Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible

and Theology
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"Known to Be a Sinner": The Narrative Rhetoric of Luke 7:36--50

Evelyn R. Thibeaux
Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 1993; 23; 151
DOI: 10.1177/014610799302300403

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 "Known to Be Sinner": The Narrative
a

Rhetoric of Luke 7:36--50

EVELYN R. THIBEAUX

Abstract

Rhetorical criticism analyzes interactions between literary and social/cultural dimensions within texts, recognizes their
intertextuality, and inquires into their ideology. Recognizing rhetoric as the use of symbols for sharing access to knowledge
and coordinating social action, rhetorical criticism of Luke 7:35-50 yields three conclusions. Jesus and the woman come to
an assurance of God’s forgiveness of her, whereupon Jesus initiates her into the community of God’s reign (basileia), where

members share benefactions. Simon misunderstands God’s reign, which hinders his entry into it, but Jesus’ rhetoric leaves
it open to him. Luke’s primary purpose is to show that through telling and retelling stories of God’s work through Jesus,
Christians become assured of salvation and show it through loving action.

reading of Second Testament finally, a rhetorical method explicitly accounts for a text’s
Arhetorical-critical
based
texts, the theory and practice of rhetoric,
on ideological dimensions. As a critical practice, it inquires
provides conceptual and methodological tools for holistic about an author’s purposes in writing a text, the effects it
interpretations of the texts, that is, readings that explore may have had, and uses to which it may have been put. As
the many dimensions or &dquo;textures&dquo; of the biblical texts a meta-critical practice, rhetoric entails the critic’s reflec-

(Robbins, 1992a, b). This study uses such an approach to tion upon her/his own methodological procedures, as well
interpret Luke 7:36-50 in the context of Luke-Acts as a as upon the purposes, effects, and uses for the interpretive

whole. work in which she/he is engaged.

Rhetoric as a Method for
Second Testament Criticism
Rhetorical thinking assumes that &dquo;a text must reveal
its situation in which the author wrote,
context,&dquo; the
her/his persuasive purposes, and the effects she/he in-
tended. Accordingly, rhetorical criticism is above all a
critical method for closely analyzing texts in their contexts,
especially in their original social and cultural contexts but
also in those of the modern interpreter (Sloane & Perel-
man : 803-04). Thus rhetoric, properly understood, en-
compasses the practices of both literary criticism and
social science criticism, now widely used in biblical stud-
ies, and moves each in the direction of the other. Since
literary criticism tends toward finding the text’s meaning
for the present reader, and social science criticism tends
to look toward the original meaning, rhetorical criticism
can seek both dimensions of meaning and ways to inte-
grate them.
Further, according to rhetorical theory, the context
of a text includes its intertexture: the other texts that have
shaped its creation and its original and ongoing reception,
generically as well as culturally in a broader sense. And
In short, rhetorical readings should seek to illumine,
not only the rhetoric in a given text, but also the rhetoric
of the text in its contexts and the rhetoric about the text
in the readings themselves (Wuellner, 1991).
The practice of rhetorical criticism can take many
forms. I will use a critical framework partially based on
classics scholar George Kennedy’s method proposed spe-
cifically for Second Testament interpretation (14-38). I
adapt Kennedy’s scheme to Luke’s text by discussing the
text’s narrative elements as rhetorical strategies, focusing
on the genre, arrangement/style, and rhetorical situation
of Luke 7:36-50. I also follow Wuellner (1991) and
especially Schiissler Fiorenza (1987; 1989; 1990; 1991)
in modifying Kennedy’s proposal to include reflection on
the text’s ideological dimensions in both its original con-
text and our present context(s).
Of the many ways of viewing rhetoric, I believe that
two related perspectives are especially appropriate for
understanding Luke’s text: rhetoric as knowing and rheto-
ric as (inter)-acting. First, both classical and modern
rhetoric recognize &dquo;the role of language in the creation of
EVELYN R. THIBEAUX received her PhD from the Graduate
Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She is presently
Assistant Professor of Theology at Georgetown University,
Washington, DC 2005
20057.
7.

