A Woman In A Room Full Of Men

"A Woman In A Room Full Of Men"

Luke 7:36-47

A woman in a room full of men.  Not just a regular kind of woman.  A woman who had lived a sinful life.  "A woman of the village.  The town harlot." A woman talked about but not talked to.  A woman, who when those in the village saw her, pulled their children close--especially their daughters.  A woman most of the men knew--maybe many of them in the biblical sense.

A woman in a room full of men.  A woman who had a face, but no one knew what her face looked like because she was always looking at the ground and her face was always covered by her long and wild and unbrushed hair.  Hair that was always let down because why keep it up tight and covered for a husband she would never have.  A woman, who when you looked up immorality in the dictionary, you would find her picture beside the definition.  A woman of bad character, whose string of self-destructive decisions eroded away every bit of who she was as a person.

A woman in a room full of men.  A woman who had no reason to live and no reasonable life.  A woman who was useful for only one purpose, and that purpose had only to do with one small area of her physiology.  A woman whom others couldn't decide if she deserved disgust, judgement, abuse, pity, or grace.  A woman whose story was never known, never told, and never cared about.  "A woman of the village" but was invisible to and discarded by that village.

A woman in a room full of men.  A woman who is never named in this story's telling.  A woman whose name may not have even been known.  No name, no identity, no story, no person.

A woman in a room full of men.  But not just your garden variety of men.  Pharisees.  Religious leaders.  Studious.  Respected.  Pious.  The righteous and the self-righteous.  The kinds of men you don't argue with, because they know all the answers.

A woman in a room full of men.  Men who were Bible Study leaders.  Sunday School teachers.  Elders and Deacons in their churches.  They were so full of the Bible, they even carried their Bibles with them wherever they went--not just little pocket Testaments, but large, heavy, leather bound, gold embossed Bibles.  They were men of the Book.

A woman in a room full of men.  Men whose bodies were as squeaky clean as their Bible-studied souls.  Kosher, through and through.  Not a blemish on them.  Each one a pure and sanctified offering to Almighty God.  Where never is heard a discouraging word, except for women like her.

A woman in a room full of men.  Reclining on their fine couches, angling off from the edge of the dinner table.  The host at the head of the table.  The most honored guests nearest the host.  Jesus at the foot of the table, as far away from the host as was possible at that table.

A woman in a room full of men.  She had run into the room, brazenly pushing past the onlookers standing at the doorway.  She slowly circled the table.  One deliberate step after another.  All the men's eyes are upon her.  Oddly, very oddly, none of the men spoke.   None of the men demanded she leave that room.  All the men's eyes were upon her, undressing her with their eyes.  Her eyes were upon Him.  Behind her veil of ragged hair, the closer she got to Him, the more the springs of those eyes behind her hair bubbled up and spilled over.

A woman in a room full of men.  She was now standing behind him.  Then, suddenly, she collapsed like a rag doll upon his feet.  The air in that room suddenly sucked out by the *gasp* of all who were there, all who were hanging in the windows watching the show.  The flood gates of her soul fully open, she drenched His feet in a thunderstorm of tears.  And with them a waterfall of dark curls splash upon His tear drenched feet.  Almost provocatively, she began to dry her fallen tears from His feet with her hair.  The musky scent of her tear sopped hair became stained with the road dust from Jesus' feet.

A woman in a room full of men.  All the while, Jesus never looked at the woman.  He was gazing into the faces of the men around the table.  Their eyes were locked on the woman and what she was doing.  Jesus was the one who suddenly became invisible to them.  Looking at their faces it was as if Jesus were reading each of their minds by the leering expressions he saw.  Lust.  He knew they were wishing it was their feet the woman was caressing.  When she started kissing Jesus' feet, the heat from those men's faces could be felt across the table.

But there was no heat from the host's face.  Simon's face was cold with judgement.  His repugnance of the whole scene sent a chill from his frozen heart up to his frozen face.

In a stroke of storytelling magic, we get to find out what's in Simon's thoughts and what's in Jesus' mind.  Simon is thinking Jesus is a dolt.  Simon is thinking Jesus doesn't know anything.  Simon is thinking that if Jesus really were somebody, he'd certainly know what kind of woman it was who was playing with his feet.  Everybody knew what kind of woman she was.  If Jesus knew, if he really was a somebody, he would have, he should have, sent her away with the back of his hand across her insolent and tear stained face.  Simon was thinking he was really, really disappointed in who Jesus was.  That's what Simon was thinking.

