NOTES for Luk 7:36-50
Simon the Pharisee received the Teacher rather arrogantly, without showing Him the signs of respect customary in Judea. He did not offer Him water to wash His feet and did not greet Him properly; the guests were probably reclining for the meal not far from the entrance, where people who followed Jesus everywhere, and also simply the curious, seem to have been crowding. Perhaps Simon was simply talking with his Guest under an awning, sheltered from the sun.
Then this woman appeared in the crowd at the entrance, or around the awning, and the words of the Nazarene Teacher that she heard touched her heart so deeply that she began to weep. For He was speaking about God, about the true Light and the meaning of life. He was speaking about the Creator's trampled love, about our petty human betrayal, and this woman's heart could not bear it. Suddenly she noticed that her tears were falling directly on His feet, because Simon had offered Him a place not deep in the shade, but right at the edge of the awning, where the rays of the midday sun beat down. Perhaps frightened, this woman began to wipe the Teacher's feet with her hair, and willingly or not, she poured on them the ointment from the flask as well. Simon, who was angry about the onlookers crowding around his house, noticed this and doubted that Jesus was really a prophet.
In the dialogue with Simon that followed, the Lord, as the conclusion of the parable about the two debtors who were forgiven five hundred and fifty denarii respectively, approves Simon's words that the creditor will be loved more by the one to whom he forgave more. In itself this means that a person who has received forgiveness of greater sins will love God more. But then the Lord said about the sinful woman who anointed His feet with ointment: her many sins are forgiven because she loved much. This woman's heart, probably in truth far from blameless, proved capable of responding to the word of Christ, to the love of God. In essence, she proved capable of asking forgiveness, not in words, but in tears. According to Christ's word, forgiveness cannot be imagined as some formally legal act. When love and repentance are involved, rules and the justice of the law step back, and there appears room for the love and mercy of the Almighty. This is what Simon, it seems, does not suspect.