Loving Jesus

Scripture Reading: Luke 7:36-50

“Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God; the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.”

-C.S. Lewis-

I don’t know if he had this story from Luke’s Gospel in mind when he wrote that, but what Lewis said is an accurate commentary on what happened in Luke 7. Though invited into Simon’s home for a meal, Jesus was not treated as an honored guest by Simon. The sinful woman enters the home and weeps over Jesus’ feet, her tears becoming the water with which she bathed them and her hair the towel with which she wiped them. After cleaning Jesus’ feet with her tears of love, she anoints them from her alabaster flask.

Simon, watching all of this unfold in his home, judged that Jesus could not be a prophet. If he were a prophet, he reasoned, he would never allow this sinful woman to touch him.

The content of what Jesus says in response is important, but we shouldn’t miss what is taught by the fact that he says it at all. Remember, Simon has concluded Jesus can’t be a prophet because, in Simon’s reasoning, he doesn’t know what kind of woman it is that is touching his feet. Simon isn’t saying this out loud. He is thinking it to himself. So, when Jesus tells him this little parable and asks him the question, “Which of them will love him more?” he is showing Simon that he knows exactly what he has been thinking. As The Prophet of God, Jesus knows every person’s heart. Simon has misjudged Jesus.

Then, in what Jesus taught, he explains what is going on. The woman is doing what she is doing as an expression of love for Jesus. She is expressing her faith in him as her forgiving Lord. She loved much because she had been forgiven much. Simon, on the other hand, loved very little, because he had been forgiven very little.

Don’t misunderstand. It is not that Simon wasn’t a great sinner. He was. It is that in his mind, he was a good and righteous man with very little to be forgiven.

As Lewis rightly observed, the people in the most spiritual danger are the ones who think they are doing pretty well on their own. They don’t love Jesus because they have not been forgiven. They have not been forgiven because they don’t see themselves as sinners needing forgiveness.