Forgiven to Forgive (or to Love)

Introduction

Luke 7:36–50 ESV

36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Human emotion is a wonderful gift from God. Our emotional response can communicate so much; so much about us, so much about the situations we find ourselves in. In our text this morning we meet a woman who is overwhelmed to the point of tears. Have you ever been so moved by something that you found yourself crying uncontrollably?...

Times of great joy and times of great sorrow are able to bring that kind of response out of us. Back in the early 2000s there was a TV show my family loved to watch together. It was called “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” In each show they would select a family or individual who needed a new home. That family or individual would be chosen because of a recent or ongoing hardship, like a natural disaster or a severe disability. And they needed a new home because their existing home was woefully inadequate, but they lacked the resources to change their situation.

The Extreme Makeover folks would swoop in a whisk the family away on a one week vacation. They would demolish the old house and in one week build a fabulous new house that met the specific needs of the family. The climactic moment in the show was when they’d bring the folks back form vacation, and the whole community was gathered at the house, but they couldn’t see the yet. That’s because there was a huge bus blocking their view. The big moment would come when the people from the show and the people from the community would shout together, “Move that bus!” When they saw their beautiful new home for the first time, they’d burst into tears, or start jumping up and down hugging each other, or collapse on the ground in utter disbelief.

Why the crying? Why the intense emotional response? It’s because of the great gift that they’ve received. This home that’s before theirs eyes and all that the builders and designers have done for them is a gift of such overwhelming value to them that all they can do is burst into tears.

That picture gets us close to what we read of this unnamed woman in our text. She comes face to face with Jesus’s love, compassion, the hope he gives, his power and authority to give her the gift of forgiveness, and she’s overcome with emotion.

The lead in to this passage is the previous section of Luke 7; specifically vv. 18-34.

John the Baptist is confused. He had preached that the “mightier one” who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire was coming. But Jesus wasn’t turning out to be the type of Messiah John seemed to expect. So John sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another” (Luke 7.19)? Jesus says to them,

Luke 7:22–23 ESV

22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Then Jesus says in vv. 31-35

Luke 7:31–35 ESV

31 “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’ 33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

V. 34 is what sets up our passage. Jesus is a friend of sinners. “Jesus what a friend sinners, Jesus lover of my soul. Friends may fail me, foes assail me, he my Savior makes me whole.”

There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus.

Luke includes this account right here as an immediate example of the fact that Jesus is a friend of sinners. And how do we know that? We know it because he comes to sinners and gives them what they have no ability to obtain without him, forgiveness of their sins and peace with God. Once we are gripped by the immeasurable forgiveness we’ve received in Christ, we can’t help but become people who are willing to forgive. There are three points I want to share with you from this passage; The Response to Forgiveness, The Goal of Forgiveness, and The Assurance of Forgiveness.

The Response to Forgiveness

Luke tells us in v. 36,

Luke 7:36 ESV

36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table.

Here’s the setting. There’s still some curiosity about Jesus. The Pharisees, the religious leaders, are still studying Jesus and trying to figure him out. It’s common in the Gospel accounts to read about the hostile intent and attitude that the Pharisees direct toward Jesus, but hostile intentions are not the sense here. They want to diagnose him. So, one of them named Simon, invites Jesus to a meal. Jesus accepts the invitation because Jesus makes himself available to all types of people, rich, poor, religious, non-religious, young, old, well-networked, non-networked…every level of the social strata.

Jesus accepts the invitation and takes his place at the table in this special public meal. This isn’t an invitation to a private meal with Simon and his family. This would’ve been a public meal where all the invited guests took their place around the table. The reclined on their left side on low-lying couches and they ate with their right hand. Their bodies were angled away from the table.

The public was welcomed to come and sit by the walls and listen in on the conversation that was taking place at the table.

We’re not told anything about the conversation that’s taking place at the table before v. 37. Whatever it was, it’s of no consequence. What we are told is that there is an unexpected intrusion.

Luke 7:37–38 ESV

37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

This woman is described only as a sinner. Why was this her label? Was it related to sex? Had she commited some crime? Was she the town gossip? We don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that it wasn’t private. Whatever it was, it wasn’t something that she could cover up. Everyone knew about it. Imagine if the things that you think or do that you don’t want anyone else to know about was out in the open. That was her. And even though she’s a main character in this story, she has no lines. We hear from Jesus. We hear from Simon. But we hear nothing from her. However, her actions speak a thousand words.

