COMMENTS IN BRACKETS
This story looks innocent until you look into how many males have sexual fetishes which ask women to degrade themselves for them. Foot fetishes are very common. Jesus did not mind onlooker males getting a thrill from how he treated this girl or how he let her demean herself. He tacitly declared it okay to degrade her sexually like that and to degrade her as a woman, in addition.
36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.
37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.
[She seems to be a sex worker. She is stigmatised by the story.]
38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
[He was laying down on his front. This is very suggestive. Even if he were not, that would be very degrading to her. His feet were dirty as we learn later. In those days people walked barefoot and on excrement and everything. Jesus consenting to her using her hair on his feet and kissing them suggests a fetish. She was very upset so was her consent given properly? Certainly not. Her odd behaviour suggests she was traumatised or felt she had to do this for Jesus.]
39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
[Do you really think she would have got in the door if this were true? It is an anti-semitist fable. Plus it is never claimed that any prophet is a prophet all the time! He is only a prophet when God gives a message through him. “If this man were a magician or fortune-teller, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” sounds like it might be what the original story said.]
40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
[Again the Pharisee is shown to be a fake pretending to recognise Jesus as teacher or he really thinks he is a teacher meaning the doubt story is untrue.]
41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
[Stupid argument. We meet people who give and give to others and get little or no thanks. Notice how Jesus asks him to be judgemental here. So much for the claim that we are not supposed to attribute bad motives to anybody but assess their actions!]
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
[Hair? Hair? Hair? Who does that? It is a fetish something she would know something about if she were a se x worker! And she does not have a name!]
45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.
[Again she is treated as a nameless thing. Tears cannot clean feet so his feet were disgusting and he hails her degradation. Even a slave did not do what she did.]
46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.
47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
[This would be consistent with a girl who was abused by men who was desperate and felt compelled to get out of sex work. She would need to be extremely grateful to love him a lot.]
48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
[He is not forgiving sins for we are told she kissed Jesus’ feet and cleaned them out of gratitude for being forgiven.]
50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” [Jesus may be saying her faith got her forgiven not him.]
She was very likely to have been a young girl. Girls in those were married off too young for life was very short. She was a child maybe? Her behaviour would suggest she was a child.
Finally a girl acting like a slave with no dignity is the ultimate patriarchal fantasy. This story feeds misogyny.