‘The woman who washed Jesus’ feet’ by Dan Green, 3 November 2024

How do we feel about breaking the rules and crossing boundaries? Dan Green has lived across multiple cultures and trains people in what can help to build good relationships across cultural divides. In this talk, he looks at the story of a woman whose approach to Jesus looked completely wrong to many, but showed love and honesty which Jesus recognised and praised. Could the way we feel when we see others reveal ways that God's love needs to transform our hearts?

Transcript

Observed greetings as I came in today… hugs, hellos, side hugs, hugs with handshakes…

Have you ever analysed? I have quite a bit, alongside my work with Bridges for Communities, side hustle cross cultural training… which a friend of mine jokes is just about telling people what kind of plugs they will need in different countries (there’s a bit more to it than that). Many people are keen to avoid making mistakes, to make a good first impression… which often brings up the topic of greetings.

Greetings are important, and an important part of culture… of the social norms and the expectations, the unspoken rules where things can often go wrong - people in different countries do their greetings differently. So I’ve been observing and learning, as I travel but also in talking with other trainers. The French exchange a kiss on each cheek starting on the left, the Spanish do the same but can start on the right. In India putting your palms together and saying namaste, in Korea people bow, and how low you bow is related to the degree of respect you need to show. In Saudi they might put their hand on their heart and say ‘salaam alaykum’… or they might rub noses if they are close relatives. Knowing these things can help to ease anxiety and reduce the likelihood of you making a complete fool of yourself, right? I’ve made my fair share of mistakes over the years too… wishing sikh family happy eid, kissing Ahmed in the street.

The problem with the UK is that there is no clear pattern or logic to our greetings, so it makes it quite difficult to help someone else navigate! Some of you know what I mean. We’re not exactly sure of the correct greeting in any given situation, and in fact we are known around the world for our awkwardness! So if I’m at a party with good friends I go in and greet them and know what to do (hug, cheek kiss), but then I spot some of their other friends who I don’t know very well… what should I do? A handshake feels very formal as I’ve met them before, a hug would be too much, a kiss might not be what they do… a wave? a fist bump?? Avoid them??

So it’s not always clear what the greeting should be, there are lots of different factors that need considering. But the good news is that once the awkward greetings are over, at least we then become a bit more predictable. Because we then default to our time honoured tradition of talking about the weather…. Which many commentators have identified to be a bonding ritual, establishing if the other person is willing to engage in conversation. And we might ask how the other person is, to which the answer is normally fine, but if they say ‘I’ve been better’ then it probably means they are about to die of the flu but they’re putting a brave face on it.

Navigating greetings can be tricky, greetings and social expectations play a really important role in the story I want to look at today… Luke 7: 36 – 50:

A simple story of Jesus… the longer I go on in my faith, the more Qs I ask, the more I keep coming back to the stories of Jesus’ life. Someone once told me that the good news = Jesus + nothing, so we need to keep coming back to his life and his teaching.

36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said.

41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[c] and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

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Lots going on in this story, so I want to just do a quick recap and pull out a few things I noticed as I read it through again this week, and then I want to share a few questions for us to be thinking about, ways that we can reflect and listen to God for what he might be saying to us through this story.

Just to let you know, there is another similar incident mentioned in the other 3 gospel accounts, which also involves a woman anointing Jesus.. named in John’s gospel as Mary. But this story in Luke is almost definitely a different incident, as there are some significant differences in when it occurs, whose house it takes place in, what people object to about her actions etc.

1. (and linked to greetings) Lots of awkwardness in this story. The part that might be easier for us to recognise is the woman – crying all over Jesus’ feet, making a right scene.

But actually, things have been awkward since the moment that Jesus enters the house. Because in Middle East society, then and now, hospitality is an incredibly important value. The way that you treat your guests is a reflection of your honour and the respect that you have for your guest. Generous hospitality is a sign of both the respect in which you hold your guest, and your own honour as a host.

In Jesus’ day and in the Jewish context, it wouldn’t have been much different. So in this scene the air is filled with tension because of what did not happen. As Jesus entered the house, all of the traditional courtesies were omitted. There was no kiss of greeting, there was no provision of water so they could wash their hands and feet after the journey – and olive oil to anoint their head. In this country, imagine ringing the bell and receiving zero greeting. No handshake, no hug, no kiss, not even a ‘hello’, no ‘let me take your coat’, or even a ‘would you like a drink?’ – just being completely blanked. None of the usual courtesies were offered, and this must have been a calculated and deliberate statement.