151
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152
knowledge or belief and its relationship to the knowing
mind&dquo; (Lunsford & Ede: 45); accordingly, both view
rhetoric &dquo;as a techne or dynamic methodology through
which rhetor and audience, a self and an other, may jointly
have access to knowledge&dquo; (46). Similarly, rhetoric is &dquo;the
art of describing reality through language&dquo; in such a way
that the rhetorical partners arrive at &dquo;knowledge, &dquo; defined
as &dquo;persistently justified true belief&dquo; (Cherwitz & Hikins:
62, 109). Second, rhetoric functions in the context of
human action and interaction: it is &dquo;the use of language as
a symbolic means of inducing cooperation&dquo; (Burke: 46),
or &dquo;the management of symbols in order to coordinate
social action&dquo; (Hauser: 3).
The Genre of Luke-Acts and of Luke 7:36-50
As a heuristic category for the genre of Luke-Acts,
I suggest the designation &dquo;narrative-rhetorical sacred his-
tory,&dquo; since it focuses attention on Luke’s purpose and
how he expects his work to be read. Luke-Acts follows a
pattern of narrative argumentation whose rhetorical stasis
(the point that must be resolved before further discussion
is possible--Cherwitz & Hikins: 103) is how the Christian
community finds a sure knowledge about the salvific
meaning of events that have happened among them.
Luke’s purpose is to show that, through a narrative-rhe-
torical praxis of telling and retelling the stories of God’s
work through Jesus, they can know (gain assurance of, or
be certain of) their own salvation (see Luke 1:1-4). A
correlative purpose is to show how their salvation must be
embodied in their actions, especially in their loving rela-
tionships.
The scene in Luke 7:36-SO shares some charac-
teristics of the Hellenistic symposium (Delobel, Steele),
as well as the Jewish (Pharisaic) haberim common in
first-century Judea (Bailey: 3J4). Each in its own way
evokes an important field of meaning within the larger
ancient Mediterranean culture: meals as symbols of com-
munal bonds and as the context for crucial social interac-
tions (Neyrey, 1991 a); and conversation in connection
with meals as the occasion for sharing and testing (=
knowing) values. Luke, even if he does not create exact
parallels, uses his readers’ presumed knowledge of these
cultural &dquo;texts&dquo; as rhetorical constraints upon them.
Narrative-Rhetorical Arrangements
of Luke 7:36-50 ..
My understanding of the way Luke arranges this
narrative is so crucial to my interpretation of the text that
it must be explained before anything else. It is posited
upon three points: (1) the text has a narrative unity, (2)
this unity includes the fact that the woman’s sins are
forgiven before she enters the scene, and (3) the interac-
tion between Jesus and the woman is the main plot of the
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narrative, with Jesus and Simon’s interaction forming the
sub-plot.
The form-critical argument that the text was origi-
nally composed of separate and not entirely compatible
units should be superseded by arguments in favor of seeing
the story as a narrative unity (Marshall: 307; Fitzmyer:
684). Thus, the parable in vv 41--42a understands love as
a response to forgiveness (of debts); Jesus follows the
parable (in vv 44-46) with a retelling of the woman’s
actions first told in vv 37-38; he links both with v 47a by
the hou charin beginning v. 47, which refers to the entire
preceding account in vv 44--46 as the basis in fact for what
he is about to say; and in v 47a, he characterizes the
woman’s actions as &dquo;loving much.&dquo; The hoti in v 47, then,
has the sense not of a reason for something’s being so, but
of a basis for one’s knowledge; Jesus is saying, &dquo;Because I
can see that she loves much, I know surely that she has
been forgiven.&dquo;
This means that the woman’s sins have been forgiven
before she performs the loving actions in vv 3 7-3 8, leaving
us to explain Jesus’ words in v 48 that seem to be a
performative pronouncement of forgiveness~.e., an act
of forgiveness at that moment. The explanation lies in the
form of the verb, apheÖntai, the same form used in v 47a:
it is the perfect form, which describes the continuing
effect of a past action, a present &dquo;state of affairs&dquo; resulting
from past action; and moreover, it is the passive form,
implying that it is God who acted (in the past) to forgive
the woman’s sins.
Nonetheless, Jesus’ words to the woman in v 48 and
again in v 50 are not extraneous to the narrative but are
its climax and central focus: his offering her assurance
(sure knowledge) that God has forgiven her sins and
salvation is hers. This means that the narrative pattern of
the story moves from a conflict of interpretations about
an event that has happened (the woman’s actions toward
Jesus), to an authoritative recounting of those actions
(paralleled with Simon’s actions) that reveals and con-
firms their true meaning: not a seeking after salvation but
a manifestation of it and an extension of its effects.
In the next two sections of this study, this view of
the text’s narrative arrangement will be taken as an as-
sumption in discussing the text’s various textures and
meanings. I will first discuss the interaction between Jesus
and the Pharisee Simon as the sub-plot of the narrative,
then the interaction between Jesus and the woman as the
main plot.
Jesus and the Pharisee .- ..
Given the setting of the narrative-a meal in a
Pharisee’s home to which Jesus is invited-the reader is
constrained to see it as a conflict of values and of honor
between the two men, even while implying that they share

