Luke 7:40-50

This week, we find ourselves with Jesus, in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. During the last several parts of chapter 7, Jesus has healed the servant of a military leader and brought a widow’s son back to life. Most recently, he spent time talking about John the Baptist and about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus says and does a lot of very interesting and very incredible things during this chapter. One Pharisee, who apparently was there to see and to hear some of these things, wants to know more.

This Pharisee, named Simon, invites Jesus into his home to eat and talk with him. He is apparently curious about Jesus, but as we will see in today’s verses, Simon clearly does not yet believe that Jesus is the son of God. We see this, first, in the way Simon responds when a sinful woman from the city comes and washes Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume.

Simon thinks, in verse 39, that “If this man were a prophet, he would know that the woman who is touching him is a sinner!” (ERV)

Simon thinks that Jesus must not know what kind of a woman this is. Simon thinks that if Jesus did know about the bad things this woman had done, then Jesus would send her away at once!

Of course, Jesus does know exactly what kind of woman this is. Jesus knows whatever it is that she has done. 

But does Jesus send her away? Of course not!

Jesus knew this woman’s sins. Jesus knew everything about her. But Jesus knew her beyond her sins. Instead of sending her away, Jesus knew that this woman was exactly the kind of person he had come to the world to save! If Jesus did not come for sinners, then why did Jesus come at all?

Jesus had probably met this woman days before and had forgiven her of her sins, and now, she wants to show her devotion to him. She understands what Jesus has done for her, and now she is ready to publicly show her devotion, and to publicly show that she is changing because of that devotion. 

This woman had most likely been a prostitute. The expensive perfume was, probably, not a luxury item for personal use, but was something she used for her line of work. We see her devotion, not just in the way that she honors Jesus now, but also in the way that she publicly throws her old life away, breaking the jar of perfume and laying it at Jesus’ feet. More than just demonstrating devotion to Jesus, she was also demonstrating a change in her life in response to what Jesus had done for her. 

In a way, she was literally shattering her old ways and laying them at Jesus’ feet. What an image!

Jesus, of course, understands this. Instead of sending her away because of her past, as Simon thinks he should, Jesus instead says to Simon, in verse 40, 

“Simon, I have something to say to you.”

Simon said, “Let me hear it, Teacher.”

41 Jesus said, “There were two men. Both men owed money to the same banker. One man owed him 500 silver coins. The other man owed him 50 silver coins. 42 The men had no money, so they could not pay their debt. But the banker told the men that they did not have to pay him. Which one of those two men will love him more?”

43 Simon answered, “I think it would be the one who owed him the most money.”

Jesus said to him, “You are right.”

Jesus responds to Simon’s concern about the woman by telling a story about forgiveness. 

The man who owed the very large amount is this woman. 500 silver coins were, in Jesus’ time, worth around 1-2 years salary for a typical worker. This was a huge amount of money. 

This was very much like the woman’s sin. She was a great sinner, and when she was forgiven, she loved Jesus very much for canceling a debt she could never pay. 

When Jesus asks Simon which man would love the banker more, Simon understands that the man who owed two years’ salary would certainly love the banker the most, when the banker forgave that man’s crushing, unpayable debt. 

I think Simon was beginning to understand the point about this woman, although I’m not sure he was willing to admit that he was also a sinner, in need of forgiveness too.

Simon, of course, was a man of religion. He was a Pharisee, and had probably spent most of his life working very hard to be good, in order to earn God’s love. But that isn’t how God’s love works. Working hard to earn God’s love is not possible, because we cannot ever be good enough. 

More than that, though, thinking that we can earn God’s love makes it so much harder to love sinners! When people who try to work hard to earn God’s love see sinners be forgiven, they feel like sinners are getting something for free that the worker somehow deserves more. Workers do not like grace. Workers do not love sinners. 

But we know that workers cannot earn God’s love. The prophet Isaiah said of Jesus in Isaiah 53:6 says that: “6 We had all wandered away like sheep. We had gone our own way. And yet the Lord put all our guilt on him.” (ERV)

Isaiah doesn’t say that some of us had wandered away. He didn’t say that most of us had gone our own ways. He says that we had all wandered away. 

Those words were written long before Simon lived, but it doesn’t seem like Simon really believed them. He definitely seemed to think that this woman had wandered away, but he didn’t seem to understand that he, too, had gone his own way. 

Simon did not understand that, if Jesus sent this woman away, he would have to send Simon away too, because Simon needed forgiveness just as much as this sinful woman.

Of course, that means that the real difference between Simon and this woman was not that the woman was a sinner and Simon wasn’t. They were both sinners. 

Jesus continues speaking to Simon in verses 44-47:

44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet. But she washed my feet with her tears and dried my feet with her hair. 45 You did not greet me with a kiss, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in. 46 You did not honor me with oil for my head, but she rubbed my feet with her sweet-smelling oil. 47 I tell you that her many sins are forgiven. This is clear, because she showed great love. People who are forgiven only a little will love only a little.” (ERV)

If the difference between Simon and the woman was not that the woman was sinful and Simon was not, then what was the difference?

The real difference was that the woman knew that she needed Jesus, and Simon did not.

Jesus tells Simon that he was not given even the most basic courtesies that anyone would be given in that time and culture. It was very normal for a host to provide a guest with oil, or for a servant to wash the guest’s feet. Yet, Simon had not even asked a servant to do those things for him.

Jesus tells Simon that he did not show Jesus even common courtesies, yet this woman that Simon seems to hate so much washed Jesus’ feet with her own tears. Simon did not give Jesus a washcloth, yet this woman is using her own hair. 

Simon worked his whole life to earn God’s love, yet appears to have had so little respect for Jesus, that he may have even intentionally broken cultural customs to make sure Jesus knew it.

This woman, on the other hand, had been known as a sinner her whole life, but loved Jesus so much that she broke cultural customs to show him just how much.

What made this woman so different from Simon?

Jesus had forgiven her sins, and she knew it. She believed Jesus. She believed in Jesus’ power to save her. She genuinely trusted that Jesus was enough. And because of what she knew Jesus had already done for her, she comes to him with thanksgiving. 

Jesus then tells her what she already knows is true: (vv 48-50)

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49 The people sitting at the table began to think to themselves, “Who does this man think he is? How can he forgive sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Because you believed, you are saved from your sins. Go in peace.” (ERV)

This woman loves Jesus because Jesus first showed her love. This is the only way that God’s love works. We can only love and serve God because God already loved and forgave us. It never works the other way around.

1 John 4:10 tells us that, “True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. He sent his Son as the way to take away our sins.”

We cannot earn God’s love, but we absolutely can have it. All of us who seek God’s love are either like Simon, or we are like the woman. Either we spend our lives trying to earn something we will never deserve, or we can spend our whole lives serving God out of the thankfulness we feel because of the love and grace God shows us from the moment we put our trust in him. 

Let’s remember always to put our trust in God.

Author: Matt Ryan