Luke 7.44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon,
“Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer
me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the
time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You neglected the
courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare
perfume. (NLT)
The men were aghast that such a woman was even there.
(Personally, I can’t imagine how she even got in aside from the fact that she
did – desperate times call for desperate measures.) The men all knew her for who
she was: a sinner. (I assume she was of ill-repute, maybe even a prostitute,
and all that goes along with that.) But she was miserable, and she was
desperate, and she forced herself in amongst the men and threw herself –
literally – at Jesus’ feet.
Simon, the Pharisee, dissed Jesus from the get-go; he
seemed not to care even enough to do the customary polite things. The woman on
the other hand concerned herself only with being at the feet of the Master –
the only place she saw herself in her desperation to break the bonds of her
lifestyle.
I know this: she went away free and Simon stayed in
bondage.
This is a story of desperation and disrespect. This is a
story of poverty and wealth. This is a story of “room for God” and “no room for
God”. Simon had no room for God – he had his culture, his religion, his title,
his position, his house, his wealth, his reputation; and he gave none of it to
God – he appears to have kept it all for himself.
The woman had her culture, her reputation, her
desperation, and her perfume – and she gave them all to God. Her plea was to be
set free. Simon’s was to remain free – free to be who he thought he was with
little or no thought for how he got there.
Much of our present-day culture is a Simon culture because we have so much and yet live in such poverty.
We possess the world yet don’t have the Kingdom. (The Kingdom doesn’t fit within
our value system.) We are truly desperate, but desperate for the wrong things.
We long for the present perks of earth yet disrespect the Promises of the
Kingdom. Our culture is one of poverty and wealth.
How desperate am I? How far am I willing to go to respect
the Master seeking His Kingdom and Righteousness? The woman went away blessed –
she came in desperation and left in faith. She came in sickness and sin and
left in faith. What a turnaround! What a result!
Father God, may I learn from her and flee from my closely
held perceptions of myself. May I recognize my poverty, and earnestly – even ridiculously
– throw myself at Your feet seeking Your wealth, the riches of belief. Help me
this day to give that which I hold precious in order to gain what I can never
lose because I gave it all to You. Amen.
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