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Outside In: Being Bold to Join

Mark 2:13-17
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
 
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
 
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

  • The short episode in verses 13-14 (on the surface, a simple “call narrative” that parallels the call of the four fishermen in Mark 1:16-20) occurs here primarily as a means of introducing Levi and moving the plot into his home. Even so, the call of Levi gives the reader momentary pause. This may be one of those moments where we must distinguish carefully between the several groups that make up Mark’s larger community. For Jewish readers, it would be distressing to hear that Jesus calls a tax collector (who is, after all, a traitor) as one of his disciples. But for Gentile readers, the call of Levi would be a breath of fresh air, an open sign that Jesus ignores the old boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable people.
  • If a sound principle of interpretation implies that repeated elements signal the presence of significant themes, then surely the core of this story lies in its emphasis on Jesus’s knowing association with disreputable people—sinners in general and tax collectors in particular. Mark has also taken pains to point out the large size of the contingent of Jesus’s followers.
  • The word translated “sinners” has an unusual range of implications here. It designates a whole class of people, not just individuals who fail to keep the law at one point or another. The Semitic phrase is “am-ha-aretz” (“the people of the land”), who are considered guilty because of their professions, their habits of dress, and their ignorance. Their very presence pollutes the land. According to the Pharisees, it was a serious breach of scholarly decorum for Jesus to associate with such people. Everything in the story focuses the reader’s attention on two aphorisms on Jesus’s lips recorded in verse 17, and they should be understood as the controlling elements of the story.
  • These are issues that plagued the Gentile mission and presumably also Mark’s conflicted community. If so, the objections voiced by the teachers of the law in verse 16 perhaps echoed a concern that troubled Mark’s Jewish believers. That Jesus would even be in Levi’s home is scandalous; that he would eat there is outrageous. It is not at all surprising that these teachers would raise questions. Even so, they remain circumspect: They direct their questions not to Jesus, but to his disciples. The two aphorisms in verse 17 are Jesus’s reply to their question.
  • Unlike standard pronouncement stories elsewhere, the controversy stories in Mark often end with two aphorisms that reinforce one another, though they do not overlap completely. This is a prime example. The first aphorism (“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”) draws on a traditional folk saying. If it stood alone, it would indicated simply the legitimacy of Jesus’s contract with “sinners.” It is the second aphorism that drives the point to a different level. It contains a subtle ambiguity. Jesus could have meant that the zeal of the “righteous” stands them in good stead already, and that now the call of God is extended beyond them to include sinners. But the context of this aphorism militates against that view. The open hostility of the “righteous” sets them over against the sinners who are called, and thus over against the one who calls them. Jesus’s response is equally exclusionary. Put another way, he categorically accepts the outcast and the sinner and rejects those who think themselves righteous. If one is to respond appropriately to the call of Jesus, one can only do so as a sinner.
  • This story has wide implications for Mark. On a primary level, it raises and answers questions about Jesus’s comportment. On a secondary level, it raises and addresses questions about the comportment of Gentile Christians, who like Jesus associate with the wrong kind of people, violate the Sabbath, and do not observe the calendar of feasts. No doubt some of Mark’s Christians in Rome were themselves “the wrong kind of people.” For those outcast Christians, this simple gesture of Jesus, this freedom to party with tax collectors and “sinners,” obliterated the artificial boundaries of piety and defilement.

Luke 7:36-50

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.”

