We may surmise that the dinner invitation issued to Jesus was a trap, not an honest offer of genuine hospitality. The Pharisee, Simon by name, was likely part of a wealthy and powerful family. He sought to embarrass and humiliate Jesus as a small town, ignorant rural hick who was capable of impressing only the weak of heart and unsophisticated of mind. Jesus was to be a foil for the Pharisee’s and his friends’ amusement. A woman of the streets would not have ordinarily gotten past the gate of Simon’s house to enter the courtyard of a dinner party, and while she appears to have been no part of the Pharisee’s plan, she presented an ideal opportunity to presumably expose Jesus’ naiveté and ignorance. So she was let in, and she went immediately to Jesus. Jesus saw through the Pharisee’s cunning and cruel calculation and used the occasion to teach a lesson about forgiveness and the generosity of God’s grace.
We all know people who cruelly calculate to get what they want. The story of King Ahab and Naboth, is depressingly familiar, especially with people holding great power. In contrast, forgiveness and God’s gift of grace are never calculating, and that is why one wonders if a solely calculating person can ever understand that.
As I read this story, Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness in Matthew’s Gospel came to mind. It is when Peter asks Jesus, “How often should I forgive my brother, as many as seven times seven?” Jesus employs a bit of irony to teach that forgiveness does not operate very well with a calculating heart. “No,” says Jesus. “Not seven times seven, but seventy times seven, on to infinity.” We can that see God’s grace doesn’t run on a calculator. Disciples are not given tape printouts of additions and subtractions to carry around in their pockets.
;To further illustrate his point to Peter, Jesus then tells the parable of the servant who had run up a debt so large it would have been impossible to pay back over a lifetime. The servant begged the holder of the debt not to throw him into prison and sell his family into servitude, but to give him time to repay. The holder of the debt knew he couldn’t repay, but had mercy on the hapless servant and forgave the entire amount and sent him away free from the entire debt to begin a new life. Yet that same servant came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a relatively small amount that was entirely possible in time to be repaid and seized his fellow servant by the throat, demanding immediate payment. It was obvious, the servant to whom so much had been forgiven, did not get it, and in one sense his calculating heart made it impossible for him to appreciate the incalculable worth of a new life of forgiveness that had been given to him.
It was the Pharisees who were widely considered the educated and wise people of the towns. Yet with not a small bit of irony, it was the poor woman of the streets, the uninvited dinner party guest meant to be a ruse to humiliate and poke fun at, who sensed the reality of God’s grace and understood how the presence of forgiveness could make a life changing difference in one’s life. It is hard to say whether the host Simon or how many of his friends, who had intended to mock and scorn Jesus, finally understood. Presumably someone, perhaps one of the disciples who had been invited with Jesus to the party, did for the story was written down and has been repeated for centuries across the globe, for countless times. The question for us here and now is, what do we hear?
Are we like Simon the host, who calculates every step, weighs every action, whose tapes of plus and minus seek to envelop and smother us like a fully wrapped mummy for burial? Are we like those few who saw a traveling rabbi offer a great sign, who experienced a miracle taking place before their eyes on a certain evening at an otherwise unremarkable dinner party? Oh, yes a real bon a fide miracle took place that night, but how many among the powerful, the wealthy, those full and content with themselves understood? It we had been there, what about us?
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
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