LUKE 7:36-50
This week's sermon text is Luke 7:36-50. Do you have any thoughts or reflections on it? What's struck me early this week is verse 44. 'Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?" I was struck by how sight or seeing is crucial to this passage. There's the woman that Simon sees - probably a prositute who's doing some totally inappropriate things (letting your hair down in public and touching a man's feet in public was seen as sexually provocative and totally inappropriate). To Simon this woman isn't worth looking at, he talks about her as if she's not there. She's not a someone to Simon, she's an it that he doesn't want to name. I can imagine him looking away from her, disgusted by her actions in his house. If he ever has to acknowledge her it'd be a simple toss of the head in her direction and he'd talk about "that thing over there". In contrast Jesus is giving her a name. Not an it or "that thing over there" but loved one.This passage fills out what Jesus has just said of himself "a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Lk. 7:34). This woman who is a sinner (Lk7:37) is actually somone who's loved much by God. By her actions she shows us how grace breeds grace; the forgiven become forgivers, the graced become gracers.