  • Luke gives us a glimpse of a Pharisee, Simon by name, and a sinful woman. As is already apparent, the Pharisees oppose Jesus and scheme among themselves to put an end to his blasphemous claim to forgive sins (5:21-22). But not all Pharisees reject him. Among those who are portrayed as friends or at least sympathetic with his prophetic ministry is Simon. Jesus accepts the invitation to his home for a meal. Although Jesus is a friend to the outcast and sinner, his ministry to despised people does not exclude interest in the respectable members of society. They also need the gospel. Jesus wants to share it with people of all persuasions.
  • The account of Jesus’s dining at the home of Simon the Pharisee illustrates his teaching about sin a salvation. A woman enters Simon’s home as an uninvited guest. Luke calls her a hamartolos, best understood here as “a prostitute.” She knows that Jesus is there, the meal he is attending is not private. As was common in those days, others had access to a meal in honor of a distinguished teacher, though this woman would never have been welcome in the house of a Pharisee.
  • No one seems to be shocked by her presence. She brings “an alabaster jar of perfume” (v. 37) and may have planned to anoint the head of Jesus. According to custom he is reclining on a low couch, with his feet behind him. As the woman stands behind him, she becomes overwhelmed with her deep emotions of gratitude and weeps profusely, wetting his feet with tears. Then she wipes his feet dry with her hair and kisses them, expressing her gratitude and respect to the Son of God. Finally, she pours the expensive perfume on them.
  • Obviously this woman has little or no concern about public opinion. She has forgotten that a decent woman does not let down her hair in public. It seems fair to say that she already knows Jesus as her Savior. She may have been among the people who listened to his teachings and was convicted of her evil ways. She repented, and he changed her life and put her on the road to self-respect. As a forgiven sinner, she knows the real meaning of sorrow for sin.
  • Simon the Pharisee has seen all that the woman has done and concludes that Jesus cannot be a prophet. A true prophet would have special insight as to exactly who this woman was and know that she was a sinner (v. 39). Moreover, a true prophet would never have allowed himself to be touched by this unclean woman. The Pharisee assumes that of Jesus had the gift of discernment, as true prophets have, he would see in the woman exactly what he sees. But as far as Jesus is concerned, the Pharisee does not have eyes to see the woman as she really is. Jesus sees her as a child of God, forgiven of her sins and restored to fellowship with the Lord. Not only does he accept the touch of the woman, but he welcomes what she has done.
  • The Spirit-anointed Jesus has true prophetic insight. Perceiving the thoughts of Simon’s heart, he proceeds to correct his false reasoning. He gives his evaluation of the woman through a parable about two debtors (vv. 41-42). The illustration is simple. There is a moneylender who has two debtors. One owes then times more than the other (500 denarii versus 50; a denarius is a day’s wage of a rural worker). The lender forgives the debt of both. Each should be grateful, but one debtor has been forgiven much more than the other. So Jesus asks Simon which of these men would love his benefactor more. The Pharisee is intelligent and replies, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled” (v. 43). His answer is cautious but correct. When God forgives a notorious sinner like the woman, it provides opportunity for love. Awareness that God has blotted all the debts against us and grants us bountiful forgiveness should prompt us to great love and gratitude.
  • Jesus commends Simon for his judgment. Then he applies the parable by contrasting what he has not done with what the woman has done (vv. 44-47). Simon has provided no water for the washing of his feet (Genesis 18:4; Judges 19:21), but she has washed his feet with her own tears and dried them with her hair. Simon has not given him a kiss as a sign of welcome (Genesis 29:13; 45:15), but in great humility she has showered his feet with kisses. Simon has not even anointed his head with cheap olive oil (Psalm 23:5; 141:5), but the woman has used expensive perfume to anoint his feet. In contrast to the Pharisee her gratitude and humility produce a tremendous response of love and devotion. The magnitude of her sins is beyond question, but “her many sins have been forgiven—because she loved much.” She and others have felt their need for forgiveness, but Simon and others do not feel a need for forgiveness of sins like pride, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and unbelief.
  • The woman’s great love is evidence that she has been forgiven. The RSV and NIV translate verse 47 so that it implies that the woman’s many sins have been forgiven because of her great love. The interpretation that love merited forgiveness, however, is contrary not only to the New Testament as a whole but also to verse 50: “Your faith has saved you.” The woman’s great love is a result of Jesus’s forgiveness of her sins (cf. NRSV). The parable (vv. 41-42) itself indicates that the debtors are forgiven not because they love, but because of the goodness of the moneylender. Forgiveness produces their love. The woman’s display of affection and gratitude leaves no doubt about the magnitude of her pardon. Her response is to divine grace, as the NEB brings out: “Her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven.”
  • The woman has been forgiven much and as a result loves much. By contrast, “he who has been forgiven little love little” (v. 47). This seems to point to Simon, though it should not be taken to mean that he has already been forgiven by Jesus. Simon sees himself among the righteous and lacks an understanding of his own sins. Whether a person has sinned much or little, the better one understands sin and one’s sinfulness, the more that person will love God and his forgiveness. Paul himself is an example. As he approached the end of his life, he marveled at God’s forgiveness: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15).
  • In verse 48 Jesus addresses the woman directly. Consistent with the whole passage, he assures er of forgiveness. She may feel the scorn of Simon, but Jesus knows that she has moved from sin to repentance, and thence to gratitude and love. No matter what people like Simon think, her sins have been forgiven.
  • What Jesus says to the woman provokes comments by fellow guests at the meal. They understand the significance of the statement, “Your sins are forgiven.” So they begin to ask among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” (v. 49). Simon has denied Jesus’s prophetic authority, but any person who can forgive sins has to be more than a prophet. Jesus’s pronouncement of forgiveness implies he has divine authority, for only God can forgive sin (5:21).
  • Jesus does not reply to what the guests say. But he does speak again to the woman, assuring her that she has been saved from the power of sin through faith (v. 50). She can now go in peace because of her personal trust in Jesus and her peace with God. God is always ready to blot out the guilt and sin of anyone who humbly turns to Jesus.

Questions
  • If you were a non-Jew hearing Luke’s narrative for the first time, what would be most striking to you? 
  • Do people need to be told to change their ways before they can be accepted into a Christian fellowship? Why or why not?
  • What do you imagine the woman’s feelings were as she stood behind Jesus and bathed his feet with tears and perfumed oil? What was she risking in going to him in such a public fashion, and for what did she hope?
  • What things prevent us from feeling the pain outsiders may feel? What experiences have you had where showing acceptance to someone who is vulnerable became a moment of grace?
  • When have you seen your church reach out to those estranged from institutional Christianity? Hoe does your church embody a welcoming spirit to those seeking fellowship?
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