Simon the Pharisee

147:5.1Though Si­mon was not a mem­ber of the Jew­ish San­hedrin, he was an in­flu­en­tial Phar­isee of Je­ru­sa­lem. He was a half­hearted be­liever, and not­with­stand­ing that he might be severely crit­i­cized there­for, he dared to in­vite Je­sus and his per­sonal as­so­ciates, Pe­ter, James, and John, to his home for a so­cial meal. Si­mon had long ob­served the Mas­ter and was much im­pressed with his teach­ings and even more so with his per­son­al­ity.

147:5.2The wealthy Phar­isees were de­voted to alms­giv­ing, and they did not shun pub­lic­ity re­gard­ing their phi­lan­thropy. Some­times they would even blow a trum­pet as they were about to be­stow char­ity upon some beg­gar. It was the cus­tom of these Phar­isees, when they pro­vided a ban­quet for dis­tin­guished guests, to leave the doors of the house open so that even the street beg­gars might come in and, stand­ing around the walls of the room be­hind the couches of the din­ers, be in po­si­tion to re­ceive por­tions of food which might be tossed to them by the ban­queters.

147:5.3On this par­tic­u­lar oc­ca­sion at Si­mon’s house, among those who came in off the street was a woman of un­sa­vory rep­u­ta­tion who had re­cently be­come a be­liever in the good news of the gospel of the king­dom. This woman was well known through­out all Je­ru­sa­lem as the for­mer keeper of one of the so-called high-class broth­els lo­cated hard by the tem­ple court of the gen­tiles. She had, on ac­cept­ing the teach­ings of Je­sus, closed up her ne­far­i­ous place of busi­ness and had in­duced the ma­jor­ity of the women as­so­ci­ated with her to ac­cept the gospel and change their mode of liv­ing; not­with­stand­ing this, she was still held in great dis­dain by the Phar­isees and was com­pelled to wear her hair down—the badge of har­lotry. This un­named woman had brought with her a large flask of per­fumed anoint­ing lo­tion and, stand­ing be­hind Je­sus as he re­clined at meat, be­gan to anoint his feet while she also wet his feet with her tears of grat­i­tude, wip­ing them with the hair of her head. And when she had fin­ished this anoint­ing, she con­tin­ued weep­ing and kiss­ing his feet.

147:5.4When Si­mon saw all this, he said to him­self: “This man, if he were a prophet, would have per­ceived who and what man­ner of woman this is who thus touches him; that she is a no­to­ri­ous sin­ner.” And Je­sus, know­ing what was go­ing on in Si­mon’s mind, spoke up, say­ing: “Si­mon, I have some­thing which I would like to say to you.” Si­mon an­swered, “Teacher, say on.” Then said Je­sus: “A cer­tain wealthy mon­eylen­der had two debtors. The one owed him five hun­dred denarii and the other fifty. Now, when nei­ther of them had where­with to pay, he for­gave them both. Which of them do you think, Si­mon, would love him most?” Si­mon an­swered, “He, I sup­pose, whom he for­gave the most.” And Je­sus said, “You have rightly judged,” and point­ing to the woman, he con­tin­ued: “Si­mon, take a good look at this woman. I en­tered your house as an in­vited guest, yet you gave me no wa­ter for my feet. This grate­ful woman has washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss of friendly greet­ing, but this woman, ever since she came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil you ne­glected to anoint, but she has anointed my feet with pre­cious lo­tions. And what is the mean­ing of all this? Sim­ply that her many sins have been for­given, and this has led her to love much. But those who have re­ceived but lit­tle for­give­ness some­times love but lit­tle.” And turn­ing around to­ward the woman, he took her by the hand and, lift­ing her up, said: “You have in­deed re­pented of your sins, and they are for­given. Be not dis­cour­aged by the thought­less and un­kind at­ti­tude of your fel­lows; go on in the joy and lib­erty of the king­dom of heaven.”

147:5.5When Si­mon and his friends who sat at meat with him heard these words, they were the more as­ton­ished, and they be­gan to whis­per among them­selves, “Who is this man that he even dares to for­give sins?” And when Je­sus heard them thus mur­mur­ing, he turned to dis­miss the woman, say­ing, “Woman, go in peace; your faith has saved you.”

