Thoughts for the Day

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it;and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Versions)

Thoughts

Like many people I have taught children to wash their hands after going to the toilet, and of course all of us became good at hand-washing during the covid pandemic. But in the Hebrew scriptures we see another aspect of hand-washing. Laws originally intended for worship in the Temple where priests were required to be 'holy before the Lord' (Exodus 30.17-21) were passed on to ordinary people after the exile to Babylon. By the time of Jesus, hand-washing occurred regularly on five occasions - after sleeping; going to the bathroom; leaving a cemetery; before a meal; and after a meal. This was less about cleanliness and more about ritual purity, for the hands had first to be clean before washing! They had to fill a cup with enough water for both hands, pour water twice on their dominant hand and then twice on the other hand. The water must cover the entire hand up to the wrist, with fingers separated so the water touched the whole of the hand. When drying the hands a blessing was to be recited.

As far as the Pharisees were concerned to eat without washing the hands was ritually unacceptable to God, so they questioned Jesus as to why his disciples were not obeying the 'tradition of the elders'. Jesus' answer is cutting. What makes us unclean is what comes from our hearts, not that which goes into our bodies from outside. These pious people had turned reverence to God into laws that rejected huge swathes of society.

Our challenge is something similar. We need to recognize how we, like the Pharisees can misinterpret what is important to God. Amy C. Howe (Pastor at Evergreen Presbyterian Church) asks, quite starkly: "Do we look at the dirty fingernails of our homeless brothers and sisters and think "They do not belong in our sanctuary"?" Do we do this to other groups of society - babies, teenagers, gays, or asylum seekers - not really welcoming them into our churches, rather than examining the sins that stain our own lives. Perhaps this is because examining our own life is painful.

Father-God,
forgive us when we find it easier to
busy ourselves with rules
rather than considering our own faults.
Forgive us when we are less than welcoming
to those we deem to be outsiders.
Forgive us when our church
becomes a cosy club.
Forgive us when we give up trying
to welcome all people.
May we draw closer to You
and begin to change our ways.
Amen.