equal social standing and, to a large extent, a common
world view (Malina & Neyrey, 1991c: 29-30). Other
events in the Gospel involvingJesus and Pharisees, includ-
ing some prior to this one, provide an &dquo;internal constraint&dquo;
toward this view (see Carroll: 607-12). Indeed, the nar-
rative’s plot seems to play out a social conflict (and a
common motif of the Hellenistic symposium) in which
the guest’s values and honor are affirmed while the host’s
are negated (Carroll: 610). Recent studies on the central-
ity of honor and shame to the value system of first-century
Mediterranean cultures confirm the importance of such
an exchange, the tremendous stakes involved in it, and
thus its high pathos appeal for Luke’s audience.
The particular circumstances of Jesus and Simon’s
conflict can be understood only within the social/cultural
context of Luke’s text. The overarching context is what
social scientists call a &dquo;symbolic universe&dquo;-the &dquo;common
scenarios about the way the world was structured and
operated&dquo; (Neyrey, 1991b: 272). Neyrey uses the basic
model of &dquo;purity and order in Israel&dquo; to describe the
symbolic universe assumed as a starting point within
Luke-Acts. He then argues that Jesus establishes a new
holiness system based on a God whose &dquo;basic principle [is]
mercy-as-impartiality&dquo; and whose action in the world is
seen in &dquo;reversals&dquo; of former situations (297). John Elliott
(1991), further, argues that in Luke-Acts the structuring
principle of the Jewish symbolic universe, the Temple, is
replaced by the household-a transformation which both
expresses and affects the basic values, symbols, and social
relations of the Christian community. (Both Neyrey’s and
Elliott’s models are valid, of course, only to the extent that
Luke-Acts reflects Jewish situations, perspectives, and
concerns-as it does in Luke 7:36-50; Gentile/Greco-Ro-
man elements must also be accounted for in the symbolic
universe of Luke-Acts.)
The temple personnel regulated &dquo;all matters regard-
ing the ’holiness’ = ’purity’ = ‘cleanness’ of the Jewish
people&dquo;; and the Pharisees, laymen &dquo;who enforced temple
purity regulations still more rigorously, had extended the
norms of temple and priestly holiness&dquo; to all Jews (Elliott:
221). Within this scenario, then, the Pharisee Simon
speaks for the temple system, its values and perspectives.
He participates in the social/rhetorical process of labelling
the woman (Malina & Neyrey, 1991 a: 99-110) according
to this perspective: she is &dquo;in the town [city] known to be
a sinner&dquo; (Fitzmyer’s translation, 683, 688); and in a
society where one’s identity is defined by what others say
it is (Malina & Neyrey, 1991b: 73), that label acts as a
constraint upon everyone’s knowledge of her. At the same
time, Simon sees the woman as confirming her deviant
status by her actions, which, according to the usual social
norms concerning females, show her to be a &dquo;shameless&dquo;
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153
woman, one unmindful of her reputation (Malina &
Neyrey, 1991c: 41-42, 44).
Simon applies the same &dquo;clarity of moral meaning&dquo;
(Malina & Neyrey, 1991 a: 108) to his assessment of Jesus:
he cannot be a (or the prophet (cf. Deut 18:15) if he allows
the woman to touch him-presumably since, in a purity
system based on law, prophets in the line of Moses, as
guardians of the society’s boundaries, both know the law
and recognize transgressors of it. But Luke argues that
Jesus is a true prophet according to the new holiness
system, and indeed, is the &dquo;maker and guardian of its
boundaries&dquo; (Neyrey, 1991b: 299); as such, Jesus inter-
rupts or &dquo;neutralizes&dquo; this labelling process-and not only
of himself but also of the woman.
He does so by joining the parable in w 41-42b with
the narrative retelling (vv 44-46) of the preceding events.
The parable functions as a rhetorical example
(paradeigma) upon which to build his argument (the
rhetorical logos). By telling the parable, Jesus establishes
a pattern of meaning (see Raymond: 145 -46, on rhetorical
examples establishing &dquo;a pattern of probable causality&dquo;).
He then applies that meaning to the present situation by
his narrative retrospective, connecting it to the parable by
the semantic field of debt/sin (vv 41-42, 47-48) and
freely giving/forgiving (charizomai, v 42, and aphiemi, vv
47-48). Thus Jesus proposes to Simon that the norms of
the Temple/purity system, which is based on redistribu-
tive forms of social relations, should be superseded by
those of a debt system (symbolized by the household),
based on reciprocal relations (Elliott: 232). The latter
kinds of social/economic relations, in other words, provide
a better pattern (paradeigma) for God’s way of relating
topeople (freely given mercy), and a surer sign (love) by
which to interpret people’s right relation to God (forgive-
ness).
Since the creditor in the parable acts as benefactor
to the debtors, God is here understood as benefactor-pa-
tron to those who are his clients-in this case, sinners
needing forgiveness (see Moxnes). Implicit in the narra-
tive, therefore, is the view that Jesus is broker of God’s
gracious forgiveness by mediating it in word and deed (see
Moxnes: 258-60; Danker: 339-40), whereas Simon, who
should have been a broker to the people of Israel, instead
is one of those &dquo;community leaders who block access to
God&dquo; (Moxnes: 255-56).
I have so far described the interaction between Jesus
and Simon in Luke 7:36-50 as a conflict of honor and
shame which can be understood in light of the core values
and social systems of first-century Mediterranean culture
and of the subculture of elite (i.e., law-abiding) Judaism.
The social &dquo;form&dquo; of &dquo;challenge and riposte&dquo; does indeed
