Last Sunday at Ringwood Community Church, it brought tears to my eyes when Pastor Tom Kenneally gave his extraordinarily clear exegesis of Luke 7 36-50 (the following is an extract from that sermon edited by me):
“Every time Jesus moves in the last few chapters someone gets uncomfortable …….
Jesus is now a controversial Rabbi. He’s breaking all the societal rules. He’s interesting, strange, someone to be checked out and probably ignored and taken down.
He has been invited to Simon the Pharisee’s table. Jesus at a Pharisee’s table, one of those people getting increasingly frustrated, so much so that they will eventually kill him.
……. He’s at a (first century) religious dinner party. …….. They’re not sitting in chairs (unlike the image above from a 1735 Jacob Andries Beschey painting of Mary Magdalene washing Jesus’ feet.) ….. They are laying down at a (low) table with their sandals off and they’re leaning on their left hand and they’re eating with their right.
Suddenly the scene changes and this lady walks in. Luke calls her a woman of the city who was a sinner ……. Before anyone can stop her, she does something quite scandalous ……. This is part dinner party, part theological symposium: people are checking out who Jesus is …….
When the woman walks in everyone sees her and everyone knows her …… a woman of the city who was a sinner …….. the kind of woman parents perhaps warn their sons about, the kind of woman religious leaders definitely avoid contact with and she walks straight into a pharisee’s dinner party …….
She walks straight to Jesus ……. She moves to his feet and Luke says she stood behind him at his feet weeping and the word used means an ongoing sobbing. This is a broken person who’s fully aware of who she is.
Have you ever had a moment where you ugly cried ……. That’s what we used to call it in high school ……. It’s not dignified tears ……. She cannot compose herself ……. Her tears begin to fall on Jesus’ feet ……. Her tears rained down on his feet ……
Often our feet are closed in shoes these days but back then they wore sandals most of the time. And back then they did not have cars so they walked on hard packed sand or clay. And on that clay and hardpacked sand something else walked: donkeys and other animals and livestock. And livestock do not have bathrooms. So they would go wherever they needed to go. While they were walking on that road they were going to the toilet and that meant everyone’s feet also gathered up those bits of evidence of that toilet. That’s what it was like in first century Palestine or Israel. The feet were the dirtiest part of the body. To wash someone’s feet was basic hospitality. At a bare minmum, they would be given a basin of water to wash their own feet.
A host would greet with a kiss in a way to say that I am familiar and friendly with him and often oil would be put on the head to refresh him. Simon provided none of it. There was no water. There was no kiss. There was no oil. He invited Jesus in but he withheld the honor of who Jesus was.
And yet this woman who everyone knows is a sinner, kneels in front of everyone and her tears mix with that road grime, the evidence of those animals.
And she loosens her hair and in this culture a respectable Jewish woman did not let her hair down in public. It was intimate and was supposed to be private ……. a husband could divorce a wife for repeatedly appearing in public with unbound hair. It even says, “Hair is a woman’s glory.” in The Bible ……. She takes her glory and she puts it into this filth and this muck. And she wipes this filth with what’s supposed to be her honour, her glory and then she kisses his feet again and again.
This is not polite affection.
This is a desperation of someone, who has met Mercy and Grace, wanting to express their total gratitude and affection for a person. The room must be tense at this moment. You can almost feel the Pharisees stiffen at the scandal of it all. Simon receives scandal but Jesus receives worship. Simon sees contamination and she sees forgiveness at His feet. And here’s the tension that perhaps hits the room. One person is very worried about staying clean and pure and the other knows she cannot get clean without this one person in the room.”
Pastor Tom’s church is an Open Brethren Church.
They are indeed open.
Whey do offer brotherhood.
A breath of fresh air in a nation in spiritual decline.
Geoff Fox, 03-03-2026, Maribyrnong, Australia
Ways Of Being Christian 