Jesus Restores Dignity

Here is a fresh take on Luke 7: 36-50 about the woman they called a "sinner"

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Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

March 1, 2026

“Jesus Restores Dignity”

Luke 7: 36-50 – Common English Bible

One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to eat with him. After he entered the Pharisee’s home, he took his place at the table. 37 Meanwhile, a woman from the city, a sinner, discovered that Jesus was dining in the Pharisee’s house. She brought perfumed oil in a vase made of alabaster. 38 Standing behind him at his feet and crying, she began to wet his feet with her tears. She wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured the oil on them. 39 When the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw what was happening, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. He would know that she is a sinner.

40 Jesus replied, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

“Teacher, speak,” he said.

41 “A certain lender had two debtors. One owed enough money to pay five hundred people for a day’s work.[a] The other owed enough money for fifty. 42 When they couldn’t pay, the lender forgave the debts of them both. Which of them will love him more?”

43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the largest debt canceled.”

Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.”

44 Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your home, you didn’t give me water for my feet, but she wet my feet with tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet since I came in. 46 You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has poured perfumed oil on my feet. 47 This is why I tell you that her many sins have been forgiven; so she has shown great love. The one who is forgiven little loves little.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49 The other table guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this person that even forgives sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

A man once kept a small bird in a cage by the window of his study.  Its cheerful song filled the room each morning.

Every day, he would pause by the window with his coffee and speak softly to it.  “I’m sorry, little bird. I truly am. You shouldn’t have to live your life in there.”  And the bird would tilt its head and sing back to him.

When anyone asked, “If you feel so badly, why do you keep it caged?” he replied, “I rescued it, you know. It wouldn’t survive outside.”  And sometimes, when he was being honest, he added, “I would miss its singing.”  

One day, a child wandered into the study, drawn by the sound of the bird.  She stood quietly, watching it hop from perch to perch. Then she looked up at the man and asked, “Why is it in a cage?”

He explained that he was sorry it had to live that way.  “But, if you’re sorry, why don’t you open the door?”

The man chuckled.  “It’s not that simple,” he said.  The child didn’t argue.  She simply reached up and lifted the small latch and with a faint metallic click, the cage door swung open.

They both froze, holding their breath.  The bird stayed exactly where it was, gripping its perch, its head turning as if it did not know what to do with the open space before it.  Then suddenly it leapt into the air, circled the room, found an open window, and disappeared into the wild blue yonder.

The man sank into a chair and began to cry.  “Every day I said I was sorry.  I thought my apologies would make a difference in its life.”

The child stood at the window, looking out into the sky.  “No,” she said gently.  “It just needed to be released.”

The story reminds me of a movie called The Mission. I realize it’s already forty years old now, but the story has stayed with me all these years, especially one particular moment. It also contains one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written for a film. I asked Kris to play an excerpt.

Robert De Niro plays a man named Rodrigo Mendoza. He’s a mercenary. A slave trader. A man who has done terrible things and knows it.

At one point in Rodrigo’s story, in a fit of rage and jealousy, he kills his own brother. When the fury passes, he realizes what he has done. And something inside him collapses. He is consumed with guilt.

A Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel, invites him toward repentance and a different life. Rodrigo agrees, even though he doesn’t believe he deserves forgiveness. So, he comes up with his own way to pay for what he has done.

He gathers his armor and weapons, the instruments of his violence, ties them together into a massive net, and drags them behind him everywhere he goes.

When the priests journey back to their mission deep in the South American jungle, Rodrigo follows them, hauling that burden with him. Up the sides of steep mountains. Through thick jungle mud.

Eventually they stand at the base of a towering waterfall. There is no way to climb it carrying such a weight. His companions urge him to cut the bundle loose. “Enough,” they tell him.  But he refuses. 

At last he reaches the top. And standing before him is the Indigenous community he once hunted and enslaved.

One man steps forward holding a knife, placing it on his throat.  The audience watching knows this is where justice will finally be done. Rodrigo knows it too. He waits.  The man raises the knife.

But instead of plunging it into his neck, he cuts the rope.  We gasp as the heavy bundle of armor tumbles down the cliff, crashing against the rocks and disappearing into the water below.

Rodrigo collapses and begins to sob uncontrollably. Instead of the justice we expected, perhaps even the justice we cheered for, we witness something else.  He is not excused.  He’s not simply forgiven.  He is released.

It’s a powerful scene of mercy. But there’s something we must also say out loud. We cannot expect the people we have hurt to grant us forgiveness. That’s why the moment is so powerful. The man did not have to cut the rope. He could have walked away. Nothing required mercy.  It was a gift.

And the scene reveals something else too.  Forgiveness cannot be earned by dragging enough armor up a mountain. If forgiveness comes, it can only ever be received. 