shape the way the text’s meaning was probably under-
stood by first-century readers---but, I argue, only in part:
154
that is, insofar as we see in the text representations only
of typical social interactions within a stable and well
defined cultural context. Without denying the impor-
tance of this perspective on the text’s meaning, I propose
that Luke’s readers would also have had to reckon with
the ways in which the text sets the particular against the
typical, the unexpected against the expected. In this case,
I am convinced that Luke (through his narrator), in addi-
tion to subordinating the men’s interaction to that be-
tween Jesus and the woman (as explained in the previous
section of this study), mitigates the conflictual nature of
their interaction by the narrative arrangement of the story
and the rhetoric of the story’s characters.
Simon is arguing f rom the structure
of reality; Jesus, to establish the
structure of reality.
With respect to Jesus and Simon, the text’s narra-
tive &dquo;arrangements&dquo; play a key role in defining the reader’s
perception of their interaction. Three narrative choices
are especially important for this purpose: not to tell
Simon’s actions (or omissions) upon Jesus’ arrival at his
characterize Simon as saying &dquo;to himself&dquo; his
house, to
comment about Jesus’ response to the woman (v 39), and
to specify the presence of other guests only after the two
men’s exchange is completed. These narrative strategies
create a gap between what the readers know and what the
observers of the scene know, thereby shifting the focus
from a (public) drama of challenge-riposte (who merges
as the victim and who the victor in a status degradation
ritual?-Malina & Neyrey, 1991 a: 107) to a conversation
about identities and therefore about knowledge (who
knows what about whom?).
The nature of this conversation may be clarified by
analysis of its rhetoric. Simon thinks he knows who Jesus
is-not a prophet, or perhaps a false prophet; this was
perhaps the motive for his initial honor-challenge (the
invitation to dinner), and it certainly is the conclusion he
finds confirmed in Jesus’ disregard for the purity system.
Simon’s rhetorical enthymeme (v 39) prompts Jesus to
offer one of his own: given a different system of values
and relationships (as described in the paradeigma of the
parable), and given the love shown by the woman, I know
(Jesus says) that she is no longer a sinner, no longer
impure. However, even though Jesus contrasts Simon’s
actions to the woman’s, he does not specifically draw a
contrasting conclusion, that Simon is a sinner; he simply
reminds Simon that those who are not forgiven much will
not love much. Embedded in Jesus’ insight into God’s
ways, into people’s hearts (both Simon’s and the
woman’s), and into how people act when they accept
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God’s graciousness, is the counter to Simon’s argument
and challenge: Jesus is indeed God’s prophet.
My argument here is that Jesus’ rhetoric in this
interaction, even though it includes an implicit &dquo;condemn-
ing the condemner&dquo; (Malina & Neyrey, 1991 a: 109), has
as its larger purpose to engage Simon in an exchange
through which they &dquo;may jointly have access to knowl-
edge&dquo; (Lunsford & Ede). It is, first of all, based on some
shared assumptions about reality; not only do the two men
have enough in common that they share a meal, but they
also understand the premises of each other’s arguments.
Jesus understands the purity/Temple system (see Neyrey,
1991b: 291), and Simon understands the reciproc-
ity/household system (otherwise he would not have been
able to respond &dquo;correctly&dquo; to Jesus’ question about the
parable). While both are offering the kind of perspectival
&dquo;descriptions of reality&dquo; that lead to knowledge (Cherwitz
& Hikins: 105-08), the difference between them is that
Simon is arguing solely &dquo;from the structure of reality&dquo;-
the reality which he sees as primary, the Temple system-
whereas Jesus is arguing, in addition, &dquo;to establish the
structure of reality&dquo; (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca:
191)-~hat is, the new reality of God’s reign.
Further, though Simon’s address of Jesus as
&dquo;Teacher&dquo; is possibly an insult (a refusal to call him a
prophet), Jesus does relate to Simon as teacher (and
prophet) through a rhetoric intended to teach (the rhe-
torical purpose of docere, corresponding to logos-Laus-
berg : 140-44). At the same time, the ethos of his rhetoric
is directed toward winning approval for what he has done
and said (the purpose called delectare), and not so much
toward antagonizing his opponent (see Quintilian
VI.2,13-14). Jesus challenges Simon to the kind of rhe-
torical discourse in which critical evaluation leads to
knowledge: it is bilateral (both are active participants-
with Simon forced by Jesus to break his silence?); it is an
&dquo;activity of correction, wherein the clash of contradictory
ideas exposes error&dquo;; and it is open to self-risk, &dquo;the
possibility that as a result of interchange [a disputant] may
be persuaded of his opponent’s view or, failing that, at
least may be forced to make alterations in his own&dquo;
(Cherwitz & Hikins: 102-03). This kind of rhetoric leaves
open a possibility that Simon, who disappears from the
narrative after v 47 without further comment, may be
open to hearing more in the future from Jesus, and even
possibly acknowledging him as the prophet of God’s reign.
In short, the rhetoric of conflict is transformed by the
rhetoric of knowing; instead of a resolution marked by
closure, there is a revelation opening onto the future.
The next section of this study, focusing on the
interaction between Jesus and the woman, will show how,
in even more important respects, the rhetoric of knowing
’
is central to Luke 7:36-50.

