Today we see Jesus invited to dinner with one of the town’s Pharisees or religious leaders and other important neighbors. While they were dining, a woman appears and washes Jesus’ feet. The whole story and event is centered around washing of the feet. This may seem odd to us now a days. But since most people did not wear shoes in those days – probably just sandals at best – and most people went from one place to another on foot – walking – it was customary to rinse off your feet when entering someone’s house.
This woman was known as a public sinner in the whole town. Association with her or even just touching her would have been considered improper or even resulting in impurifying one’s self. No good or holy person would do such a thing. This woman not only touches Jesus, she washes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and then anoints and massages his feet with expensive perfume. What seems even worse is that Jesus allows her to do all that to him. He does not push her away nor reject her actions in any way.
For the Pharisee a good relationship with God is maintained primarily through rules, regulations, laws, separation, and self-justification. This is he how he maintained his own holiness and righteousness. This also led him to consider himself holier, better, and more important than other people. That is why it is so shocking that in front of the Pharisee and other guests, Jesus allows himself to be contaminated and defiled by the actions of this woman.
While Jesus knows that God is love and forgiveness, Jesus knows well the system and thinking and lifestyle of the Pharisees that is based on rules, separation, and condemnation. The Pharisee’s lifestyle leads to pride and arrogance – and even worse self-justification. A Pharisee would never associate with a public sinner nor perform the humiliating service of foot washing. This Pharisee did not observe the common practices of greeting guests at his door and offering them to rinse off their feet and wash their face before coming into the home.
For Jesus our life with God begins not with rules and punishment but rather with the experience of forgiveness that produces an active repentance and deep joy in us as Christians. While the Pharisee was formal, distant, cold, judging, stingy, and condemning, the repentant woman was affectionate, embracing, humble, serving, warm, trusting, and generous. The repentant woman’s attitudes are signs of a true Christian and a true Christian community. As Christians we are called to be shocking, explosive signs of God’s love and forgiveness.
Who lives closer to God? Who loves God more? Who can love others more?
The one who had owed more and didn’t have to pay it back.
Image: CANVA CJ Dunn 03 October 2026 AI Generated.