When I was a child, my older brother convinced me that each of us is allowed to sin 244 times before we are consigned to "h-e-l-l". He said this to warn me, as he had sinned only a few times and he was sure I was getting close to my limit.

I believed him, and at the age of 5 or 6 I felt confident that I could sin far fewer that 244 times in my lifetime. At that age, it is easy to conceive of one's relationship with God as a transactional arrangement, with forgiveness and grace carefully measured and reluctantly distributed.

In today's Gospel reading, a woman of "ill repute" lavishes affection on Jesus while he is seated at a dinner. She washes his feet with costly ointment, using her hair as a cloth. The host, a religious leader, and his guests are appalled that this woman would enter their company, and that Jesus would permit this display of affection and gratitude. He should not, in their view, allow himself to be touched by a "sinner."

Jesus tells his host a story: "Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days' wages and the other owed fifty. Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?"

The answer, of course, is the one who is forgiven more. The woman doesn't love Jesus more because she has sinned more. She loves Jesus because she values his compassion more than the others do.

We like to compare ourselves with one another. We like, for some reason, to feel morally and spiritually superior to others. That is certainly the case in today's Gospel - the religious elite in the crowd are outraged that Jesus accepts the affection of a sinner because they feel that they are superior to her in God's eyes. They don't seem very familiar with the God they claim to serve.

If we view others as greater sinners than ourselves, we will believe that we deserve God's love and appreciation more than others. This is not a healthy attitude in the kingdom of God. Jesus tends to have harsh words for those who look down on others. While all of us may be special in God's eyes, none of us is more special than others. We all need the infinite, unconditional love of God.

God's mercy is not meted out reluctantly, or measured carefully, as if there is not quite enough for all of us. While it may help us to count our sins in an effort to follow Christ more faithfully, I doubt that God does such accounting. It would appear that God counts how often and how sincerely we worship than how strongly and frequently we condemn ourselves or others.

The love of God is big enough to cover all of our errors and failures, and powerful enough to transform any life into one of brilliance, if we will come to God with honesty and gratitude.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.