Forgiveness of a sinful woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee.

(Luke 7:36-50).

One Pharisee by the name of Simon, seemingly nurturing a love for the Lord - although not having a firm belief in Him — invited the Lord to supper. Having looked into His sermons and teachings, he perhaps wanted to enter into a closer association with Him. A woman, renowned throughout the town as a great sinner, entered unexpectedly. Standing humbly behind the Lord, she bent down, and seeing that His feet were not washed after the dusty trip, began to shed a torrent of tears. Thus, instead of water, she used her tears to wash His feet, and instead of drying them with a towel, she used her hair to wipe them. Thereupon, kissing His feet, she began to anoint them with expensive fragrant oils that she had brought with her. According to the Pharisees’ understanding, a touch of a sinful woman defiles that person. Simon, completely unaffected by the moral turnaround that had occurred in the soul of this wanton, does nothing but only judge the Lord for accepting these honours, thinking to himself that He cannot be a prophet inasmuch as He would have known “what manner of woman this is” and would have rejected her.

Revealing the hidden thoughts of the Pharisee, the Lord related to him the parable of the two debtors. One owed 5oo dinarii (approx. 125 roubles) while the other — 50 dinarii. As they didn’t have the money to repay the lender, he excused both debts. It is easy to respond to the Lord’s question: who of the two loved the lender more? Of course, the one that was forgiven more. In confirming the correctness of the answer, the Lord adds: “to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Judging by its context, these words were directed against Simon, who had little love for Christ and was sparse in good deeds — even though he invited Him to his house, he did not demonstrate any worthy actions toward Christ: embracing Him or washing His feet. From the sermon, Simon should have understood that in a moral sense, the Lord places the repentant woman-sinner higher than himself , Simon —Pharisee, because she showed more love toward the Lord than he did. And it is for this love that her sins are forgiven. The words “to whom little is forgiven,” contain an oblique reference to Simon that because of his disposition toward the Lord, he too is forgiven some debts before God, although much less than that of the woman-sinner.

The other guests reclining with Simon (evidently also Pharisees), didn’t understand the Lord’s words and began to be internally annoyed, causing Christ to send the woman away with the words: “Go in peace!”