The Table Where Grace Meets Shame

There's something powerful about tables. Some tables feel like home—where you're known, loved, and always welcomed. Others require your best behavior, where you mind your manners and watch what you say. And then there are those tables where, without a word being spoken, you sense you don't belong. The looks, the silence, the unspoken hierarchy—they all communicate the same message: this seat isn't for you.

We carry these table memories with us. They shape how we see ourselves and how we think God sees us. After a while, many of us stop expecting an invitation altogether.
But what if there was a table where the rules were completely different? What if there was a place where your past didn't disqualify you, where shame didn't keep you standing at the door, and where the host actually wanted you there?

An Uncomfortable Dinner Party
Luke 7 tells us about one of the most uncomfortable dinner parties in history. Jesus receives an invitation to eat at the home of Simon, a Pharisee. On the surface, this looks like an honor—religious leaders regularly invited traveling rabbis to dine with them. But this invitation wasn't about hospitality. It was a test.

While Jesus reclines at the table—feet stretched out behind him as was the custom—someone crashes the party. A woman from the city. Everyone knew her reputation. Everyone knew what she did for a living. She had no business being there, especially not in a Pharisee's home.

But she comes anyway.

She doesn't speak. She doesn't defend herself against the whispers that surely followed her entrance. She simply stands behind Jesus and weeps. Her tears fall on his feet. She bends down, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and pours expensive perfume on them.
It's intimate. It's emotional. It's scandalous.

This is the moment Jesus is supposed to pull away. This is when he should protect his reputation, restore order, and distance himself from someone so publicly broken. That's what Simon expects. In fact, Simon thinks to himself: "If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner."
But Jesus doesn't recoil. He doesn't step away. Instead, he leans in.

The Parable of Two Debtors
Jesus, knowing Simon's thoughts, tells a story. A moneylender had two debtors. One owed him five hundred days' wages—over a year and a half of work. The other owed about fifty days—roughly a month and a half. Neither could pay. So the lender canceled both debts.
"Which one will love him more?" Jesus asks.

Simon answers correctly: "The one who had the bigger debt canceled."

"You have judged rightly," Jesus says. Then he turns to the woman and speaks to Simon: "Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears. You gave me no kiss of greeting, but she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume."

Every courtesy Simon should have extended to an honored guest, he withheld. But this woman—this uninvited, unwelcome woman—offered everything Simon didn't.
Jesus concludes: "Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little."

The Danger of Small Debt Theology
Here's what makes this story so unsettling: Simon thought his debt was small. He saw himself as righteous, respectable, religious. He invited Jesus into his house, but he never invited him into his heart. He kept Jesus at arm's length—close enough to look good, far enough to stay in control.

We do this too, don't we? We invite Jesus into our lives but keep him in the corner. We want people to know we're Christians, but we don't want Jesus getting too involved in certain areas. We don't want him opening that closet where we've hidden our shame, our secrets, our struggles.

The most spiritually dangerous posture isn't being the woman at Jesus' feet. It's being Simon at the table, convinced that our debt was small.

Because when we minimize our need for forgiveness, we minimize our capacity to love. When we think we're mostly good people who just need a little help now and then, we miss the radical, life-altering truth of the gospel: we were dead in our sins, and Christ made us alive.

Psalm 103 tells us that God does not deal with us according to our sins. As far as the east is from the west—an infinite, immeasurable distance—so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

That's not a small debt. That's an impossible debt. And it's been completely canceled.

Big Forgiveness Leads to Big Love
The woman at Jesus' feet understood something Simon didn't. She knew her debt was massive. She knew she couldn't pay it. And when she encountered Jesus, she believed he was merciful enough to cancel it.

Her boldness wasn't shamelessness. It was faith.

And Jesus responds with words she probably never thought she'd hear: "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

The dinner party doesn't end with applause. It ends with questions: "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

That's still the question, isn't it? Who is Jesus?

He's the Son of God, the one who came to earth to pay a debt we couldn't pay. He's the one whose body was broken and whose blood was poured out so that our debt could be canceled forever.

And when we truly believe we've received big forgiveness, we begin to show big love.
We become more patient. More gracious. More willing to sit at tables with people who don't look like us, think like us, or live like us. We stop keeping score. We stop extracting payment through silence, bitterness, or distance.

Devotion becomes the overflow of mercy received, not a performance to earn it.

Where Do You See Yourself?
So here's the invitation: Where do you see yourself in this story?

Are you Simon at the head of the table—respectable, religious, but keeping Jesus at a distance? Or are you the woman at his feet—broken, aware of your need, and desperate for grace?

The good news is that Jesus still shows up at tables. And when he does, forgiveness always finds a seat.

Maybe this week, you need to take one small step toward forgiveness. Maybe you need to pray with fresh honesty about your debt. Maybe you need to share a meal—not to impress, but to love.

Because at the Lord's table, grace welcomes sinners. Debt is canceled. Identity is restored. And peace is offered.

This isn't a table for the worthy. This is a table for the forgiven.