Parables of Jesus: The 2 Debtors

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0:00 So we finished, I feel like we finished, I mean we could talk forever on reasons for the hope that we have in Christ Jesus or the hope for our inheritance coming out of that first Peter letter. But I hope that from that kind of several weeks where we're looking at that you might have been inspired to reasons that you are given permission or capacity or ability or inspired to hope that the inheritance set aside for you in Paris for unfading is waiting

0:30 for you in reality no matter what suffering or hardship you're going through. And maybe even as you think about the reasons you have to hope that that inheritance is real, a way to give a defense for those reasons of hope came to mind. And maybe you will come up across situations where it makes sense for you to explain that the sense for the hope that you have in the inheritance. I want to do something a little bit different for us for the next several weeks and it's because I don't know if you all, if you were here or if you remember a couple of weeks

1:04 ago I mentioned that I would love to like, if I could have perfect clarity on any type of writing in the scriptures it would be on the parable. So I was like thinking about what do we look at for the next month, two months or so. And I looked at myself and I found another book that I bought in seminary and never read so I thought now is a good time. This one is called Through Pest and Eyes, a literary cultural approach to the parables

1:36 of Luke. So we're going to look at a couple parables from Luke and see if we can't get some deeper clarity. And the first one that we're going to look at is in Luke chapter 7. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. It's good to not like jump around if you can. So like if we're going to try and understand the parables it's good to think about one writer of the parables because Luke is writing from a different perspective than Matthew and

2:11 Mark or John. And so we're going to consider the parables and we'll consider the parables of Luke specifically. And not all of them just the ones that Ken Bailey here writes about. And the first one that we look at is in Luke chapter 7. And it's a little bit longer story.

2:42 And the context that comes right after Jesus makes this like staggering statement about John the Baptist. I tell you among those, this is in Luke chapter 7 verse 28, I tell you among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. When all the people heard this, the tax collection student they declared God just haven't been

3:14 baptized to the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves not having been baptized by John the Baptist. And then he then Jesus starts to go on a little bit about comparing the lack of faith in the generation. And then the section that we want to look at is in Luke chapter 7 verse 36 starts at verse 36. I'm just going to read it then we'll go back down and look through it. Luke chapter 7 verse 36, one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with them and he went into

3:49 the Pharisees house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city was sinner when she learned that he was reclining at the table to Pharisees house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet weeping. She began to wed his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment. Verse 39, now in the Pharisee who had invited him, saw this, he said to himself, if this

4:20 man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him for she is a sinner. Verse 40, and Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you and he answered, say it to you. Verse 41, a certain money lender had two debtors, one owed 500 Daenerai and the other 50. And when they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more? And Simon answered the one I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.

4:54 And he said to him, you have judged rightly. Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, which he has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. And you did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. She loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.

5:30 And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. And those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this? Who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. It's a parable learning. As I'm increasing my clarity around parables, there are different types of parables. This is like a very short parable sandwich inside of a narrative to drive home a theological point. So the business about going to eat at the fair see is Simon is not a parable.

6:06 The only parable is the little thing in the middle about the tea debtors. So there's something that happens. There's an event Jesus gives a very brief parable to explain what he thinks about the event and then they respond to it. And it's intended to elicit then a response from the reader. And you're supposed to be able to empathize with the narrative and then feel the point of the parable yourself. And there's a couple things about this that I gained some clarity on as I look at this

6:38 literary cultural approach. One thing is it's noticeable that Jesus goes to the house of the fair see after the business with John the Baptist. If Jesus were moving around and here maybe he's outside Jerusalem or just inside Jerusalem and he's had this teaching about John the Baptist, then in the place of this teaching when an itinerant rabbi comes through, it might be normal for a Pharisee to invite that rabbi to his house for dinner. To kind of come and talk about ideas.

7:09 Right? And when you came to a house that was a very ritualistic thing to come to dinner in the Middle East there. And the way the dinners would go is you would have a group of people in a main courtyard of the house with a low table and then like a waiter like lean on the table. Right? And you would have them kind of on the ground or on pillows. Your feet are kicked back out and you're leaning on the table in a central courtyard.

