Luke 7:36-50

Luke 7:36-50

The contrast in two people could not be more radical than the contrast between the Pharisee and the sinful woman. This event is rather shocking and that the victorious of the hero is not who we expect. The Pharisee is everything we admire and respect and want. He was wealthy, educated, respected, influential, known to and by the movers and the shakers in his world. He was a man who knew and believed the Word of God. He was a man of careful and scrupulous personal morality. He was everything we admire and none of it mattered.

In contrast, the woman was everything we don't like and want to avoid. She was a known immoral woman. We don't know if she was simply a prostitute or a woman who had had affairs recreationally. Most likely, it was the former. She was not well off (prostitutes rarely are), she was poorly educated, she was well known and knew a lot of men, but none would acknowledge her. How many men at that dinner had she served? Poor, ignorant, hated, looked down on, by her customers and their friends and family she has nothing in her life that we would want.

This story is upside down in the end. The Pharisees at the end of the story remains self-secure in his position. The woman is secure in forgiveness. She goes away with God's peace. By our standards this story ends wrong. Which tells us our standards are messed up more than anything else. What I need is to be broken-hearted, a profound awareness of my need for forgiveness, for a rescue, and for someone to heal me. If I think I have all I need and don’t need help then let my heart’s cry be, "God, break my heart and have mercy on me."

“Lord, break my heart for that which breaks Yours. Amen”