It makes me wonder.  How many of us think we have done something unforgivable, that we too must suffer enough, regret enough, prove enough, improve enough, before we can be forgiven.  How many of us drag things behind us that we think we must carry forever?  Most of us believe in forgiveness.  Some of us just don’t believe it includes us.  

Luke doesn’t stop at forgiveness, however. He goes much deeper.  And that’s the real power of today’s story.  In walks a woman simply described as “a woman in the city who was a sinner.”

Jesus was invited to a dinner party by a Pharisee named Simon.  Everyone is relaxed and lounging  And then she walks in.  No one offers a welcome because no one wants her there.  

She carries a small alabaster jar of ointment and comes up behind Jesus and kneels at his feet.  And with no explanation, she begins to weep.  The kind of weeping that cannot be contained so her tears begin to fall onto his feet.  She loosens her hair and begins to wipe them dry and kisses his feet.  She opens the jar and pours the ointment over them.  The room watches in stunned silence.

Simon’s face tightens with disapproval.  Internally, he criticizes Jesus – if only he knew who she was.  Jesus lets the moment unfold.  He says nothing. Until he looks at Simon and tells a story about two people who owed a debt and could not pay.  Both debts were canceled.  One was large. One was small.  

“Which one,” Jesus asks, “will love more?”  Simon answers, “the one who had the larger debt forgiven.”  Jesus listens and nods and then turns toward the woman who is still kneeling and weeping at his feet. “Do you see this woman?” he asks.  Do you actually see her?

Jesus praises her and then turns to Simon:  But I entered your home and you did not kiss me.  You didn’t give me water for my feet.  She hasn’t stopped.  Jesus turns the situation upside down.

There are no descriptions of her “sin.” She’s simply a woman with some kind reputation in the city, perpetuated by powerful men – like those in the room.  By inuendo and traditional interpretations, she is called a prostitute.  She’s the “sinner.”  But as one of the people at our Bible Study on Thursday noted, if that were true, why would she need to sell her body at all.  

In his curious parable, Jesus uses the language of debt. What does this story have to do with debt?  Perhaps because her story wasn’t about moral failure, but economic survival.  Isn’t the scandal that the community meant to care for the vulnerable had failed her long before she entered that room?

That’s why the ending of the parable is so important. Jesus asks, “Do you see this woman.”  But looking directly at Simon, he calls out his sin instead.  To neglect hospitality is not just a faux pax, not an oversight.  It is a serious sin.  Jesus asks him repeatedly, “Why didn’t you?” and reiterates, “but, she did.”  And she is forgiven.  But is that what’s really going on here?  Or, is that all that’s going on here?

So let’s back up earlier in the Gospel of Luke. When Jesus began his ministry, he gave a sermon to his hometown crowd in Galilee.  You may remember that he read from the scroll of Isaiah and said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
     because the Lord has anointed me to
preach good news to the poor,
     to proclaim release to the captives
     and recovery of sight to the blind,
    to liberate the oppressed,
    and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. 

That’s what just happened in this scene at Simon’s house.  When Jesus says to her, “Your sins are forgiven,” he actually uses a uniquely specific word.  The same one he used to proclaim release to the captives.  To her he proclaimed, “You are released.”  

In this text, forgiveness alone feels too small a word to describe what Jesus offers her.  If we speak only of forgiveness, we risk accepting the accusations against her as her whole story.  But those accusations created the shame.  And then Jesus releases her right in front of those who judged her.

This kind of forgiveness feels very much like the way churches have demanded that some people ask forgiveness for simply existing. For example, LGBTQ Christians who are taught they must confess what is not a sin. But you don’t need forgiveness for being human. You need freedom from condemnation and the lie that you were never worthy of love.  When the accusation itself wounds, forgiveness cannot heal it. What heals is release. 

Others will recognize this too. Survivors of abuse and violence. Any of us who have done what we had to do just to survive and then been told the way we survived was a sin. 

Any of us who live with depression or another diagnosis and have been made to feel our struggle is a spiritual failure. Do we need forgiveness for that?  No.

That’s why the word “released” here is so powerful.  And that’s what happened to the woman who walked into a room where she wasn’t wanted.  She entered carrying shame and judgment.  She left released from it.

That’s the bird being released from its cage.  It didn’t need another apology.  It needed to be set free.

That’s Rodrigo.  He wasn’t simply forgiven for his past actions.  He was released from them.

Jesus tells the woman that her faith has saved her and sends her away in peace.  

This is what the Good News of Jesus Christ looks like:

A woman defined by accusation is seen.
 A burden everyone assumed she should carry is exposed and lifted.

A life reduced to reputation is restored to dignity.
 
 

Some of the burdens we carry are not ours either.
 Some were placed there by systems meant to control.
 Some are stories told to us or about us by religious people so often we believed they were true.

But no.  Jesus looks at her. In front of everyone.  And says:  You do not belong to their judgment anymore.  Go in peace. You are free.

And if you are carrying something heavy today, so are you.