This morning in our Gospel lesson, we hear a great deal about hand washing. The clear message is that ritualistic hand washing, as carefully practiced by the Pharisees, is all about cleaning the outside of us, while letting the inside of us remain uncleansed.
Now, we live in the time, and the season, of swine flu. We know the utmost importance of washing our hands, and, yes, to be sure, washing our hands may take on a ritualistic manner. Our wonderful new Bishop in the Diocese of Chicago, Jeffrey Lee, has told us that if we say The Lords Prayer twice, as we wash our hands, that will be just long enough to assure us they are clean. In the new Woody Allen film, ‘Whatever Work’s, the lead character, who is an eccentric and disagreeable genius, always sings Happy Birthday to himself, all the way through, also twice, as he washes his hands. Washing our hands, definitely, is a good thing.
What Jesus is telling us, in the hand washing story in Mark is the message we find in Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and put a new and right spirit within me.” These are beautiful and powerful words, and they suggest a willingness to become new from the inside out. It’s not about cleaning the outside, for, as Jesus says to his disciples, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. “for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come”. And Jesus lists the evil things, which come from within and defile a person. I’ll name just a few of them for you: theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, envy, and pride.
True faith comes from the heart, which can be the center of joy, love, and courage, or it can be full of pride, deceit and envy. Or, and this is true, I believe of all of us: the heart can be clear as the running water in a mountain stream or toxic and polluted, and each of us, at different times, is some mixture of the two. Which is why, as Christians, we are dedicated, always, to the effort to become new from the inside out, and this is a life work’s, helped by God’s grace, when the going gets tough, as always it does.
Recently, I tremendously enjoyed a film I got from Netflix: The Barchester Chronicles, a British television min-series produced by the BBC. Our New Testament Professor at Deacon School had highly recommended the series to us. The story is an adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels, which, if you haven’t read them, are a pure delight. The series is filmed in and around Peterborough Cathedral, very similar to Salisbury Cathedral, where our choir recently stayed and sang, and where I’ll be visiting on a pilgrimage trip next month. If all that doesn’t tempt you to see The Barchester Chronicles, note also that the average viewer gave the series no less than 7 and 1/2 stars.
Other than the brilliant direction and casting, what makes this series so thoroughly delightful and entertaining is that it’s all about the Anglican clergy, who look magnificent on the outside yet some of them struggle mightily with the evils of pride and envy on the uncleansed inside. The drama turns on the ambition and manipulations of Archdeacon Grantley, whom we delight in seeing as the villain until the arrogant and condescending Obadiah Slope arrives as Chaplain to the Bishop of Barchester. Obadiah Slope (isn’t that a great name?) has perfected the art of the supercilious sneer, and he proceeds to alienate all through his ambition, envy, and ultimately, his folly. Throughout the film (and it’s a 2 disc film), the Rev. Septimus Harding is a model of all truly Christian virtues, as an Anglican clergyman who is entirely loving; he has a clean heart and right spirit on the inside.
Let’s take a look at two of the “evils” rampant in The Barchester Chronicles. One is pride, and the other is envy. At the root of pride is the fear of humiliation. For Archdeacon Grantly, it is important to be perceived as successful, as upwardly mobile in the church hierarchy. His highly calculated moves are bent towards insuring his own success. At the thought of another clergyman receiving the promotion which the Archdeacon had dearly hoped for, his envy, which nakedly plays across his face, is a nasty business. When you envy someone, it can consume you, as well as diminish you, for you’re unable to celebrate the real achievements of others and to support them wholly in their endeavors. An envious person is someone who thinks he or she never gets enough, and that can lead to a sense of entitlement, a dark emotion nurtured by Obadiah Slope, who feels totally entitled to be named as the next Dean of the Cathedral.
Pride, envy, and entitlement: we all can relate to these. I know I can. These very human inclinations thread in and out of our daily lives in the world. And, this brings us to the very basic and critical question: how are we, as Christians, to live out our faith in the world?
Our New Testament lesson this morning, from James, actually, is a guide for us today. James was the brother of Jesus, and he led the church in Jerusalem. The early Christian assemblies, whom James was addressing, were small groups, perhaps 30-50 people, newly sustained by their faith in Jesus, the Christ. The Christians were tiny minorities living among large numbers of people who were at best indifferent, if not hostile, to their beliefs. Living ourselves in a highly secularized culture, we can identify easily with these early Christians. James wrote so that the early Christians might have the wisdom and discernment not to fall back into the dominant values and behavior of their culture. James writes: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
To keep oneself “unstained by the world.” That was the challenge for the Vicars of Barchester and that is our challenge as Christians today. How do we do it? How do we keep ourselves from being infected by worldly temptations and our own egoic ambitions , which arouse pride and envy deep within us? It helps to become conscious and aware of what we say and do, and why we say and do it. It helps to be reflective, in a loving and gentle way, with ourselves, and continually to ask God to help us, to open ourselves up continually to God’s grace at work within us. I know if I feel a flash of envy, now, I am discerning and wise enough, at least afterwards, to offer up that slip to God, that envy may be removed from my emotional repertoire and from my heart, and then I fully can celebrate the success and good fortune of another. The key thing is to be gentle with ourselves, to know that we are human, that we will slip into interior monologues that belie our professed identity as Christians. Once we have the awareness of what we do, it’s the first step to no longer doing it. Bit by bit, with God’s help, we can clean the interior of our hearts, so that love, joy, and courage will shine forth, and those nasty weeds of pride, envy, and entitlement, which separate us from one another, and from God, will be purged from our very beings. We will become new from the inside out.
So, in the coming weeks and months, as we carefully wash our hands, saying the Lord’s Prayer twice, or singing Happy Birthday to ourselves twice, so we’re sure our hands are clear of bacteria, let’s also take a few seconds to imagine golden healing light pouring through our entire body, as the Holy Spirit is working within and through us to cleanse us of all toxicity
I’d like to close today with a quote from the wondrous 12 century Christian mystic and gifted healer, Hildegard of Bingen:
“Holy Spirit, giving life to all life, moving all creatures, root of all things, washing them clean, wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds, you are our true life, luminous, wonderful, awakening the heart from its ancient sleep.”
Amen
