Jesus accepted an invitation to eat in the house of a Pharisee named Simon, one of a number of such invitations He accepted despite the suspicion many Pharisees held toward Him. A meal in that setting was not always a private affair; onlookers could enter to observe a visiting teacher without joining the table. Into that gathering came a woman the city knew as a sinner, and what she did there gave Jesus the occasion for this parable.
The Woman Who Entered Uninvited
"And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner."1
Guests at such a meal reclined on couches with their feet extended away from the table, which is what made it possible for the woman to come to his feet from behind. Every action she performed corresponds to a courtesy a host was expected to provide a guest: water for the feet, a kiss of welcome, oil for the head. She supplied all three uninvited and in a form far exceeding the ordinary custom, weeping instead of water, an unbroken kissing of his feet instead of a single kiss of greeting, costly ointment instead of common oil. Simon said nothing aloud. He judged silently, and his judgment fell on Jesus as much as on her: a true prophet would know what sort of woman was touching him and would not permit it.
The Parable Simon Was Asked to Judge
Jesus answered the silent judgment with a story addressed directly to the man who had made it. "And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged."2
A pence, or denarius, was a common laborer's wage for a single day. Five hundred of them came to well over a year's income, and fifty came to about seven weeks of it. Both were real sums that an ordinary debtor could not simply set aside, and the larger was roughly ten times the smaller. Neither debtor could produce anything toward either amount. The creditor did not extend the payment schedule or reduce the balance. He forgave both debts outright, and the question Jesus puts to Simon has only one honest answer, which Simon gives correctly: the one forgiven more will love more. Simon judged rightly in the abstract case. What remained was whether he would apply the same judgment to the case standing in front of him.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray in terms that treat sin itself as a debt: "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."9 The two debtors in the parable are not a device borrowed for the occasion. They describe the actual condition of every person who has ever asked God for forgiveness, a debtor with nothing to pay, whether the debt is reckoned at fifty or at five hundred.
What Simon Withheld and the Woman Gave
"And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."3
Three plain contrasts run through this sentence, each built the same way: what Simon did not give set against what she gave instead, and gave to excess. The comparison is not between two strangers. It is between the host who invited Jesus to his table and the woman he despised for approaching it. Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much: the love is named as the evidence of a forgiveness already given, not the price paid to obtain it. The last clause turns from her case to Simon's own: to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Simon had never seen himself as a great debtor, and his hospitality toward Jesus, cold and formally correct, matched exactly the size of the debt he believed he carried.
The Word Spoken Over Her
"And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."4 The guests' question carries its own answer. Sins can be forgiven by the one sinned against, but the guests understood forgiveness in the absolute sense Jesus pronounced it as belonging to God alone, as another company of scribes had already reasoned on a similar occasion: "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?"5 Jesus does not correct that understanding of who alone can forgive sin. He simply speaks the forgiveness, and then names the instrument by which she received it: her faith, not her tears or her ointment or the extravagance of her devotion. The love that filled the earlier verses was real and was rightly commended, but the sentence that saved her names faith alone. Go in peace closes the scene with a dismissal into peace rather than the verdict of shame Simon had already passed on her in his own mind.
Debt, Mercy, and the Measure of Love
Scripture elsewhere gives the same connection between the size of a debt forgiven and the love it produces. David, having known what it was to have a great transgression covered rather than counted, wrote of a mercy that does not deal with a man after his sins: "He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us."6 Paul gives the reason such mercy can be extended to a debtor with nothing to pay: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."7 And Paul asks of those who have received it exactly what Simon failed to extend: "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."8
Simon supposed he had little to be forgiven and behaved accordingly. The woman knew what she owed and could not pay a fraction of it, and her love answered the size of the debt that had been cancelled. The parable measures nothing but this: a love calibrated to a debt truly seen, set against a coldness that follows wherever the debt is denied or forgotten.
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