The following commentary may help to get a deeper understanding of the text.

Dinner scenes were a distinctly favorite context for the author of the third gospel. Some have regarded those narratives which portrayed Jesus as the invited guest at a meal as belonging to a special literary form called the symposium genre. In the course of narrating the events at the dinner, Luke adeptly drew together material from the oral tradition known to him and from his written sources. He also used these occasions to feature some unchronicled parables, unique to his gospel and especially illustrative of his major theological themes.

In the particular scene that comprises today’s gospel, the evangelist has reworked his sources to create an episode, the dinner at Simon’s house. During the dinner Jesus is presented as teaching a lesson through the vehicle of a parable; the parable in turn serves to interpret and explain the episode within which it appears. The lesson of the entire narrative (parable and context) is the fact of Jesus’ power to participate in the divine prerogative of forgiving sin. Forgiveness of sin, or justification as Paul chose to call it, was due to the free and grace-filled love of God. With her sins remitted, i.e., once justified by God’s gracious act, the woman responded with a great and sincere outpouring of love, an example for all believing and forgiven sinners.

Simon the Pharisee had invited Jesus to his home. His rather rude and inhospitable behavior toward Jesus stands out in blatant contrast to the attitude of the forgiven woman. As one who prided himself on his strict observance of the law, Simon was appalled not only by the woman’s actions but by Jesus’ reaction to her. It may seem strange that the woman was able to enter the house at all. However, according to social customs of the ancient Near Eastern world, dining rooms, especially those of the rich and famous, were left open to the public. Uninvited guests and curious onlookers could pass in and out of the room at will. Those who wished could take a seat near the wall and listen to the repartee between the host and his invited guests.

Having gained entry to Simon’s house in this way, the woman overstepped the bonds of social acceptability and made her way to Jesus. That Jesus permitted her extravagant show of love without condition prompted Simon to criticize, albeit silently, the authenticity of Jesus as a prophet. In excellent style, Luke has shown Jesus as the true prophet, par excellence, able to read even Simon’s unspoken thoughts.

The interchange between Jesus and Simon has been called a Socratic interrogation since it follows that form of Hellenistic rhetoric used by both Jewish and Christian teachers to organize their material (C. Talbert). According to the structure of the interrogation, (1) a question is asked by the opponent (“If this man were a prophet, he would know,” v. 39); (2) this is followed by a counter question (“Which of them was more grateful,” v. 42); (3) which forces an answer from the opponent (“He, I presume, to whom he remitted the larger sum,” v. 43); (4) and concludes with a refutation of opponent’s ideas on the basis of his own forced answer “I tell you that is why her many sins are forgiven,” v. 47).

By means of his interrogation and the parable of the two debtors, Jesus led Simon to understand, at least logically and intellectually, the woman’s actions and Jesus’ attitude toward her. Indeed, the woman who was outside the law had been given what Simon, for all his scrupulous adherence to the law, had not been able to achieve, i.e., forgiveness and the joy of being justified or “being right” with God. As in the first and second readings, today’s gospel juxtaposes the correct understanding of forgiveness or justification by God over and against the law’s ineffectiveness and limitations.

Because of the ambiguity of the statement, “that is why her many sins are forgiven--because of her great love” (v. 47), it may seem that the woman’s love precipitated God’s forgiveness. Rather, it should be understood that her ability to love, and to love greatly, was due to the fact of her having been forgiven. The word hoti in Greek should be understood in a special causal sense which gives not the reason why a fact is so but whereby it is known to be so. The New English Bible averts the ambiguity by translating v. 47, “1 tell you, her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven; where little has been forgiven, little love is shown.”

Jesus’ pronouncement, “Your sins are forgiven; your faith has been your salvation” (v. 48), is a confirmation of what had occurred, i.e., the divine initiative, reaching out to bestow forgiveness or justification, meeting with the open human response of faith. This further implication was also meant to impress Simon and others who relied on the law that their refusal to respond in faith to Jesus (and therefore to God) would someday find them on the outside, looking in, at the great banquet of the messianic kingdom.

In the final verses of the gospel (8.1-3), Luke has reemphasized Jesus’ special predilection for those who understood their need for justification and for the disadvantaged members of society. Those who had been healed physically, spiritually and psychologically, women and the poor, had a special place with Jesus in the kingdom he had come to bring upon the earth. The law that had raised objections to such people and placed barriers against them was no longer operative. Because of Jesus, the free gift of God’s justification welcomed all believers to salvation.