147:5.6As Je­sus arose with his friends to leave, he turned to Si­mon and said: “I know your heart, Si­mon, how you are torn be­twixt faith and doubts, how you are dis­traught by fear and trou­bled by pride; but I pray for you that you may yield to the light and may ex­pe­ri­ence in your sta­tion in life just such mighty trans­for­ma­tions of mind and spirit as may be com­pa­ra­ble to the tremen­dous changes which the gospel of the king­dom has al­ready wrought in the heart of your un­bid­den and un­wel­come guest. And I de­clare to all of you that the Fa­ther has opened the doors of the heav­enly king­dom to all who have the faith to en­ter, and no man or as­so­ci­a­tion of men can close those doors even to the most hum­ble soul or sup­pos­edly most fla­grant sin­ner on earth if such sin­cerely seek an en­trance.” And Je­sus, with Pe­ter, James, and John, took leave of their host and went to join the rest of the apos­tles at the camp in the gar­den of Geth­sem­ane.

147:5.7That same evening Je­sus made the long-to-be-re­mem­bered ad­dress to the apos­tles re­gard­ing the rel­a­tive value of sta­tus with God and prog­ress in the eter­nal as­cent to Par­a­dise. Said Je­sus: “My chil­dren, if there ex­ists a true and liv­ing con­nec­tion be­tween the child and the Fa­ther, the child is cer­tain to pro­gress con­tin­u­ously to­ward the Fa­ther’s ide­als. True, the child may at first make slow prog­ress, but the prog­ress is none the less sure. The im­por­tant thing is not the ra­pid­ity of your prog­ress but rather its cer­tainty. Your ac­tual achieve­ment is not so im­por­tant as the fact that the di­rec­tion of your prog­ress is God­ward. What you are be­com­ing day by day is of in­finitely more im­por­tance than what you are to­day.

147:5.8“This trans­formed woman whom some of you saw at Si­mon’s house to­day is, at this mo­ment, liv­ing on a level which is vastly be­low that of Si­mon and his well-mean­ing as­so­ciates; but while these Phar­isees are oc­cu­pied with the false prog­ress of the il­lu­sion of travers­ing de­cep­tive cir­cles of mean­ing­less cer­e­mo­nial ser­vices, this woman has, in dead earnest, started out on the long and event­ful search for God, and her path to­ward heaven is not blocked by spir­i­tual pride and moral self-sat­is­fac­tion. The woman is, hu­manly speak­ing, much far­ther away from God than Si­mon, but her soul is in pro­gres­sive mo­tion; she is on the way to­ward an eter­nal goal. There are pres­ent in this woman tremen­dous spir­i­tual pos­si­bil­i­ties for the fu­ture. Some of you may not stand high in ac­tual lev­els of soul and spirit, but you are mak­ing daily prog­ress on the liv­ing way opened up, through faith, to God. There are tremen­dous pos­si­bil­i­ties in each of you for the fu­ture. Bet­ter by far to have a small but liv­ing and grow­ing faith than to be pos­sessed of a great in­tel­lect with its dead stores of worldly wis­dom and spir­i­tual un­be­lief.”

147:5.9But Je­sus earnestly warned his apos­tles against the fool­ish­ness of the child of God who pre­sumes upon the Fa­ther’s love. He de­clared that the heav­enly Fa­ther is not a lax, loose, or fool­ishly in­dul­gent par­ent who is ever ready to con­done sin and for­give reck­less­ness. He cau­tioned his hear­ers not mis­tak­enly to ap­ply his il­lus­tra­tions of fa­ther and son so as to make it ap­pear that God is like some overindul­gent and un­wise par­ents who con­spire with the fool­ish of earth to en­com­pass the moral un­do­ing of their thought­less chil­dren, and who are thereby cer­tainly and di­rectly con­tribut­ing to the delin­quency and early de­mor­al­iza­tion of their own off­spring. Said Je­sus: “My Fa­ther does not in­dul­gently con­done those acts and prac­tices of his chil­dren which are self-de­struc­tive and sui­ci­dal to all moral growth and spir­i­tual prog­ress. Such sin­ful prac­tices are an abom­i­na­tion in the sight of God.”

147:5.10Many other semipri­vate meet­ings and ban­quets did Je­sus at­tend with the high and the low, the rich and the poor, of Je­ru­sa­lem be­fore he and his apos­tles fi­nally de­parted for Ca­per­naum. And many, in­deed, be­came be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom and were sub­se­quently bap­tized by Ab­ner and his as­so­ciates, who re­mained be­hind to fos­ter the in­ter­ests of the king­dom in Je­ru­sa­lem and there­abouts.