Wednesday Night, December 30, 2020, PM

We'll be reading from verse 36 to the end of the chapter. Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you for gathering us together tonight. I pray that you would give us time and consider its worth and value, its truth, and that you would aid us as we end that we pray.

The Pharisee, the Woman, and the Question of Motive

What sort of a person are you? We have the encounter which occurs in the very first portion of this story, verses 36 to 39. And of course we have the encounter between the Pharisee and Jesus as the Pharisee has invited Jesus to come dine with him in his house.

There's also the encounter of the woman with Jesus as she had heard where he was going to be and she made sure that she was there. But then in another way, there was also an encounter between the Pharisee and this woman as he saw who she was and what she was doing and had his thought about it and his say about.

It.

So I want to look at the encounter tonight and consider what appears to be the reason for this invitation. The Pharisee invites Jesus over to his house. Now by this time in the story as we've been reading along, I think that we have been alleviated from any thought that the Pharisee invited Jesus over to his house out of a mere curiosity because he had no idea who this was.

That part of the story is gone. By this time, Jesus' fame is renowned throughout the countryside, Galilee, Judea, and so on. So much so that his fame has surpassed that of John the Baptist. The things that Jesus has done in casting out demons and healing the sick and opening the eyes of the blind, even raising the dead, that has penetrated everybody's thinking.

That is the tales that are being told in the marketplace. What did Jesus do this last week? And the stories just keep coming. Also fomenting through this time has been the opposition of Jesus that he is encountering with the religious leaders.

We see that opposition, that controversy in his hometown of Nazareth and we see it in other places as Jesus is doing things that they don't care for. Remember the lame man, he was the paralytic man, he was brought and the roof was open, he was lowered down before Jesus and he said that his sins were forgiven.

Well, he said the same thing here and it also unsettles people. Jesus redefined the Sabbath, that upset a lot of people. He keeps on calling himself the son of man, who is the person in Daniel 7 who ascends to the ancient of days and receives a kingdom which has no end and no limits.

So, he's been making these claims and so the Pharisee has him over to his house. Now what seems to be the motive? I mean, why? Maybe selfishness? Hey, look at me, I had the most famous man in the countryside over to my house.

It could very well be. When we think of the thing that Jesus just said, he said, to what then I shall I compare the men of this generation? We identified the men of this generation as those leading men.

It wasn't everybody because the analogy or the parable that Jesus told doesn't fit everybody. It fits, however, it does fit the religious leaders, it does fit the leading men, the people with the name and the reputation and the credential and so on.

And the complaint, of course, that Jesus cites that they had against him was what? That the son of man has come eating and drinking and you say, behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

He already cited the slanderous reputation that the religious leaders are bandying about concerning Jesus. He goes to feasts, he eats too much, he drinks too much. He hangs out with notorious sinners.

Say don't you deserve the reputation? Maybe he's hoping Jesus would drink too much. But when we look at what happens, the Pharisee is extremely quick to find something wrong with the picture, right? He's looking for something wrong.

Remember how the Pharisees and the Sadducees, how the scribes would ask questions? The motive for them asking questions was not to be educated, it was a setup. It was always some kind of way to try to trip him up, to trap him to show that he was false and they were true.

That was their goal again and again. So as we see in other passages in Luke, Luke chapter 11, Luke chapter 14, I mean, Pharisees kept on inviting him over, they never learned their lesson. They kept on inviting him over.

And in fact, in Luke 14 verse 1, it's a different, a whole different situation, but I think we hear the motive pretty clear. I think that's going on in our story. Luke 14, 1, it says, it happened that when he went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching him closely, right?

Watching him closely, trying to find something wrong. Of course, they were trying to find something wrong according to their own standards of what they believed was right and wrong, holy and unholy. So that seems to be the reason for this invitation.

The Woman’s Humility, Repentance, and Love for Jesus

Now, something curious in the story, if we're not ready for it, is that we read that he comes to the Pharisees house to eat and it says that he reclined at the table. And then later on, we read that while he was reclining at the table, there was a woman who stood behind him at his feet.