Jesus and the Woman
We have been looking at Luke 7:36-50 from one
point of view, that of the two men; the woman has been
at the center of their interaction and yet stands on the
margins of it. That is of course how the narrator arranges
the scene physically, with the two men reclining toward
one another and the woman standing behind Jesus until
(in v 48) he finally turns toward her and speaks to her. In
other ways, too, the woman is under-represented in the
narrative in comparison with the two men. The narrator’s
(and later, Jesus’) identification of her as &dquo;a sinner,&dquo;
without qualifying details; his neutral and sparse telling of
her actions; the fact that she herself does not speak-all
of these choices can lead us to assume that the details do
not matter: as if to say that she was simply a sinner,
everything she did can be understood as the actions of a
sinner.
Luke’s &dquo;high context&dquo; writing style (Malina,
19-20) requires that we &dquo;low context&dquo; interpreters, if we
are not simply to impose our views on things, use both
textual and contextual clues to suggest how Luke’s audi-
ence may have &dquo;read&dquo; the woman.
On the question of whether the woman was a
prostitute, for example, the text is not definitive-and
scholars of course differ. Most assume that she was,
though some maintain that the nature of her sinfulness is
not crucial to the text’s meaning (most strongly, Fitzmyer:
688). Luise Schottroff argues that &dquo;the text does mean to
say that the woman is a prostitute&dquo; (158), and that the
story’s meaning must be understood in light of &dquo;the social-
historical question concerning the life-situation of prosti-
tutes at the time of the text&dquo; (159-60; her emphasis).
Schottroff describes this situation as one of exploitation,
misery, and desperation for those who were the ‘9ast&dquo;
among women (163) within Jewish society.
The woman’s situation in Luke 7:36-50 is clearly
one which calls for liberation. But Schottroff herself
(162-63) recognizes that the woman’s characterization is
ambiguous-that is, it allows her to be seen in a more
positive light and even to be thought a stronger person
than the above description would suggest. I would suggest
that, if she is being portrayed as a prostitute, a more
plausible context for &dquo;reading&dquo; her may be found in the
Greco-Roman world and in the Hellenistic period in
particular. Though most prostitutes were slaves, some
were freedwomen; and since prostitution was &dquo;potentially
lucrative,&dquo; those who did well could manage to accumu-
late certain amount of wealth, which they might use to
a
buy, for example, expensive ointments. Some prostitutes
were better off in other respects as well: these were the
courtesans, or &dquo;companions&dquo; (hetairai), who associated
with many of the prominent men and, &dquo;with the exception
of the royal and aristocratic women, were the most so-
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155
phisticated females of their time&dquo;--even if &dquo;the most
(Pomeroy: 139-41, on Hellenistic women).
notorious&dquo;
Thus, even though in Jesus’ own situation a woman like
the one represented in this text may have been a Jewish
prostitute such as Schottroff describes, andthoughJewish
(especially Palestinian) Christians may have so under-
stood her, Luke may also have evoked other images of
prostitutes to constrain his Greco-Roman/Hellenistic
readers’ perception of her. An image of a woman of
wealth, perhaps one of intelligence and grace and a certain
kind of status, may have mitigated the &dquo;shameless&dquo;-ness
attributed to her because of her occupation.
Let us move now to other kinds of clues for inter-
preting Luke’s ambiguous portrait of the woman. We can,
for example, place it within the context of the socio-eco-
and
nomic system of the ancient Mediterranean world~pe-
cifically, by returning to the model of patron-client
relations as a way to understand the parable (vv 41-42b),
1991:
which in turn is used to interpret the woman and her
actions. The creditor/patron’s action~raciously forgiv-
ing the entire debt solely because the debtors/clients were
unable to pay (Bailey: 12)-is not only astonishing, but
subversive, since it seems to go against the inequality and
hierarchy inherent in the patron-client system (Scott:
214). Yet, as Scott points out (213-14), Luke’s narrative
seems to sustain the system in that it emphasizes &dquo;the love
and the solidarity&dquo; (i.e., personal loyalty) expected to be
given to patrons in exchange for their benefits. That is why
Simon is able to understand the parable’s sense, and that
is how Luke’s readers would likely have understood it.
On the other hand, Moxnes argues that within the
narrative world of Luke-Acts the patron-client relation-
ship is transformed in several ways. First, in directing his
benefactions toward the poor, the lowly, the powerless,
&dquo;God performs a reversal of existing situations&dquo; in which
the rich use their benefactions for one another while the
poor can expect very little (257). Second, Jesus, as God’s
broker, mediates not from the center (the temple system)
outward, but along the periphery-that is, he is among the
lowly as one of them: one who serves (Luke 22:27). Thus
he is known as &dquo;friend&dquo; of tax-collectors and sinners~. e.,
a broker-patron giving them access to power-but not in
the same way as in the traditional patronage system. Their
power is truly a share in God’s own power, and the one
who brokers it does not do so &dquo;as a means to honor and
status&dquo; (258-59). Luke makes clear that the same must
be true for the apostles, who become brokers like Jesus
for the rest of the community.
Within the &dquo;new community&dquo; as a whole, the trans-
formation of relationships is carried even further. Instead
of the broker model, which applies to Jesus and the
apostles, the community must act out of a model in which
anyone acting as a patron breaks with the traditional