So why did Simon and his mates do this?? Well, things had not been great between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus had been proclaiming his message that God loves people even sinners, a message that contrasted a bit with the Pharisees who tended to emphasise that God loved those who do what is right. If you rewind 2 chapters to Luke 5, you see a couple of incidents where the tension is building and the Pharisees are criticising Jesus for the company he keeps. We can only speculate about the exact motive for this dinner invitation, but perhaps they have invited him to this dinner in order to correct him and put him in his place. Or perhaps to test him, to observe him more closely and be able to judge if there was anything to his claims to be a prophet of God.

This is the important intro to this story, that Jesus did not receive the greeting that he would have expected and that society would have expected a rabbi to receive. No one in the room could have failed to notice the omission of these courtesies, and the woman in the story must observed this taking place. Now we don’t know the woman’s name… which is a shame because it would be nice to refer to her by name, that would feel fitting given that Jesus chooses to honour her and she has a starring role in the story. But many characters in the gospels were not named, likely for the reason we call ‘protective anonymity’ – that some of them would have still been alive when the earliest accounts of the gospels were circulating, and in the fragile movement that their revolution was, she could have been vulnerable if people knew her identity.

So we can only refer to her as the woman. She was most likely an uninvited guest though – since she’s referred to as a sinful woman, and as made clear by Simon’s attitude towards her. And we know that she has been present in the room since Jesus arrived because he says to Simon “from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.” So she is there when he arrives, she was a witness to his public humiliation by his host.

And it seems to me that this woman, a prostitute, must have previously met Jesus, she must have heard Jesus his message of God’s love. And the reason I think that is that Jesus says ‘her many sins have been forgiven – as her great love has shown’. The love that she is pouring out is a response to something that has happened before. So I don’t think she had come to beg for forgiveness for her sins, as some people have interpreted it, I believe that she has come to this dinner intending to show her gratitude to Jesus.

We are told that she brought the perfume with her, probably planning to anoint his hands and his head. She probably didn’t plan to wash his feet, otherwise she would have brought some water or a towel.. it was probably more of a spontaneous response to the insult that Jesus had received from the host. We can’t be sure of the reasons, but at some point she decides to take matters into her own hands and then to cross all kinds of social and cultural boundaries to express her love and thanks to him.

In every story about Jesus it is important to ask, in the light of the cultural world of his day, what was Jesus expected to say or do? In this case it is very, very easy. He was expected to be embarrassed over the woman touching him, and shocked that she exposed her hair. Everyone in the room would just assume that he would deem these acts to be beyond the range of acceptable behaviour and reject them. But to the amazement of the entire crowd, Jesus does not object and accepts her gesture.

This was a truly incredible act of acceptance and inclusion, one that should set a precednt for us as his followers.

In accepting the actions of the woman, Jesus is breaking a number of social rules as we have seen, but he then breaks another one. He criticises his host. I don’t think there’s many cultures around the world where that’s a good idea, but Jesus gently but pointedly does just that. First he tells a parable about 2 people who are in debt, implying that Simon hasn’t shown love in the same way the woman has, and then he says ‘You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.

So it’s this dramatic and remarkable story, one that it wouldn’t have been comfortable to witness, but that has been preserved in the pages of Scripture. And there are 3 questions that have come to mind as I’ve read through it this week that I wanted to share with you:

1) Who might I be excluding or judging?

We’ll talk about the woman in a minute, but first let’s talk for a minute about Simon. Simon watches all of this, Jesus allowing this woman to touch him etc, and thinks ‘If this man knew who this woman was that is touching him…’ . In other words, he stands there watching her pouring out her emotion, her affection and her love, but he has no compassion or empathy, he’s blind to the act of love that’s taking place in front of him and is just thinking about her actions in her past. It’s clear that for him, this woman is beyond the love of God.