We read this, and it’s likely that you’re having negative feelings about the social structure that has publicly labeled this woman, put a scarlet letter on her. I don’t want to dissuade you of that emotion, but I do want to point this out. She’s described only in this way, “a woman of the city, who was a sinner.” Simon says to himself down in v. 39,

Luke 7:39 ESV

39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

The label is accurate! Whatever we think of the social structure, her issue wasn’t that she was just violating cultural norms and mores. She wasn’t simply a victim of customs imposed upon her by a patriarchal and misogynistic culture. You see, we decry public shaming. And I think that’s right to a degree. But we also have a tendency to try and overcome any sense of public guilt by explaining away our actions, behaviors, and practices simply as our rejection of whatever cultural thing we’re against or want to deconstruct; gender norms, patriarchy, restrictive religious norms, right-wing politics, progressivism, etc. There is need for critique in all of those human constructs. But there is also a standard for what is right and good that set by God, and never changes no matter what cultural moment we’re in.

This woman rightly understood the thing she was publicly shamed for as simultaneously a violation of God’s righteous rules. Oh, the humility that’s required for us to be in that place!

Do not so deconstruct your world such that at the end all you’re left with is yourself as a sole arbiter what is good and right and true. That is a dangerous place to be, and is actually almost the height of arrogance. And God, as he says in his word, resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. What you need in particular is for your understanding of what is right to be guided by the word of God in Christian community.

She didn’t just need deliverance from social structures. She needed real deliverance from real sin that kept her for real separated from peace with God, and peace in her soul.

When she learned that Jesus was at Simon the Pharisee’s house, she determined in her mind that she was going to go and take her valuable alabaster flask of ointment and she was going to anoint Jesus’ feet with it. But when she gets there…When she gets right next to Jesus, up close and personal…It’s like somebody yelled out, “move that bus!” And she got an unhindered view of all of the forgiveness and grace that she had received because she put her faith in Jesus. And it was too much for her to take. She burst into a rain shower of tears. This was no little whimpering she’s doing. When Luke says that she wet his feet, the verb has the sense of drenching his feet with her tears. The tears are flowing so heavily that she had to undo her hair to wipe his feet.

This is not what she planned on doing. She came to anoint his feet as an expression of her devotion to him for the forgiveness that she had received. This text is not about her pursuing forgiveness. It’s about her response to forgiveness received by faith.

Have you known and experienced the forgiveness of God in Christ? Has the bus ever been moved from in front of you and you set your gaze on all that Christ has done for you? What is the value of being forgiven by God? What price can you put on deserving condemnation but receiving grace? (an appraiser…) There’s no price you can put on the words Jesus says to this woman in v.50…

Luke 7:50 ESV

50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

How do you respond to the reception of forgiveness in Christ? Look at her response…overwhelmed by the grace of God (weeping)…humility (she positioned herself at Jesus’ feet as a servant)…boldness (going to the table indifferent to what would be thought of her or said about her)…sacrifice (she gave something of great value)…

In other words, her response was one of complete devotion to Jesus…not so she could get something from him, but her recognition of all that she had received resulted in actions that displayed and an utter and complete devotion to Jesus Christ. (Rom 12:1) Unless you get there, you’ll never want to live out Eph. 4:32

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Oh you might be willing to forgive petty stuff, but apart forgiveness of God in Christ, for the stuff that really hurts, you’ll pursue vengeance not forgiveness…And that leads to my second point.

The Goal of Forgiveness

Luke 7:39 ESV

39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

Jesus is a friend of sinners, but notice Simon’s response in v.39. He engages this woman with indignation, scorn, and doubt. Jesus knows how this Pharisee is encountering this woman. So he says,

Luke 7:40–43 ESV

40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

The difference between owing someone 500 denarii and 50 denarii is the difference between owing someone twenty months of wages and two months of wages.

Jesus tells a parable of forgiveness and love. Notice this question. “Who will love him more?” The point of the parable is that one who is forgiven little loves little. In Jesus Christ we find forgiveness, first so that we can love God. The goal of forgiveness is for us to be reconciled to God, to become devoted to the one who created us, sustains us, restores us, and yes, loves us. And the second reason we’re forgiven is that we might love our neighbor. Does that sound familiar to you? Love God, love neighbor? What’s behind the forgiveness we receive through faith in Jesus Christ? It’s love. Not a mish-mash, loosy-goosy, flimsy kind of love, but a costly, sacrificial love. That is in fact the kind of love we receive from God in Jesus Christ.