156
pattern of reciprocity by refusing to create clients-that
is, she/he not only shares resources with those &dquo;who
cannot repay in kind, &dquo; but also forgoes any expectation of
&dquo;return from them, not even in terms of gratitude or
glorification&dquo; (Moxnes: 264). This model can work be-
cause God, the ultimate patron of all, will give the return
to those who share.
Moxnes’ analysis shows, however, that Luke por-
trays the situation differently for certain women in the
narrative who become followers of Jesus and/or members
of the early church. In the Gospel, these women are first
Jesus’ clients (receiving the benefaction of healing or
exorcism), then his benefactors (providing for his and his
disciples’ needs); in Acts the same pattern continues with
the wandering preachers (generally apostles). Moxnes
gives Lydia (patron to Paul in Acts 16) as an example:
Luke describes Lydia as a patron who considers her
benefactions as an act of reciprocity for the far greater
spiritual benefits that she has received. Moreover, her
patronage is offered very humbly; if her gift is accepted,
she in fact receives the larger gift of recognition of her
faith [262].
Moxnes calls this a &dquo;client-reciprocity&dquo; model of
relationships. It means, of course, that in Luke’s story, the
preacher-apostle, like Jesus, is the superior and the
woman disciple has the inferior role and status. But as
those who serve, the women &dquo;are the ideal imitators of
Jesus as servant&dquo; (266).
This cultural script of patron-client relations, em-
bodied and transformed in Luke’s textual script (Luke-
Acts), helps to explain from a social/cultural perspective
what I have argued about Luke 7:36-50 from a narrative
perspective: that the woman is not seeking forgiveness but
assurance from Jesus. That argument raises the question
of why the woman comes to Jesus for &dquo;assurance&dquo; about
something she has already experienced deeply. One ex-
planation may be that she is confirming the personal
relationships characteristic of clients and patrons-~hat is,
her relationship with God (&dquo;faith&dquo; deepened by forgive-
ness and abiding as love) andwithJesus as God’s mediator.
Within the latter relationship, she is also taking on the
reciprocal role of patron by providing for Jesus the hospi-
tality denied him by Simon. That accepted, she receives
in return &dquo;recognition for her faith&dquo; (cf. Moxnes on Lydia,
above).
But there is more. Moxnes notes that in the narrative
world of Luke-Acts, the poor generally perceive the rich-
that is, patrons-as &dquo;unwilling to show such generosity as
one should rightly expect from them&dquo; (254-55). Even
Jesus’ parable in 7:41-42b is meant to convey &dquo;the
astonishment and joy of the clients&dquo; at the patron’s gen-
erosity, though this is partially hidden by Luke’s emphasis
on love returned to God through Jesus (Scott: 213-14).
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Jesus has preached about a God who is generous in mercy,
especially to sinners; and Jesus himself is known as a
&dquo;friend of sinners.&dquo; I suggest, therefore, that the woman’s
coming to Jesus upon learning that he was dining with a
Pharisee may be read as a challenge of honor: a public act
that requires him to prove that he is what he says by
accepting the hospitality (reciprocal relationship) of one
known as a sinner.
At the time, we may understand the woman
same
herself different kind of challenge: what
taking
as on a
call &dquo;ritual of status transformation&dquo; or
anthropologists a
of initiation. Mark McVann, following Victor Turner’s
classic discussion, outlines the initiation ritual as a narra-
tive process consisting of variations on three stages: sepa-
ration from the community, liminality and communitas,
and (re-) aggregation to the community. As I see Luke’s
text, he narrates the final stages of the woman’s status
transformation, which began before she appears and ends
only with the assurance she receives from Jesus. The
woman’s state of sinfulness separated her from the normal
(i. e., respectable) places and activities of her society.
Through God’s forgiveness she began to experience a
change in her identity and her vision of things and, un-
known to society, entered a sacred space of liminality; in
this period she is &dquo;lost&dquo; to society--and to the narrative
as well. When we find her, she is in that space, which she
invites (challenges!) Jesus to share with her as former
initiand (into God’s prophetic ministry-McVann) and
now &dquo;ritual elder.&dquo; As in a typical initiation ritual, the
(physical) space is ambiguous~ household where the
temple system is practiced; and so are the ritual symbols-
the familiar objects and actions of hospitality made unfa-
miliar (they are offered not by the host but by an intruder;
the anointing is for the feet and not the head; tears take
the place of water).
Jesus is able to see in all this the signs that the
woman has been learning how to live in a new way within
a new kind of community: she is, if you will, a &dquo;novice.&dquo;
Her exchange with Jesus, in the face of hostility (from
Simon) and possible rejection (from Jesus), can be seen
as a ritual confrontation testing her suitability. Jesus’
acceptance of her actions, perhaps even before he realizes
that they signify her prior forgiveness, means that through
his friendship she can be restored to community; his
assurance that she is forgiven gives her the certain knowl-
edge, and therefore the power, which she needs to enter
fully into her new status and role. Her status is expressed
in the words that constitute her re-aggregation to commu-
nity : &dquo;Go in peace; your faith has saved you. &dquo; She has been
transformed from one who is impure to one who is whole
(in the sense of shalom), from sinner to faithful one. It
would seem, given the nature of her actions, that her role
is at least partly to share hospitality, both giving it and

