Do You See a Person—or Just Their Worst Mistake?

By Pastor John Erickson

I do not particularly enjoy confessing the ugly parts of my own behavior. I prefer the edited version. A little context, a few helpful explanations, maybe a softer word for what I actually did.

Then somebody else's failure comes into view, and suddenly I can be remarkably clear.

Funny how that works.

Luke 7 puts that problem at a dinner table. A religious leader named Simon invites Jesus to eat, and a woman with a reputation for a sinful life comes into the house. She weeps at Jesus' feet, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and pours perfume on them.

It is an intimate, vulnerable scene. And Simon immediately knows what to think about it.

Or at least he thinks he does.

A reputation is not the whole person

Simon reasons that if Jesus were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman was touching him. In Simon's mind, her reputation settles the question. A respectable teacher should keep his distance.

Luke does not name her. He does not identify her as Mary Magdalene, and he does not specify her occupation. We should resist filling in what the passage leaves unsaid.

What Luke does make clear is Simon's assessment: she is a sinner.

He is not wrong about the existence of sin. He is wrong about what he thinks that knowledge permits him to overlook.

Simon can identify the woman's moral need while remaining strangely unaware of his own. He can imagine Jesus knowing her past, but not Jesus knowing the judgment taking shape in his heart.

Jesus responds to the thought Simon has not spoken aloud.

That would make for an uncomfortable dinner.

Two debts, one inability to pay

Jesus tells Simon about two people who owe money. One owes five hundred denarii; the other owes fifty. Neither can repay the debt. The lender forgives both.

Which one will love him more?

Simon gives the obvious answer: the person forgiven the larger debt.

Then Jesus turns toward the woman while continuing to speak to Simon. He asks a question that reaches far beyond that room: does Simon actually see her?

He has noticed her reputation. He has noticed the impropriety. He has noticed a reason to doubt Jesus. But has he seen a human being receiving mercy?

Jesus contrasts Simon's lack of hospitality with the woman's extravagant care. Her love does not purchase forgiveness. It reveals the depth of her response to grace. Jesus ends by identifying faith, not an impressive payment, as the means by which she has been saved.

The story will not let us turn forgiveness into a reward for making a sufficiently emotional display.

Neither debtor could pay. That is where the story begins.

Respectability can hide a hard heart

It would be easy to read this and congratulate ourselves for being more welcoming than Simon. That would be a wonderfully efficient way to become him.

Who is difficult for you to see as a person?

Maybe it is someone whose choices you find destructive. Someone whose beliefs make you angry. Someone with a history you cannot seem to look past.

We do not have to pretend harmful behavior is harmless. Loving someone does not require trusting them with responsibilities they have abused or abandoning boundaries that protect others.

But there is a difference between recognizing a wrong and reducing a human being to it.

Simon sees a category. Jesus addresses a person.

That distinction matters in the way we talk about people even when they are not in the room. It matters in the stories we repeat, the assumptions we make, and the relief we feel when somebody else's failure makes us look better.

A person can be outwardly respectable and inwardly cold. I do not get an exemption because I know how to behave at a religious dinner.

Remember your own need for mercy

Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 6 are often used to identify the people who are outside. His list includes sexual sin, greed, theft, drunkenness, slander, and swindling. It is a serious picture of lives out of step with God's kingdom.

Then comes the next sentence: that is what some of you were. They have been washed, sanctified, and justified through Jesus and the Spirit of God.

The movement of the passage is toward the grace that changes people.

I need that movement too. If I only use Scripture to prove that somebody else needs rescuing, I am missing my own place in the story.

Recognizing my need does not make me indifferent to sin. It changes the posture from which I address it. I can speak truth without imagining that I am the source of somebody else's salvation.

Start by really looking

Jesus' question to Simon is a useful place to begin: do you see this person?

Can I hear a story before I decide I understand it? Can I pray for someone's good without adding a quiet request that God first prove me right? Can I remember that the grace I need is the grace I am tempted to withhold?

I sometimes think we would do better to spend less time announcing how much we hate somebody else's sin and more time letting God deal honestly with our own.

The woman leaves with peace. Simon is left with a question.

It is a question worth bringing home from the dinner table.