So his feet were behind him and she was worshiping him from his feet, which were behind him. Now, that's not the way we normally have a meal. If we invited somebody over from church and they had to lay down on the floor to eat, they may never come back again or get up again.

Yeah, I was waiting for that. So I guess they were more limber back in the day. So this is a little odd, isn't it, to think about reclining and all kind of laying down at the table. When you read the Bible about, you know, folks in the ancient Near East eating a meal, you think, you think, yo, they sit in chairs just like we do.

No, they were laying down on the ground and they would eat. They would lay on their left side and then they would reach over with their right hand and they would grab whatever they wanted and they would eat with the right hand only.

Never, never, ever eat with the left hand. They would lay on the left side and they would eat like this. And that's what's going on here. So we have to have that in mind when we read the story, because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

Now this woman's identity, what can we, in our best Sherlock Holmes manner, what can we discern about the identity of this woman? Before we think of her actions, before we think of her actions that she's doing for Jesus, what can we learn about her identity?

She's probably a prostitute, and we come to that conclusion because of why. Okay, so she's a notorious sinner. When we read, we see that she is a woman in the city. All sorts of things happen at that moment, right, when we read that.

A woman, she's a woman of the city, but where is her husband? Why is she a woman of the city instead of the wife of so-and-so? That would be the way to identify someone. She's not the sister of so-and-so, it's like Martha the sister of Mary, the sister of Lazarus.

She's not being identified, even if she wasn't married like Martha and Mary, still not being identified by a family, she's just a woman of the city. So there is a clue, and she is known in the city as a sinner.

I think it's kind of funny that the Pharisees, well, if he was a prophet, he would know what kind of woman, he's not a prophet, he knows what kind of woman she is. All sorts of people in the city are not prophets, and they know exactly who she is.

So that kind of city-wide notoriety indicates that she was one of the prostitutes that Jesus sometimes talked about, and sometimes was around. Very good question. How did she get in the house? That's a good question, because Jesus himself says to Simon, from the moment I came in, she has not ceased to anoint my feet.

Right, so somehow she comes in with the crowd, maybe. A very nice house in the ancient Near East in this area would certainly have at least two rooms. I mean, most houses had one room with an inner closet somewhere where you put your valuables.

But if it was a really nice house, it'd have two rooms and be somewhat sizable. But you'd have an outer courtyard as well, where you would walk in, you would come in through a gate, but there would be an outer courtyard.

You hear this a little bit in the story about when Peter got out of prison and so on. But you have this idea, you come into this outer courtyard and you come up to the house, there'd be stairs on the side, you could go to the roof if you wanted to, and so on.

So how did she get in? Was she hiding in the courtyard, did she come in with the crowd, did she make herself look like one of Jesus' entourage? How did she get in?

Right.

And if that was the case, it was a miserable failure. Plus, we're going to see a little bit more in detail that her very actions show that she, although she was known for being a prostitute in the city, the way that she was attired, we can tell something of the way she's attired by the way that she's serving Jesus, that she is not officially in her prostitute outfit right now, especially with the way she's wearing.

Her hair.

So she's definitely not owning that identity at the moment, but she is there. Now, Jesus, again, remember what he had just said, that the complaint about him was that the Son of Man was a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Well, here's a notorious sinner, and she is showing her worship and affection for Jesus. Now in Matthew chapter 21, Jesus had just finished telling the story about the two sons that the father had come to and said, I want you to go work in the field today or the vineyard.

Today.

And the first son said, oh, yeah, sure, I'll do it. But then he didn't do it. And then the father came to the second son, he said, I want you to go work in the vineyard.

Today.

And the son says, nah. But then later on, he's like, I better. And he went and he did work in it. And so he asked the question, which one of the two sons did the will of the father? Not the one who said the right thing, but the one who did the right thing.

And then Jesus says this in verse 31 of Matthew 21, he says, well, he said, which of the two did the will of the father? And they said the first. And Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.

Now that gets your attention. Not that tax collectors did not get into the kingdom of God by cheating people and prostitutes didn't get into the kingdom of God by being immoral.

No.

But they knew what kind of people they were. They were sinners. They were God awful sinners. God saw how awful they were according to God's standards. That's how bad they were. And so they repented. Now verse 32 says for John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him.