receiving it as one worthy of table-fellowship. Thus Jesus
and the woman share the roles of challenger and chal-
lenged, and both are honored in such a way as to transform
the traditional system of honor and shame.
In sum, we may describe the interaction between
Jesus and the woman as rhetorical praxis whose purpose
is mutual symbolic inducement leading to knowledge as
well as reciprocal &dquo;management of symbols in order to
coordinate social action&dquo; (Hauser). Both are using sym-
bols-she, actions; he, words-~o describe reality from
their particular perspectives; and in doing so, they come
mutually to a more certain knowledge of God’s ways and
how people can live within them. Specifically, the woman
is inducing Jesus notwithstanding his already sure grasp
of these things-to recognize (know) God’s work in her
life, to publicly acknowledge it even when doing so might
expose him to a loss of honor, and to accept the gift of
hospitality not only from respectable people but from
persons not deemed respectable by others--in other
words, to establish community with her as he himself
claimed God sent him to do. Jesus, in turn, is inducing the
woman to know-that is, to accept fully, as ‘ justified true
belief&dquo;-that God has given her a new way of being, to
live in wholeness (Upeace’) within herself and with others,
and to practice hospitality unreservedly as an act of love
for those in communion with her (Jesus and his followers).
There is also, even more implicitly, a mutual inducement
to mission: to continue the practice of retelling what has
happened as God’s story of salvation.
Luke’s Rhetorical Situation and Overall Argument
A text’s rhetorical situation consists of an audience
that is considered capable of responding to the author’s
persuasive discourse, an exigence or urgent situation that
calls for such a response, and the means the author uses
to constrain the audience to respond (Kennedy: 34-35).
Given the above discussion of Luke’s use of narrative and
rhetorical constraints, what can we say about the rhetori-
cal situation in and for which Luke 7:36-50 was written?
How might this text’s overall argument have functioned
to convince its audience and move them to action regard-
ing some exigence in their lives?
This study has already suggested some of the possi-
ble factors involved. Since the whole text of Luke-Acts,
and not simply its parts, is a response to the rhetorical
situation, relationships between Luke 7:36-50 and more
general studies on Luke-Acts as a whole have contributed
to a more compelling picture of the situation. The follow-
ing discussion will mention other passages that also help
fill out the picture.
We should begin with the clear exigence of discon-
tinuity. Hauser notes that rhetoric is a social practice that
flourishes in situations of discontinuity that is, when
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157
people experience &dquo;gaps or breaks in the normal process
of experience&dquo; (6) and must mutually search for the
meaning of their lives together and for appropriate courses
of action. According to Esler, Luke’s community &dquo;was
experiencing difficulties from within and opposition from
without which threatened its continued existence and
unity&dquo; (220). Esler attributes this discontinuity largely to
&dquo;the very mixed nature&dquo; of the community’s composition,
including persons whose prior religious affiliation ranged
from &dquo;pagan idolatry on the one hand&dquo; (characterizing few
members) &dquo;to conservative Judaism on the other&dquo; (a
significant minority) (220).
Luke 7:36-50 raises issues concerning acceptance
into and within the community of people regarded as
&dquo;sinners&dquo; in this case, on the basis of their way of life
and not simply because they are Gentiles (cf. Luke 19:1-
10). It is concerned indirectly with table-fellowship with
sinners (an issue central to Luke-Acts; see Luke 1 S:1-2)
and more directly with hospitality given by reputed sin-
ners. In Luke’s time, both these issues would have ex-
tended as well to Jewish Christians’ relationships with
Gentile Christians within the community, as Acts 10-111
suggests. Further, as Esler points out, the mixture of rich
and poor members created highly unusual associations
within the community, &dquo;especially since some of the
traditions of Jesus’ sayings known to the community
counselled the rich to a generosity to the destitute quite
at odds with Greco-Roman attitudes to [self-seeking]
gift-giving&dquo; (221 ). Jesus expresses this counsel (or impera-
tive ?) most clearly in Luke 14:12-14, and I believe it is
also reflected in the parable of Luke 7:41 J42.
In relation to more conservative Christians, prob-
Jewish but also possibly Gentile God-fearers, Luke’s
ably
work-Luke-Acts as a whole, and Luke 7:36-50 in the
ways I have discussed-responded to this complex exi-
gence by urging greater openness to the new vision of
God’s reign as interpreted by Jesus, including full accep-
tance of the new patterns of relationship required within
the community of Jesus’ followers. In short, he wanted to
assure, or reassure, them that what the community was
doing was from God, despite traditions and convictions to
the contrary. I have suggested that this strategy may be
seen in Luke’s ambivalent treatment of the Temple sys-
tem, evident in his treatment of Simon in 7:36-50: while
he &dquo;was able to trade upon the affectionate memory in
which the Temple was still held by many of his Christian
contemporaries&dquo; (Esler: 222), he showed that its assump-
tions had to be rejected in favor of an inclusive praxis
initiated by Jesus and continued in the early church. A
more specific suggestion, already made by G. Bouwman,
is that in a time when the Christian mission required
hospitality for traveling preachers, Luke may have been