7:40 And you would have them servants right outside that group that was sitting around the table to take care of the table, make sure they have what they needed. And then outside behind the servants, it was very customary to have other people from the community just come in and see what's going on at the table. Isn't that funny? They could just come and go and they would cry to cry to cry to listen in. But it was very like there was definitely an element of show to have someone to your house like that because now you see who's sitting at the table.

8:14 Right? Who's sitting at the table? Who's got to eat with the Pharisee? And then there's specific things that happen because this is such a hospitality move with such a public persona. There's a specific order of things that are supposed to happen when you come in to have dinner. Right? And you would give a kiss of welcome and this is practicing the least really up until, you know, a hundred years ago.

8:45 So very regularly. But and then where you place the kiss mattered. If the person was an equal, you put the kiss on the cheek. If the person was a teacher or a step above you, you might kiss their hands. The person was really significant like a king or a ruler. You might kiss their feet when they come in. But you definitely, you definitely welcomed them with a kiss. If you didn't, it was like this dude is beneath me. It's a, it's an immediate flight to not do that.

9:19 Right? To not welcome them with this kiss. Nobody knows you're laying down the gauntlet about how you feel about this person when you don't do that. And then you usually would provide them with a very customary and respectful to provide water for their feet. Now it would be a big move if you watch their feet. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago. Remember at the last supper when Jesus watches his disciples feet. Peter won't have it because it's too, it reverses the rolls too much.

9:51 Peter ought to be watching Jesus's feet. A lot of scholars saying, remember when Judas comes into the garden of Gethsemane, he betrays Jesus with a kiss almost certainly on the hands because the disciples to the rabbi have a lower position of respect, right? And so that's why Peter's like, I cannot have you watch my feet. I should be washing your feet. So and you couldn't make even a Jewish servant lost another Jewish person's feet. If you had servants that were not Jewish, you could make them wash anybody's feet, right?

10:23 But at the very least you would provide water. And of course this Pharisee who invites Jesus over for everyone to see doesn't welcome one with a kiss or even provide any water for him. This is really interesting to me because before when I read this story, I thought kind of it was like, remember when Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night to ask him how must he get in, you know, or Joseph, a vera vathea, the leader who gives the tomb.

10:56 There's this evidence that there were church leaders to kind of surreptitiously like Jesus. And I always kind of thought that's what was going on here. But when you get the context of what's happening in this meal, it's much more like the stories we hear where the Pharisees are setting up Jesus to try and track him. Where it's a slight, which I think is really interesting. And so Jesus comes into this situation, notices the things and doesn't say anything, which

11:33 is the right mode. Certainly what you would do in this situation, if someone had invited you to their house, not welcome you as a kiss or provided water for your feet like your some kind of slub, flum loser who's not worth their attention or time and they just brought you to their house to disgrace you to show you that they could do that to you, you would offer a few short words and get the heck out of the room.

12:04 You would not stick around, but you also wouldn't call them out in front of everyone. You wouldn't stand up and say, hey, what's going on, man? Like it's a very passive aggressive sight. I'm not going to welcome you in these ways because you're not worth it. So my passive aggressive is cool, man, I'm not going to stay very long. I'm out. You don't call them out publicly. Jesus doesn't do that. And then this woman who comes and behold a woman of the city who was a sinner when she

12:40 learned that he was reclining at the table at the Pharisee house, brought an alabaster jar or a flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet. This is why she's there. It's not weird that she's there. When I've read this before, I was like, this is really odd, but like they're all having dinner and there's a woman standing just standing behind Jesus, like waiting for something to happen. But see, it's kind of the way things were. She wasn't the only one standing around there. And it could even be that there was a group of people standing around the outside of the

13:14 table and they're coming and going. And two years after the fact that Jesus is there. And he brought this jar with her. And some people think either she brought a jar specifically for this purpose or it was also customary for women to wear jars of perfume around their neck, kind of to perfume themselves. And if she were like a woman of the city in the colloquial sense, it would be even more important for her to have that. She made her living, taking care of men in different kind of ways.

