Creative Team Building and Leadership Resources - In our Elements

All Washed Up

Monday, June 6th, 2011

Fellow Passengers: This week’s Primary Passage* (Matthew 15:1-20) transports me to a scene marked by some holy high jinks of hygiene, in a sacred showdown of etiquette versus ethics. Jesus dis-respects his elders over their critique of the dirty disciples, who ran afoul of custom and convention by daring to eat their bread without the ceremonial hand washing. This is one of those passages that kids should probably not read and memorize, lest they take it too literally and refuse their mom’s and dad’s request to get back to that bathroom right now and put some soap on those filthy hands! Make sure the water’s hot! And you’re not finished until you’ve had time to sing happy birthday while you’re washing!

While Jesus must have heard the aphorism that cleanliness is next to godliness, He apparently believed that there were other things even closer to godliness. Like compassion and grace. And cleanliness in and of itself was no guarantee of close proximity to godliness. Clean hands and hypocrisy, for instance, kept one a safe distance from God. Clean hands and lip service kept equal distance from the Holy. These elders of Jesus’ day treasured tradition over the true spirit of the law God had given them to live by. They no doubt walked around singing the Fiddler on the Roof song at max volume, Tradition! Tradition! but their customs had long overshadowed the core values of the covenant. So they came to Jesus, after having washed their hands many times that day, to complain about the un-hygenic practices of the disciples, whose hands were permanently stained with the grit and grime common to fishermen. The focus of Jesus’ followers was on trying to understand what their Lord was all about, for He was often a mystery to them. Had they paid any attention at all to the elders, they might have agreed with Barney Fife, who had been reading again and gave Andy some of his newly discovered insights. Barney’s magazines told him that some people have what you call a handwashing compelsion. There are all sorts of compelsions, Barney went on, and this explained the odd behavior of the strangers who kept going to Floyd’s Barbershop. They have a hair-cutting compelsion. They can’t help it, the well-read deputy explained.

But, after Jesus finished his dissing of the compelsion-ridden wise fools, his followers were still scratching their heads (with dirty hands). What was all that about, Jesus? So He had to shift into teacher mode to give the dull disciples a primer in psycho-biology 101. Whatever goes in your mouth, including the grease under your nails, will all come out in the wash, so to speak. But what comes out of your mouth, this is a different story, this is where you separate the clean from the filthy. Listen closely to those religious folks. Do you hear grace and compassion coming out of their mouths? No, that’s because their hearts are filled with evil, with bigotry, with pride and prejudice. Those holier-than thous are all washed up. I can just hear the disciples, responding as so many struggling students do, will this be on the test?

How about you? Where does this Primary Passage take you on your journey of faith? Feel free to comment.

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  • Matthew 15:1-20

    *Today's Passage

    Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.’ He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that whoever tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God”, then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 
in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” ’

    Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’

      –Matthew 15:1-20, NRSV