Wash Up and Wake Up!
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 4:1–2, 6–8 / Psalm 15:1a / James 1:17–18, 21b–22, 27 / Mark 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23
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Reflecting on the Word
By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger
Have you ever been relaxing in a nice hot shower when suddenly you got blasted with cold water? Someone started the washing machine, turned on a hose, flushed, and—unexpectedly—liquid icicles stream from the shower head. It wakes you up!
That’s what Jesus did to the Pharisees in today’s reading. They were comfortable with their purification rules. Washing hands mattered to them—they washed when they woke up. They washed before eating. They bathed once a week before the Sabbath. That washing set them apart from others in their day. (They probably smelled better than the Romans and the Greeks as well.) They were comfortable with their nice balmy shower. Then Jesus startled them up with a blast of cold water. They cried out, “What? Your disciples don’t wash?”
Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t wash.” He said, “Don’t be satisfied with external washing only.” In the Beatitudes, he also said, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” Clean is good.
Seasons of blessing flow upon us like a nice warm shower. Times of trial, on the other hand, wake us up. Hardships can be more than a sudden blast of icy water. Sufferings can rip us apart. Our true character is revealed in times of trouble; we can no longer bask in ease.
Jesus calls us to a cleanliness that is deeper than soaping our shoulders in a warm shower. Jesus asks us to allow the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier to flood us, to purify us, to wash us from the inside out: as St. James says, to do justice, to walk blamelessly, to be doers of the word and not hearers only, to care for widows and orphans, to keep ourselves unstained by the world. Clean is good. Jesus says, “Be holy.” Nothing less.
Consider/Discuss
- What? Don’t wash your hands? In our world, “Wash your hands” messages are still everywhere. Yet in the ancient world, hand washing and other hygienic practices were rare. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that a Hungarian doctor discovered that washing his hands between treating new mothers increased their survival rates—he was considered to be an oddball. How does this passage strike you, that Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands? How much knowledge about disease transmission do we take for granted?
- Holiness—where have you seen goodness and kindness in ordinary life, a robust “doing” of the word rather than “just talking about it”? Who do you know whom you’d consider a “clean” or “pure” person as St. James defines it, by the way that person treats others?
Living and Praying with the Word
Holy Spirit, you are the one who sanctifies. You are the one who makes us pure. You are the source of our holiness. Wash us clean. Scrub out the gunk that blocks your love from flowing through us. This world needs your strength and your power. The world in which we live needs your goodness and your care. We cannot do this on our own. Sanctify us for this task.