Simon was nervous already, having invited Jesus, a known sabbath-breaker (and yet possibly a prophet?) to his home for a meal. Simon knew that Jesus was performing miracles, but he was also deeply troubled that Jesus so easily mingled with the uneducated and unclean people who were beneath the status he and his Pharisee brethren had attained. He was deeply conflicted. God was obviously with this man, but how could that be when he regularly contaminated himself, mingling with the rabble, and violating the Sabbath? Simon’s righteousness—in fact, that of his nation’s—had been maintained through their meticulous attendance to the Law, which this Jesus seemed to so easily disregard.

The room was already filled with awkward social tension when a prostitute, the most defiled person in the city, found her way into the gathering. No one escorted her back outside; she was far too unclean to be approached by men of Simon’s stature and purity. Besides, to make matters worse, she was crying uncontrollably. The only thing that brought the noise level down was when the woman’s eyes met Jesus’. She rushed to him, falling to her knees, and with convulsive sobs drenched his feet with tears. She added perfume to the pool that was forming there and used her hair to mop up the mixture. With that concoction, she washed Jesus’ feet.

Jesus, knowing Simon’s fragile condition as a Pharisee and dinner host, jumpstarts the conversation. He says, “Simon, I would like to say something to you.” Simon, relieved beyond telling, says, “Please, by all means, say it.”

Jesus then relates “The Parable of the Two Debtors.” We know both the story and its punch line:

 She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal. (MSG)

Simon realized that Jesus had just exposed him and most of his guests as the ungrateful minimalists in the parable.  What Simon didn’t know yet was that while this seemed to easily be the worst day of his life, it was, potentially speaking, the best. Jesus said, astonishingly to Simon, that this woman’s sins had been forgiven on the basis of her profuse gratitude. It was quite clear: Jesus was implying that his sins (and those of the other Pharisees present) were not forgiven because they had, as yet, no thankfulness in their hearts.

In God’s sight, whose sin is actually greater? Is it a woman who repeatedly sells her body for the money needed to survive, or is it that of those further up the social ladder who repeatedly pass judgment on others like her, who they perceive to be beneath them morally and socially? In the sight of God, blessed are the poor in spirit, those who have come to see their spiritual bankruptcy before a holy God. And also…how hard it is for the rich to enter into the kingdom of God. This explains why tears flowed from one and not the other.

In some circles today, a heart broken by God is way down the list as a spiritual experience. Stories containing healing, deliverance, blessing, or an answered prayer are much preferred. In some circles, it would be unthinkable that God might coordinate the circumstances, as he did for Simon, to expose in us some impoverishment of heart. We are told that our hearts are not impoverished. They are brand new, intrinsically good and above such old-time religion. I actually agree with this theology, but I have a problem: I believe God has broken into my new heart on at least three occasions since first coming to know Him in 1976. And I would not trade those encounters for anything. They were answers to my deepest and most heartfelt prayers:

 One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple. Psalm 27:4

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. Psalm 139: 23-24

Had it not been for these break-ins (and the accompanying gift of repentance), I could have never wept over my heart (however new it may have been) for the hurtful and anxious ways it had learned to live independent of God, while making, I might add, quite a showing (religiously speaking). I read about Simon the Pharisee, and I have hope for him because I recall Robthe Pharisee. It is just like Jesus, in his kindness, to step into a party (or a human heart) and disrupt the false and fragile equilibrium of the status quo.

I know from experience that this process of brokenness is a rare and precious thing. Without having passed this way a few times I would never have arrived at the place of my present declaration:

 God is able to keep me from stumbling, and to make me stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. (From Jude 24)

Having experienced this kind of blessedness, I can only pray to Him who is the fulfillment of the Law for all those who have and will believe…

Father, would you cleanse us from every pharisaic attitude operating in our hearts. Please help us to see where, in any way, we carry around judgments toward those you bled and died for. Grant us the same compassion You have for the oppressed and discarded. Break our hearts where they need broken and let us rise cleansed—free and joyful, ready to proclaim your name in both word and deed before a world that is lost and rightly skeptical about religion. Through us show them Your Life!

 Now to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. (from Jude 25)

 

 

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