Today’s passage is Luke 7: 36-50. A Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner but does not extend the usual courtesies of washing his feet and kissing him, which Jesus comments on in a parable after a prostitute has washed his feet with her tears and hair, kissed his feet and poured expensive perfume on them at the dinner. The parable was about forgiving debts. Jesus told the prostitute her sins were forgiven and her faith had saved her.
How did the prostitute get into the Pharisee’s dinner party? Why is Jesus on a first name basis with the Pharisee?
My wife and I remember this passage because it was one that led to our marriage.
I was in India at the time while she was in Korea.
We were doing QT sharing on the phone and through email.
The alabaster jar caught our attention and our meditation on it led us to see that our alabaster jar was full of fear, not perfume.
We were afraid that there would be no happiness for us because of our past lives of suffering.
We were afraid that marriage for us would be more pain and suffering.
So we poured our alabaster jar of fear on Jesus’ feet#8212;hardly a perfume, I know!#8212;and cried our tears of hope.
Our marriage was indeed hard and fraught with suffering but not without the happiness we feared would never be ours, praise God!
When I read today’s passage today, what arrested me was the last sentence in verse 48.
It was the conclusion of Jesus’ comment to Simon the Pharisee about Simon’s lack of courtesy and his judgmental attitude towards the prostitute compared to her great courtesy and loving kindness to Jesus.
He told Simon that “her sins have been forgiven for she loved much”. Then he added, “But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”
Of all the sentences in today’s passage, I didn’t understand this one and only this one.
The syntax seemed tortured somehow.
The meaning seemed backwards to what I understood of God’s message of repentance and forgiveness and love unifying all.
I had to read that sentence many times before it began to make sense to me.
I had to reverse the order of the clauses in the sentences.
So the first sentence then read, “Because she loved much, her sins have been forgiven”, which was as clear as the way it was originally written, confirming its meaning.
When the last sentence has its order reversed it read, “He who loves little has been forgiven little.” That stunned me!
Suddenly I was Simon the Pharisee!
I was convicted of unforgiven sins because I clearly have loved little in my life.
My daughter Erika sprang to my mind when I understood this verse because I loved her little.
Mostly I was angry at her and disappointed in her.
Did I love her? Yes, but, until recently, I loved her little because I was selfishly focused on myself and my own thwarted happiness.
She loved me like the prostitute loved Jesus at the dinner party. But I loved little.
For that I am deeply sorry.
I have repented and making some restitution by payment of her college education, by my phone calls and letters, and by my heartfelt, daily prayers.
My small love wronged her deeply.
Application: to find an alabaster jar for my daughter.
Lord, let me love much not little