13:47 Then it would make sense for her to have this jar. They would normally carry that. Right? And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisees house, brought an alabaster class of ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair. You get the feeling that she's going forward with this idea about this ointment and it

14:22 is, how's this deep emotion for Jesus already? And like he didn't plan to wash his feet because he didn't bring like a rag or any water, but realizes he can't believe this dude didn't wash his feet. Like and is moved to tears and then like wipes it off with her hair. And this kind of a big deal to let your hair down in public if you're a woman.

14:59 Like there are some places in the outlining of the law where like taking your hair down is close to taking your clothes off. Like it's not, it's a, you only take your hair down in front of your husband and you get in trouble if you take your hair down in public. So it's like this is a really intimate moment happening right here. He's crying enough with enough tears that they can be wiped off and make a difference

15:31 on his feet. He's letting her hair down in the middle of all these people. Like she's having a very emotional, intimate connection to Jesus in the middle of this meal. And now in the Pharisee who had invited him, saw this he said to himself, if this man was, were a prophet, he would have known what sort of woman who is touching him or she is a sinner. And so this is when Jesus goes into the thing.

16:02 He's doing a little bit the Aramaic word there I've learned this to for debtor is like almost anonymous with sinner. That's why like sometimes in your Lord's prayer translation, it'll be forgive us our debts or forgive us our sins because it could go either way. And this guy figures and follows a couple of Hebrew Christian translators to say Jesus is doing that on purpose. He's about to flip it on Simon the Pharisee in his head.

16:36 He's thinking this woman is a sinner who's defiling Jesus. And Jesus is about to flip it on him going, who's the sinner who's defiling. So this one, so then Jesus tells him a certain money letter had two debtors, one owed 500 men there, I and the other 50 when they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?

17:08 Simon answered, I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt and he said to him you have judged rightly and then turning towards the woman. I love that. Turning towards the woman he says to Simon because Jesus is about to do something that you don't ever do. He's about to do it right in front of people. So you can imagine there's not just Jesus and Simon around the dinner table but there's

17:38 a group of people around the dinner table who have come to see this, I can't remember Rabbi who's drawing a bunch of attention to himself who's making pronouncements about John the Baptist get indicted by the Pharisee. And they notice that he doesn't get the kiss when he comes in or the water for his feet so they know something he's up. And then outside of everyone around the table there's the servants and then outside the servants there's the common folks coming and going outside of the thing. And the woman breaks through the crowd, cries on Jesus's feet, wipes her with the tears

18:11 and then breaks her perfume. The guy says if she were like a woman of the city in general this would be a professional thing, she's breaking it going I'm done with this. I don't need this perfume anymore, I'm moving on because I've met this guy. And then Jesus knowing the way that the Pharisee is looking at the situation and understanding what he's thinking says hey man I gotta tell you something. And he's like Simon back settles a little bit and calls him teacher, teacher go ahead

18:42 and tell me what you want. And then he puts him on notice with this like he backs him into a corner where he only has one answer, of course the guy who was forgiven more. So he's been drawing a sign. And he looks at the woman who's let down her hair, who's crying and broken the perfume in front of everyone. Who everyone knows is a woman of the city. He looks at the woman and says to Simon.

19:14 So he's looking at her and talking to him. And then turning towards the woman he said do you see this woman? So now everyone's like then Jesus is like I entered your house and gave me no water for my feet. Now this is not something that you do. I'm trying to think of a corollary. It's hard to imagine a cultural corollary for us except for that it's embarrassing and

19:47 incredibly rude. Like you just it's incredibly rude. You would be burning every sociological bridge, every cultural norm he's breaking here because he's talking to the woman who's let down her hair and he's indicting the host for the steps he did not take. You gave me you you I entered your house and gave me no water for my feet but she has wet with her tears wiped him with her hair and then verse 45 you gave me no kiss but from

20:20 the time I came in she is not used to kiss my feet and you did not ignite my head with the oil but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much. You see it makes a big point about this the translation of this force she loved much. It's not that her love earned her the forgiveness. Her love demonstrates that she has experienced forgiveness.