Luke 7 comes after Luke 6, which is a summary of the Sermon on the Mount and includes ‘Do not judge… why do you point at the speck in your brother’s eye…’. Jesus had a lot to say on this, and this story shows us what it looks like. The passage brings that to life. It refers to the woman as a sinful woman, but the truth is that room was occupied by two types of sinners: law-keepers and law-breakers. The scene reveals the tensions that develop between thes two kinds of people – rule keepers and rule breakers. Some of us are more inclined towards one – I’m naturally a rule keeper and find it more difficult to bend or break rules than some others. But the thing is, Law-keepers often condemn lawbreakers as ‘sinners’, and Lawbreakers generally look at law-keepers and shout ‘hypocrites’. That tension is built into life right? But whichever we are, this story challenges us to avoid judgement and to stay humble.

Jesus was radical in including those who society (especially the religious in society) felt were beyond God’s love. Luke 7 alone contains 3 stories about people who were unexpected recipients of Jesus’ love… a centurion who’s servant was sick (an occupying soldier), a widow whose son had died, and this woman we’re reading about. At the time, as Owen has been reminding us in his series on Acts, this was nothing short of revolutionary, turning upside down the beliefs and values of much of society, challenging the status quo.

So this story and every one like it should give me pause for thought and force me to stop and ask: who might I be excluding or judging?

• Have you ever looked at a single mum in a supermarket checkout, buying junk food and thought

• Have you ever looked at someone with a nice car and thought ‘ah, they must be really materialistic’?

• Have you ever looked at someone from a different culture and thought ‘that tradition they have is just wrong’?

• Have you ever looked at teenagers in their matching tracksuits on escooters,

• Have you ever judged a colleague who gets drunk every weekend and boasts about it?

These are symptoms of a proud and judgemental heart, not a humble and thankful one like the woman’s.

2) What kind of faith is Jesus looking for?

This story raises some interesting questions about faith, and the nature of the faith that God is looking for.

In the first story in Chapter 7, the centurion’s faith looked like trust and obedience – whatever Jesus said, he trusted would happen. In the second, the faith was Jesus’ faith, nobody else’s. And in this one, it looks like grateful response to Jesus’ love and acceptance, expressed in actions… in other words, her faith is expressed in her actions. This echoes a pattern in Jesus’ life and miracles, where it was sometimes the person’s faith in him, sometimes his faith, and sometimes someone else’s faith on their behalf.

In other words, we’re not really sure what is going on! And we’re not always very comfortable with that type of mystery, we want to understand, we want to be able to explain, and sometimes we want to be able to influence or control… so if we can have real clarity on things then we can control more of the mysteries of life.

Jesus affirms that it was the woman’s faith that had saved her… but was this her thoughts, her beliefs or her actions? What did she understand about him and about who he was? We don’t know! We just know that she had experienced something and had perhaps sensed that there was something special about him, and she moved towards him with love.

Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s all we need to know… again, Jesus plus nothing.

3) Is my heart a thankful one?

The striking image of the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, and pouring perfume on them – it’s just such a powerful picture of love and gratitude. It’s most likely that she was acting partly in response to what she had seen Simon do, or not do, for Jesus who was his guest, but it also seems clear that she came with her perfume with the intention of showing her gratitude towards him, for the love and acceptance she had experienced from him, for the forgiveness that he had shown her.

Her actions stand in stark contrast to those of Simon, who was unable to see or respond to Jesus for who he was because of the tendency to judge and to analyse – she on the other hand, just got on with the business of expressing her love and her thanks to him.

And perhaps this is what God most stirred my own heart with through this passage. Getting on with the business of loving God and expressing our thanks. It relates to something I’ve heard expressed by a few people recently… that it feels like we’ve done lots of thinking, reflecting, examing, questioning…, all of which are good and valuable and needed. But at the same time, we mustn’t forget how to respond simply and passionately to God, pouring out our love and affection in a hundred different ways. This can absolutely be through the week ahead, as you go about your daily life, and it can also be corporately when we gather on Sundays or in homes during the week.

So I’ve asked David to come back up and lead us in another song of worship, because one of the ways we can express our love for God can be through singing.. historically it has always been one of the ways that the church have expressed their love for God. And as we sing I invite you to reflect on what we’ve seen in this passage, and to allow God to speak to you and you sing to him…

• Who might we be judging or excluding?

• What kind of faith is Jesus looking for from us this week?

• Is my heart a thankful one?