After Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, "Oh, you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms and behold, everything will be clean for you."
The Gospel of the Lord.
As my grandmother got to be about my age now, and I was 13 and 14, I would stay at her house while my grandfather was away on trips. Sadie Johnson was my grandmother's cook and what a great cook Sadie was. When we would sit down for dinner, my grandmother would ask, "Dan, have you washed your hands?" And too often I would reply, "No, Grandma." And she would say, "Dan, a gentleman always washes before dining." Some things stay with you, and that has stayed with me. At Calvary, it helps remind me to cleanse my hands before I enter a patient's room and after I leave, for infection in a hospital is most commonly spread through one's hands.
The dietary and cleansing routines set forth in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, are health advisories, intended for the prevention of diseases. But here "The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal." The Pharisee did not observe Jesus washing. But the Pharisee did not ask, as my grandmother would ask me, whether Jesus had cleansed himself; instead whether Jesus had cleansed himself so that the Pharisee could observe him doing so. And since Jesus had not acted so as to be observed, the Pharisee was wandering into the error our parents caution us against, "Judge not lest ye be judged." And Jesus was judging the Pharisee for what Jesus as God can observe, the Pharisee's inner self. That inner self is what Jesus has come to heal, it is our unloving and ungenerous thoughts, no matter what our appearance may be to those looking at our surface.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us!
Oft-quoted lines from Robbie Burns. If you are not familiar with Scottish dialect: he prays that some Power would give us the gift to see ourselves from the outside. What do you think? – Would it be a good thing?
“Give for alms those things that are within.” What does this mean?
That inner source where forgiveness arises must be a pure source, with no hidden poison in it. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, “Christ shows that those who sincerely serve God must be pure and clean…from what is hidden inside the mind.” If that source is pure, then we will not be secretly injecting poison into all our thoughts and actions. Then, as Jesus said, “everything will be clean for you.”
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