What the storytelling magic lets us know is that what was in Jesus' mind was that he knew exactly what Simon was thinking.  We get let in on a huge secret, going on in this scene, that Simon is totally oblivious too.  Jesus can hear what people are thinking.  That's the only way we find out what Simon is thinking--because Jesus read Simon's mind.

What we find out from Jesus' mind is that Simon, who thinks he knows exactly who this woman is and what she's doing, really has no idea who she is and what's behind her evocative and emotional display.  And Jesus knows the reason why Simon doesn't have a clue about anything that's going on.

In response to what Jesus heard in Simon's thoughts, Jesus told him a parable.  The parable is only addressed to Simon:  "Simon, I have something to tell you." With Simon's full attention ("Oh?  Tell me."), and, I'm sure everyone else's, Jesus tells the parable.

Two men own money to a loan shark.  One of them is in debt up to his eyeballs.  The other only owes 50 bucks.  Neither of the men can pay up when the debt is due.  They're both afraid they're going to get their faces rearranged, or their legs broken, by the loan shark's goons.  Surprisingly, the loan shark let's both men not only go unharmed, but even cancels their debt.  (That's Wing's modern version of the parable.)

In the original version of the parable, if you'd look at your Bibles, I want you to notice one word in particular.  It comes up three times.  Which word do you think it is?  It's in the question Jesus asked at the end of the parable.

Love.  Which one of the debtors will love the banker more.  Not, which one will be more appreciative of the banker.  Not, which one will be most thankful.  Not, which one will be the most relieved.  But, which one will LOVE the banker more.

Simon can only answer the obvious:  "I suppose the one who was forgiven the most." "I suppose..." You can hear Simon's tone can't you.  "I suppose..." shows he hesitated, or felt exasperated that Jesus had forced him into the small corner of his small thoughts.  "I suppose..." let's us know that Simon saw the clamp of Jesus' parable-trap coming down upon him.

And I rather like to think that Simon was totally caught off guard by Jesus using the L word in his parable's question.  Love seemed like an awfully strong word to be used in such a question at the conclusion of such a parable.  Especially to Simon, who's iced over heart had lost touch with such a word.

That's Simon's deepest problem.  He wouldn't know love even if it came up and cried itself all over his feet.  Jesus didn't let up on Simon.  After Simon's, "I suppose..." Jesus told Simon what love is by contrasting Simon's inaction with the woman's action.

You:  no water for my feet (and that's assuming Simon washed the other guests feet and then visibly omitted washing Jesus' feet.)

She:  washed my feet with her tears.

You:  no kiss.

She:  has not stopped kissing my feet.

You:  no scented oil.

She:  poured expensive perfume on my feet.

A woman in a room full of men.  Then Jesus aimed his final blow at Simon's heart, maybe in hopes of shattering that ice encased thing.  "Do you see this woman?" Jesus asked him.  You Simon.  You.  The others may be listening, but Jesus is looking at you, Simon.  "This woman has shown great love." There's that L word again.  "The great love she has shown is because she knows she is forgiven.  She knows.  She can't help but show her love because she knows!"

Jesus concludes, "But (and you have to watch out for those times Jesus uses the word, "but" because they are usually followed by a hammer), "But, whoever doesn't know forgiveness only shows a little love." There's the third and final use of the word love.  It's very clear it's a word Jesus wanted Simon to hear.  Probably any Simon-kind-of-person for that matter.

Do you love Jesus?  "I suppose..." you might answer.  Do you feel yourself catching on the word love in regard to how you feel about Jesus?  You may like him.  You may admire him.  You may respect him.  You may even be amazed by or in awe of him.  But do you love him?

Do you fully understand the height and depth and breadth of His forgiveness of you?  And because of that, are you full of love for Jesus?  Out of the fullness of that love, do you demonstrate it to Jesus?  How?  How do you fall at his feet?  How do you cry out the tears of your confession upon those feet?  How do you pour out the expensive perfume of your love upon him?

She was a woman in a room full of men.  A room full of men whose thoughts were hostile toward her and cold toward Jesus.  But Jesus knew her.  Jesus knew why she had come into Simon's home that day.  She was a forgiven woman with a need to show "great love."