But the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him and you seeing this did not even feel remorse afterwards so as to believe him. He said, you saw how tax collectors repented. You saw how the prostitutes repented at the preaching of John and that didn't even prick your conscience.

They knew what kind of people they were, but you, the Pharisees, the scribes, the first son who always had the right thing to say, but they didn't do it. You didn't know what kind of a person you were.

So we learn about the woman's actions that we, she, she, she heard that Jesus was going.

To be there.

So she came, we find out that she, she took, she took this vial that she had and she gave it to Jesus. She brought an alabaster vial. She stood behind him and she wept and she wet his feet with her tears and she wiped his feet with her hair.

It's not up in braids or so on and so forth. It's, it's down and she anointed his feet and kissed them. Why is she doing all of this? From the very first moment, everything she's doing is sacrifice. She knows what her reputation in the town is, but she shows up to the Pharisees house where the, where the, where the, you know, the town is showing up.

She's, she's showing her face in public, going around people, no matter what they say, some of the, and then everything else that comes with it that she took the most costly, most worthwhile thing she had to give it to Jesus and to show Christ how much she loved him.

What is she showing through this? Well, certainly she's showing her deep humiliation for sin. She knew what kind of a person she was. Nobody had to tell her, nobody had to tell the Pharisee, nobody had to tell Jesus.

She knew what kind of a person she was. And she is showing how much she loves Jesus Christ because she knows, as Jesus says, lady, your faith has saved you. She knows that he is her savior. He is, she believes he is who he says he is, that he has come to do what he said.

He has come to do, he forgives the sins of paralytics and tax collectors and prostitutes. She knows him to be Messiah and her savior. And thus she has this strong affection for Jesus. And so what she does is the act of a servant, a servant should have done a lot of this and in a less dramatic way, but it should have been doing this for Jesus when he entered the house.

Jesus notes that Simon provided no servant to do that when he came, which would be customary, but she's fulfilling that role. And so that's what we see, her humility and her love. And we're just going to end on verse 39.

The Pharisee’s Blindness and the Call to Self-Examination

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if his man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner. Now, of course, there are these different thoughts.

If somebody was leprous and they touched you, you were as unclean as them. If there was a dead corpse and you touched it, the uncleanness of the dead corpse came off on you. That was the way that it was understood.

With Jesus, it was always the opposite. You know, Jesus was clean and holy. When he touched a leper, they became clean and holy. Jesus was what was perfect whole in who he was. He touched a blind man, the blind man's seed.

He saw, here's a sinner, a great sinner. And in the Pharisee's thinking, oh, he's transferring her uncleanness to him. No, the other way around. He is giving, he is cleansing her, he is purifying her, which, you know, reminds us of 1 John chapter 1.

See, this Pharisee, his private assessment, he's thinking about, he's finding fault with Jesus and he is finding fault with the woman. But his assessment is not at all towards himself. He is not giving any assessment of who he is.

The Pharisee should have known what sort of person had invited Jesus to dine in his house. Not what kind of person was touching Jesus. The Pharisee should have known what sort of person had invited Jesus into his house.

The Pharisee should have been thinking about how unworthy he was to have Jesus in his house. Like Peter was like, why are you in my boat? You know, I am unworthy, why are you in my boat? John, I am unworthy, why are you in my river?

The Pharisee wasn't thinking those things. And this should remind us of 1 John chapter 1, verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Do we know what kind of person we are?

John is writing to Christians. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confessing our sins means agreeing with God about who we are. Taking God's side against ourselves on the matter. Confessing our sins to God, seeking his forgiveness. And he is faithful and he is right to forgive us and to cleanse us because of who Jesus is.

And what he has done on the cross. Verse 10 says, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So we can't live like the Pharisee. We've got to know what kind of people we are.

And when we do and we abide with Jesus and we commune with Jesus, we will have joy. Like this woman had joy. Yes, she was weeping and so on, but she knew what kind of a person she was and what kind of a savior Jesus was.

And that's what brought her into this place of joy and worship and humility and release. And that's why this story is such a precious story in the gospel. Okay, well, let's turn our attention to a time of prayer.