Keep it simple: just remember why.
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 29, 2021
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 • James 1:17-27 • Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Hands: so many hands. Soft hands. Caressing hands. Touching hands. Healing hands. Praying hands. Hands to hold. Hands stretched out in love.
Back in the day when we were at the beginning stages of learning about Covid-19, do you remember when all touching was fraught with potential danger. Mail and groceries languished in garages before being brought in the house. We learnt the difference between sanitizing, disinfecting, and sterilizing. We wore and still wear face masks, both to guard our breathing in and breathing out, and to prevent us from touching eyes, noses, and mouths. We are constant touchers. It is our way.
Today we hear about the Pharisees pointing their ritually pure fingers at Jesus’ followers sitting down to eat with the so called ‘defiled hands’. They had failed to perform netilat yadayim, typically using a two-handled spoon, pouring water twice over the dominant hand and once over the other saying the prayer:
Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu al n’tilat yadayim.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments, and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands.
What’s the big deal you might ask? With everything we know about germs, whether Covid-19 or not, it’s a good idea to wash one’s hands before eating.
There’s history of course between the Pharisees, the self-appointed gate-keepers of Jewish law, who follow Jesus around constantly: not to learn, but to nit-pick and to try to diminish him whenever he strays. For the Pharisees, righteousness is inextricably linked with the law. You break the law, you are a sinner.
For Jesus, there is more than the humanly constructed, flawed Law. What’s most important for Jesus is that we should live according to the two great commandments: loving God with our hearts, souls, and minds; and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Tying ourselves and other people up in questionable rules can really get in the way, and can be a burden on those whose life styles doesn’t have room for too much restrictive detail.
Ritual practices can be important. As a priest, I can make the time to perform a number of small ones every Sunday morning. Some priests perform many more. I have found the ones that have the most powerful meaning for me, and enable me to be very intentional in my presence with you as a priest. These rituals both focus my attention and free me to be open to the power of God that is within and around each one of us at all times.
A Priest’s Handbook can supply you with prayers for every stage of preparation and worship. As a priest of some fifteen years, I have settled on just few that I find most helpful. I pray when I put my white alb on, when I tie my cincture around my waist, when I put the chasuble over my head. These prayers are all about remembering, paying attention, asking for God’s blessing. They quieten and ground me. They allow me to take Jane out of the spotlight, and allow God’s servant, your servant, to take the stage. And yes, just before she begins the Eucharistic Prayer, she washes her hands, saying a prayer.
While ritual actions can be powerful they are tools to an end, not the end themselves. Anthony de Mello in his book, The Song of the Bird, has a story about an ashram cat.
There was once a cat living in an ashram, and every evening when the guru would sit down to meditate with the community, the cat would make a nuisance of itself by distracting the worshippers. So the guru ordered that that cat should be tied up during evening worship. After the guru died, the cat continued to be tied up at this time. That cat eventually died, and the community got a new one. And, you’ve guessed it, every evening that cat would be brought to the ashram so that it could also be tied up during worship. This tradition continued for years. Way past anyone remembering why the cat was tied up. And indeed, scholars of the ashram started writing learned treatises on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat during evening worship...
Life can so much less complicated that we usually make it. As the extract from the Letter of James that we heard this morning tells us. It’s very simple: everything that we have, that we are, comes from the God who loves us so much. We need to find ways, daily practices, to help us remember this, to support us in the way of being that Jesus articulated for us: loving God, loving each other, and loving ourselves.
And above all: don’t tie up the cat!