And this dear sister knew it! We can see in her actions that her heart is moved toward the first goal of forgiveness. She comes to express her gratitude to Jesus for the grace of forgiveness that she’s received. She brings and offering of thanksgiving in her alabaster flask of ointment. She breaks cultural norms and customs by disrupting the meal as an uninvited guest, by down her hair, something that no self-respecting woman would do in public. But she does not care. Jesus, and all that he has done for her is all that matters to her in this moment.

It is not speculation to say that she is a changed woman. We see the evidence of it right here. She knows how God sees her. And it’s not the way Simon the Pharisee and the community see her. She knows that she’s a beloved daughter. We don’t know what her life looked like after but I bet the way she interacted with people was different. Receiving forgiveness from God cannot help but change the way we interact with other people. Particularly when it comes to our willingness to forgive others. That is a natural outworking of what Jesus says in v. 47, “He who is forgiven little, loves little.” The one who is forgiven much, loves much. And listen, the way that we daily demonstrate our love for God is most powerfully seen in the way we love others. In this context it’s demonstrated by forgiveness.

Forgiving is a free gift I give you, but it costs me. To forgive is “to give freely as a favor.” Not to be paid back, but as grace. Forgiving is a free gift I give you, but it costs me. I sacrifice my right to continue holding a grudge. I give up my desire to see you get what’s coming to you. And instead, I seek your good. Even if you’ve done the unthinkable to me a heart to forgive means that I want to see you reconciled to God and to me. A refusal to forgive is simply a refusal to love. It means that we either have never known forgiveness in Christ, or we’re choosing to ignore it. There is no in between.

We’re not forgiven in Christ to do our own thing. (Extreme makeover example again…once the family moves into their new house, the designers and builders leave, and the family is left to live their life however they please.) Not so with us. Praise God for the fact that he never leaves us alone to fend for ourselves. Praise God that he promises to be with us until the end of the age. The goal of our forgiveness is that we would set our affections, devotion, and love upon Jesus Christ. The goal is that we would glorify him by rejoicing in the reality that we can give him everything…even our desire to get even or get at people who’ve wronged us. Now, because we have been forgiven and set free from the bondage of sin can serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all of our days (Lk 1:74-75). One evidence of that is our willingness to forgive others.

The Assurance of Forgiveness

We need to get a picture of the depth of Jesus’s compassion in this text. Pay attention to Luke’s words in v. 44 and imagine the scene in your mind.

Luke 7:44–50 ESV

44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Simon doubted that Jesus was a prophet. But Jesus shows that he’s a prophet and more by showing that he knew what Simon was thinking, and he also knew precisely who this woman was…

Do you get the picture? Our great God and Savior wants to assure this woman, who may have been struggling to accept the fact that she could have been forgiven for so much. She understood the depths of her sin. And with the rare mix of compassion and authority Jesus assures her that she’s right with God because of her faith. Make no mistake about it. Everyone there at that dinner party, invited guests and spectators thought that the Pharisee was right with God and this sinner was not. But Jesus says that their position with God is determined by their devotion to him.

“You gave me no water for my feet, but she…”

“You gave me no kiss, but she…”

“You did not anoint my head, but she…

In other words, Jesus is saying, “Simon, I’m your guest, but she’s the one who has welcomed me in. There’s only one person here who’s demonstrating hospitality, and it’s her, not you.”

You want to see the assurance of forgiveness? Three times, back to back to back we hear she’s forgiven! V. 47, v. 48, v. 49. And then the benediction in v. 50, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Let me close by asking you this question. How are you dealing with your deviation from God’s perfection and radiant righteousness? How are you dealing with your sin? Are you explaining it away? Are you rejecting the idea of sin as an antiquated vestige of an outdated culture?

Don’t do that. As my friend Phil Ryken says in his commentary on this passage,

“Everyone knew that she was a sinner, including the woman herself, and also Jesus, who did not overlook her many sins. Jesus knew the full extent of her sin, as he always does. Nevertheless, this woman was fully forgiven…, and this meant that she was no longer defined by her depravity.”

That is the answer friends. It’s not trying to act as though our depravity isn’t real. It’s being renewed in Jesus by faith and redefined as beloved of God who bear his image.

Jesus sees us, loves us, changes us, and reminds us that we are beloved and beautiful in him.

Christian philosopher, Esther Meek put it this way,

A sense of personal beauty comes, I believe, only in the generous, self-giving gaze, the noticing regard, of another person. A sense of personal beauty is nevertheless accessible to all, in the life-giving noticing regard of Jesus Christ. If—when—human noticing regard fails to occur, any person may nevertheless experience it in the gaze of the Lord, in personal redemption and the celebration of the Eucharist. His alone is the face that will not go away, and his alone is our highest joy.