus refers to in his parable, a sin that was, admittedly, not as serious as the sins of the woman, a known prostitute, with her 500 denarius debt, but a sin, nonetheless, that Simon could not pay once the debt was incurred, a debt that only God could forgive, a debt that presumably Jesus was quite willing to forgive as he explains it in his brief parable.

Secondly, Ken Bailey points out the fact that Jesus reclines at Simon’s table after he enters his house. By doing so, Jesus is taking the place of honor at Simon’s table, accepting Simon’s dubious and grudging recognition of him as a teacher, a rabbi, even though Jesus has been invited, in part, it would seem, to be examined and corrected by his Pharisaic elders, since he’s recently dined with Matthew and other tax collectors and sinners, probably including this woman, and Simon and his other guests do not share Jesus’ assumption that it is proper to associate on such intimate, social terms with law-breakers. Even though Jesus is probably the youngest person in the room, once he realizes that he is being snubbed by Simon, he immediately takes the place reserved for the eldest by reclining at the table first.

Dr. Bailey suggests that the woman is already in the house because she had already heard Jesus, perhaps at the home of Matthew, and had already accepting his message of forgiveness, even for her, who, as a prostitute, could never compensate or provide restitution to her victims and therefore was unforgiveable in the minds of many Jews, even if she acknowledged her sins and was genuinely sorry for them. Wanting to thank him for the possibility that even she could be forgiven, she had inquired of Jesus’ whereabouts, and had learned that he had been invited to Simon’s for lunch. Dr. Bailey further speculates that she brought her alabaster jar of ointment to anoint his head and his hands as a sign of thanksgiving, rather than going to the temple to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, because she believed that God was even closer and more present in the person of Jesus than in the court of the women. When she realizes that Jesus was being deliberately snubbed and insulted, she was both angered and ashamed that Jesus should be treated this way, and because he had already reclined at the table, she did the only thing she could do by breaking down and weeping on account of Jesus’ public humiliation and then realizing that her very tears could substitute for the water that she did not have and would have been refused if she had asked for it.

Wiping his feet with her hair was perhaps her boldest and most shocking act. She could have used some of the fabric from her dress, which would have been gathered up as she knelt behind him. Loosening her hair was very provocative. In Middle Eastern culture it was grounds for a man to divorce his wife without the requirement of providing any financial settlement. Not only had she lowered her hair in public, but she was touching Jesus with her hair. This is normally what a bride would do in front of her husband for the first time in private on her wedding night. Dr. Bailey sees this as her pledge of fidelity to Jesus, her willingness to identify with and to join him in his own humiliation before Simon and the other guests, who would have made a distinction between themselves as law-keepers and her and Jesus as law-breakers, a distinction which Jesus exposes as false in his parable and in Simon’s own sinful behavior.

Jesus’ parable also affirms his authority to cancel debts that cannot be repaid, whether they are comparatively large or small, and in so doing, to act as God. Even more dramatically, Jesus defends the woman and puts Simon in his place in his own home, pointing out his spiritual blindness to the power of God’s grace to forgive the woman and to motivate her to act with such dramatic love, something which, as Ken Bailey points out, no one would ever dare to do if he or she were a guest in someone else’s house, even if that’s what a person might be thinking, but something which Jesus does because he will defend and will not allow Simon or anyone else to undermine this woman’s faith in him for any reason, because it is her faith in him which saves her and is her peace. We can certainly more fully appreciate why Simon and the other law-keepers of Israel will want to get even with this upstart Messiah who even dares to forgive sins.

When Simon and the other religious leaders get their final revenge, it will not be before does what this woman has done, washing the feet of those who share the faith of this woman, and it will be Jesus who will pour out his blood, like the woman pouring out the precious ointment from her alabaster jar, on this sinful and broken world in a bold and unabashed act of love, an act which his heavenly Father will defend by raising Jesus from the dead, never to die again, so that all those with spiritual debts they can never repay can know the same joy and thanksgiving of forgiveness as that woman and can boldly witness to that precious gift through acts of love as signs and sacrifices of just how much the Lord has forgiven them.

If, in fact, this woman serves as a kind of prototype of the church, the very bride of Christ, I take great comfort in knowing that our faith and our acts of love as a community of faith will be honored and defended by Jesus. Jesus is the one person we can always let our hair down with, the one person who will see and accept our gratitude for his amazing grace and forgiveness and our lifelong pledge of fidelity. And as Paul rightly points out in his letter to the Galatians this morning, it is our faith in Jesus’ love and forgiveness, exemplified by this woman, and not our efforts, more or less successful, to keep the law, as Simon and his fellow Pharisees would insist, which is the basis for our salvation and peace. AMEN.