Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 7:36-

The Awkward Dinner

The Formal Setting

The impression of the text is that this Pharisee is curious, though perhaps skeptical, about Jesus.

Darrell L. Bock, , vol. 1, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1994), 694.

At special meals the door was left open, so uninvited guests could enter, sit by the walls, and hear the conversation

That the woman’s action is rebuked and her presence is not suggests a special, public meal.

Darrell L. Bock, Luke: 1:1–9:50, vol. 1, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1994), 694–695.

The Unashamed Shameful Lady

Interestingly, in the entire pericope, this woman says nothing.

Her actions speak a thousand words.

The weeping is obviously significant, because the term used to describe it, βρέχω (brechō, to wet), is also used to describe rain showers (BAGD 147; BAA 294; Matt.

5:45; James 5:17 [twice]; Rev. 11:6; cf.

Luke 17:29).

This is more than light whimpering.

She undoes her hair and wipes the tears away, an action that some might think immodest.10

Extravagantly Repentant

See People the Way Jesus Sees People

Question’s Jesus’ status as a prophet

Condemns the Woman coldly

A denarius (δηνάριον, dēnarion) was a soldier’s or laborer’s daily wage (Matt.

20:2; Tacitus, Annals 1.17; Plummer 1896: 212; Heutger 1983: 98).

To put these numbers in perspective, note that Cicero made 150,000 denarii per year; officeholders under Augustus, 2,500–10,000 denarii per year; and procurators like Pilate, 15,000–75,000 denarii per year (Nolland 1989: 355).

So the wages in Luke are middle-class at best.

Given the fluctuating values of money across time, it is better to figure the debt in relative terms of basic wages than to figure its current monetary equivalent: about two months’ wages versus one-and-three-quarter years’ wages (assuming a six-day workweek).

The graphic picture will show how great God’s forgiveness is.

The parable is basic to the story and is not a later addition; it is fundamental to the issue raised in 7:39 (Nolland 1989: 356; Wilckens 1973: 400–404).

It is Jesus’ awareness of how God can transform people that makes him, rather than dwell on their past, look forward to what God can make of them.

2. Jesus Challenges the Assumption of Simon

2. See Jesus for Who He Truly is.

a.

The Contrast Between Simon and the Woman

While the woman did all she could Simon literally did not even do the least he could have done.

You can see your understanding of the forgiveness you’ve been given by your devotion to Jesus.

It’s not at that we are some how earning his love or buying our salvation.

It’s that we are so overwhelmed with joy because we so value the gift we’ve been given we just can’t help ourselves.

Luke 7:45-

Like Josiah when he gets excited about something we have just given him, he will run up and he’ll squeeze you so hard you feel like h may actually break your neck.

He just can’t help it.

IT’s overwhelming to him.

But when they don’t get what they want or don’t think it’s a big deal we get zero response from them.

3. See Yourself the Way that Jesus Sees You.

Luke 7:47

Maybe the hardest thing to let go of is the sin we have committed.

the mistakes we have made.

I know sometimes we tend to wear the guilt we have from all the things we’ve done as almost a badge of honor.

Jesus pronounces peace over this woman because of her relationship to Him.

He doesn’t hold her past mistakes over her head.

In fact he says go in peace.

Go in a fully whole life.

Your faith has saved you.

So how many of you have ever had a vehicle that you felt like was just absoluetely out to get you?

I had one, it was actually the car I had always wanted.

I know it sounds weird but it was one of those high riding s-10 blazers, Zr2 was the name of them.

I loved that thing, it had skid plates underneath it.

It was super short wheel base so you could climb any water bar you came to.

It was narrow enough I could make it down any trail I wanted to go down.

It was amazing.

Other than the fact that pretty much everything that could go wrong electronically with a vehicle did go wrong with it.

Like the 4 whell drive didn’t work

The fuel pump went out on it.

The power seat only moved every now and then.

Like the very first day I had it, I tried taking it up a water bar and had to back down and bent the tail pipe around the axel.

The battery would go dead so I had to unhook it when I got out.

And then I forgot to totally shut the hood one time I got in it going down the road and it flew up and folded back.

But

And maybe the most terrible thing about it was that the windshield wipers didn’t work.

So that meant it would get super nasty on the windshield.

Right after we got married Crystal and I lived in a house with a pecan tree and that thing leaked all over my windshield.

So I had sap all over it and I couldn’t get it off.

Well I would take turns driving to seminary with a friend down the road from us.

One morning we were on the way in my Blazer and man it just so happened that we turned down a road and the sun hit that sap just right and I lost all vision.

Like I could absolutely not see anything in front of me.

But did I stop?

Of course not.

I kept right on driving.

Like a moron that I was.

Well for some reason I decided to swtich lanes.

And right after I did we passed a huge hole in the street Like bigger than my car.

I came this close to going head first off in to that hole all because I couldn’t see where I was going.

I was blinded by the junk on my windshield.

And the truth is guys the same thing happens to me still today.

I get blinded by the junk in my heart spiritually.

I don’t see the things God wants me to see because I have built up gunk in my life.

And I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has blind spots in his life.

So I want to do with our time together is allow Jesus to scrape the junk off so we can see things the way he wants us to see them.

I want us to look at and talk about what it looks like to have Jesus change our view of life.

First I want us to see how he changes the way we look at the people around us.

Listen to verses 36-40

(ESV)

36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.

37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

So what we have here is an extremely awkward moment for everyone.

You guys ever have those awkward situations come up?

You may be heading to one this afternoon as you gather with your family I don’t know.

But I do know I’ve had my fair share of awkward moments….

I had a friend come up to preach a revival at the church I had just started pastoring.

I guess I would’ve been 24 years old, he was the same age.

And we got invited over to a man from the church’s house for lunch.