20:50 We know that she has been forgiven because she is loving much. We know that she has been forgiven much because she is that she is demonstrating such love. The love comes from the realization that the forgiveness has been accomplished. We know that she has been forgiven much. She walked in here forgiven much because she loved so much but he who is forgiven little loves little.

21:22 Obviously indicting the host who can't even muster a kiss on the hands or even poor form the cheek can't put out a bowl. He said to her your sins are forgiven and then those at the table with him begin to say among themselves who is this who even forgives sins. The guys at the table who were right you see and they're like oh my gosh they cannot believe what they are watching right. Oh my god he's now presuming to forgive sins.

21:56 We're not at the temple. There's no sacrifices here. And he said to this woman your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Of course the indictment is that silent has been forgiven little. In the parable there's a there's an amount that's the two oh right and one owes more so it's forgiven more so loves more.

22:30 One owes less so is forgiven less so loves less. I remember this is a really I had this friend in college really cool guy been through a lot in his life and was like very creative but also very emotional. And I remember we were this one this one memory stick to my head of the two of us driving

23:02 down the street leaving a Bible study together and I was praying for me was going through a specifically difficult time I was looking out the window and I had this like image of the two of us meeting Jesus. This is really cool. Very excited. And I was praying for this friend of mine and he you know has been through a lot and is emotional day. He's like running to Jesus. They're both crying.

23:33 He embraces them in a hug. It's like they they have been long lost loves waiting to meet over years separated over long distances. It's flobbery and crying and emotional and beautiful. I'm seeing this as we're driving down looking just looking out the car window he's driving next to me. And I was like I remember looking at it going wow that's the only kind of greeting he's going to. And I'm standing behind them waiting politely for them to finish this emotional display.

24:08 And the next step I get is me and Jesus shaking hands like we're business partners who have finished a job and we're both glad we got it done. And in my head at first for like several weeks that stuck with me and I thought I just have this is a different kind of guy. And then asking the Lord about it I realized I just I really wanted his respect. And the what came after several weeks of prayer is like you fool.

24:46 Like in my head I was like I've always been kind of more like the older brother. This is like a prodigal situation. I can't think of a time when I've been the prodigal where it's like this emotional reunion. It's more of a business relationship and the thing was you fool you're all the prodigal. Only the prodigal gets in. Remember Jesus said that he came to heal the the sick right not the well. Simon's own foolish pride if he thinks he only owes a little and only gets a little

25:20 emotional with Jesus. He's missing the point. He's left on the outside. When Jesus says that he leaves the ninety nine to go get the one and who doesn't rejoice there's your joy in heaven more rejoicing over one sinner who repents than all the righteous who need not repent. He's not saying that there are some who are without sin. He's saying the fools get no party. The parties are for the sinners.

25:56 Can you imagine the woman of the city who everyone knows is a sinner who parries the alabaster jar around her neck when she walks into the room and in front of all the Pharisees and his crew his cronies and the commoners around him when Jesus amongst the whole room makes eye contact with her and tells her she is forgiven. Tells her she is safe and without even looking at signing in Dyson for his sin.

26:35 I realize driving down the road. Oh good Lord break my heart for my sin. I want a greeting like that. Like the woman broken in tears with eye contact affirmation from Jesus. I want to be acquainted with my need, the depth of it so I get forgiveness all the way

27:13 down in the depths of me. From this parable Jesus reminds us that he came into the world to heal things that were broken and we receive healing often to the degree that we are willing to acknowledge

27:43 that we are broken. The woman with the alabaster jar recognized she was a sinner and God for forgiveness. Simon did not and did not. God help us that we might recognize our sin and receive forgiveness. Let me pray for it.

28:14 Thank you for the teaching of Jesus, nestled inside stories to be preserved for generations. Unlock the meaning of the story for us through the power of your spirit and the learning of your tradition of your people. Make us folks this morning Lord who are acquainted with our sin that we might also be acquainted with your forgiveness.

28:45 In Jesus name of Christ.