urging some members of his community to accept hospi-
.;
158
tality from members (chiefly women) whose personal
reputations they may have considered questionable.
In relation to Gentile Christians in general and to
other persons who may have questioned their own status
and role in the Christian community, Luke has a comple-
mentary rhetoric: assurance/reassurance that God’s plan
of salvation included them and that God indeed was
offering salvation to them through forgiveness, through
personal relationship with God, and through acceptance
into God’s community. Their salvation was to be seen in
their willingness to practice hospitality and in their zeal to
retell their own stories of salvation in light of God’s story
as retold by Jesus.
For all his readers, Luke uses the particular plotting
of this narrative to make a point about knowledge. He
plots the woman’s story so that its meaning, far from being
immediately obvious, must be carefully reconstructed by
the reader-who does not know at first the meaning of
the events, does not know how to &dquo;read&dquo; the woman and
her actions correctly, and finds that in fact she/he has
misread them. Theologically, Luke’s point is that Jesus
himself must discover God’s work in particular instances
before he can proclaim it anew to others, while the reader
in turn discovers the truth through Jesus’ interpretive
rhetoric as narrated in Luke’s text.
Luke’s narrative as a whole, then, is a rhetorical
praxis that is also a social interaction. As such it serves as
an exercise in the &dquo;social construction of reality&dquo; (cf. Esler,
following Berger and Luckmann), a model of and a model
for the kind of Christian community Luke believes reflects
and promotes Jesus’ vision of God’s reign.
&dquo;Refiguration&dquo; of Luke’s Text
in Our Context
Mary Gerhart, following Paul Ricoeur, uses the term
refiguration to refer to the construal of a text’s meaning
given the various elements of the interpreter’s own con-
text. One way to engage in this process is to ask how our
present contexts may both question and be questioned by
the meanings in Luke 7:36-50 as I have interpreted them.
In the following brief considerations, I intend not to
impose modern concerns and perspectives on the ancient
text, its author, or its contexts, but to suggest how we
might engage in an ongoing &dquo;evaluative&dquo; rhetoric that can
lead to surer knowledge of how God still acts in our lives.
First, I believe we need to consider issues related to
the portrayal of the woman in this scene in light of
feminist critical analysis of perceptions of women and
their status and roles within society. One of these issues
is the woman’s complete silence, which must be recog-
nized as part of a Lukan pattern of not reporting women’s
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actual speech unless he tells that it was corrected or
disregarded by important men Jesus or the apostles.
This pattern stands in contrast to other gospel accounts
(especially John’s) and to the acknowledged missionary
and leadership roles of women in Luke’s own text (espe-
cially Acts). Luke’s own exceptions to the pattern-in
Luke 1-2-occur during the story-time before Jesus’ min-
istry and the church’s mission; one can justifiably conclude
that Luke meant to impose certain restrictions on how he
portrays women in the rest of the narrative, when they
are directly associated with Jesus or his followers.
A related issue is the woman’s actions, which at least
appear subservient and are typically taken as such by
interpreters. In fact, according to my analysis her actions
do typify an inferior position of women in relation to the
male Christian leaders in Luke-Acts~hat of giving hos-
pitality in reciprocity for spiritual benefits regarded as
superior. The physical arrangements of the scene also
present an image of the woman as object: object of the
men’s conversation but out of their circle of conversation,
until one turns to her and addresses her; and even then,
object of their gaze (&dquo;Do you see this woman?’~.
All these elements are in tension with the strong
portrayal of the woman, her status and role, which I find
present in Luke’s narrative. My reading assumes that such
a portrayal must be sought out with some deliberation;
the text’s history of interpretation, which overwhelmingly
favors a view of the woman as weak, suggests that Luke
may have been too successful in submerging her real story
within a drama of misinterpretation by others. The ques-
tion arises, indeed, as to how much Luke wanted that story
to be fully understood. Perhaps, as Mary Rose D’Angelo
has argued, Luke is concerned to give &dquo;assurance&dquo; that the
Christian community conforms adequately to the norms
of Greco-Roman society regarding women’s public behav-
ior and their place within the community-even if that is
an image that does not conform fully to the realities of
women’s lives as Christians.
Second, regarding Simon, the major issue is the way
in which our interpretations see him as a representative
of Judaism (either of Jesus’, Luke’s, or our own time).
Schottroff (148-56), for example, has strongly objected
to seeing in him solely a kind of harsh self-righteousness
taken to be typical of Jewish attitudes in contrast to Jesus’.
Again, while the text in many respects lends itself to that
kind of interpretation, I have tried to illustrate that other
perspectives are possible that can be equally supported by
the text.
My final comments relate to the issue of rhetoric
itself, which I see not only as a fruitful method for viewing
this text in fuller perspective, but also as a crucial element
of Luke’s own communication about Christian commu-
nity and its relationships to others. In a time when our
 159

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