Walk the Talk

Did Jesus really say that religious people shouldn’t wash their hands? Of course, washing our hands is one of the common, habitual actions that we do. You know that ubiquitous sign in restaurant rest rooms: “All employees must wash their hands before returning to work.” In the winter we’re told that the best way to prevent spreading flu and colds is to wash our hands. It goes without saying that hand-washing is standard practice in any healthcare setting. However, for religious leaders in Jesus’ time – and no doubt thirty or so years later when the Gospel of Mark was written – hand-washing was not a hygienic practice but, rather, a religious practice. In suggesting that all Jews followed this practice, Mark may have been exaggerating, or perhaps responding to questions put to followers of Jesus. Certainly, working class people, like most of Jesus’ followers, would not have been able to regularly practice the ritual washing of hands.

So did Jesus really condemn hand-washing? Our gospel lection for today is an odd one. We really should read all twenty-three verses – and I urge you to do so when you get home. Following the quote from Isaiah is an example of real hypocrisy, viz., the way some pious people disobey the commandment to honor one’s parents by entrusting their money to the temple. Then Jesus moves into a private conversation with the disciples. He explains that true piety has nothing to do with food, but rather with what is in their hearts. If you think that our lection, as we have it, doesn’t hang together, you’re right!

So did Jesus condemn hand-washing? Notice what Jesus did not say. He did not condemn tradition. He was not against hand-washing or other similar ritual practices. As a good Jew and a rabbi, he may well have followed such practices himself. Nor did Jesus condemn the Pharisees as people or as religious leaders. Again, as a rabbi, he knew full well that the Jews’ distinctive religious practices, dress, and diet helped ensure their survival as a minority community in a religiously diverse world.

What Jesus did condemn the Pharisees for was emphasizing tradition and custom, indeed the many minute and trifling customs which pious people had devised, and neglecting the larger demands of God’s commandments. Moreover, the practices of hand-washing and other similar practices of ritual purification were available only to a select few and enabled those privileged few to see themselves as superior to working class people, artisans, and peasants, indeed any people who worked with their hands. Most important, Jesus was condemning the religious leaders for focusing on their own practices, what I do, rather than on the needs of others. If our text hangs together it is in this: that focusing on oneself and one’s own needs, seeing the world only from our own point of view, our own limited understanding and lifestyle, is ultimately the source of the evil intentions which Jesus names.

So the answer to the question is “No.” Nevertheless, let’s be clear: Jesus did not condemn religious practices as such. Rather, he condemned practices that were self-referential, that led to the exclusion of large groups of people, and that did not reflect the Torah and the foundational values that underlay God’s covenant with the Jews.

Our lesson from the Letter of James, which we began today, reinforces what we’ve just heard in the gospel. Like the letter to the Ephesians, this letter too was probably an encyclical, i.e., a letter not addressed to a specific Christian community but intended for circulation among several communities. It lacks the parts common to letters in the ancient world, and it seems to keep changing topics – you can hear that even in the portion we heard today. But there is an over-arching theme to this letter. As you could hear today, James emphasizes the importance of good works, of good practices if you will. If the Pharisees had asked Jesus what they should do, he might have answered with much of James’ letter.

So what practices does James commend to his hearers? To begin with, the writer says, we must remember that whatever we have comes from God – there are no self-made people in this world – and that God expects us to use God’s gifts to advance God’s reign. Secondly, James asks us to listen carefully to the needs and concerns of others, not jumping in with our own ideas and observations, but attentively taking in what other people are offering us. Finally, James reminds us that as followers of Jesus we are called to take care of the most vulnerable members of society, the “widows and orphans,” i.e., those who have no economic or social support. In a word, like Jesus, James calls us to actualize our faith in our behavior, in truly loving practices, in a word, to “walk the talk.”

What does that look like in real life? What religious practices might help us to avoid Jesus’ condemnation and fulfill James’ criteria? Serious Christians have asked these questions since the earliest Christian communities began to gather. Actually, even before Jesus’ time, the Essenes, the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, retired to separate communities where they followed an austere lifestyle and devoted themselves to prayer and study. In the twelfth century, Francis and Clare of Assisi tried to create communities that followed Jesus’ own way of life. They took literally Jesus’ commands to “take nothing for the journey, eat what is set before you, wear no shoes, and work for your wages,” i.e., to live exactly as Jesus had lived. Thus the earliest Franciscans lived among and served the poorest in society, owned nothing, begged for what they needed, and took comfort in being far from the seats of power. However, like many similar communities – like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Celtic monastics, the Beguines, and the Bruderhof – they found it difficult to sustain this lifestyle, despite their commitment to Jesus and to Francis’s teachings. Like others, the Franciscans eventually also became clericalized, settled, and wealthy. Fortunately, in the twenty-first century, Francis’s “alternative orthodoxy,” as Richard Rohr calls it, is being rediscovered by the Franciscans themselves, by the Nuns on the Bus, and by intentional communities like the School for Conversion in inner-city Durham, North Carolina.

And what of us? What does faithful practice look like for us ordinary folks in the twenty-first century? We are not monastics or even members of intentional communities – although it is possible to be an associate of a religious order or support the work of alternative intentional communities. “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” What would that evidence actually look like? First of all, we are called to be clear about what we do profess. We say the Nicene Creed every Sunday. We say the Apostles Creed and repeat the baptismal promises at every baptism. Do the statements in these creeds or promises mean anything to us, or do we just repeat them? One of the reasons I like Joan Chittister’s book In Search of Belief, which I mentioned in the e-news, is that she fleshes out the implications for our lives of every phrase of the Apostles Creed. I commend the book to you.

I am going out on a limb. In addition to our secular lives, our lives involving work, family, and friends, I’d like to suggest a minimum set of practices that will enable us to live a little more as Jesus lived, that will help actualize our faith, and that will strengthen our ability to “walk the talk.” The first practice is some form of daily prayer – even five minutes worth. You can say “good morning” to God before you get out of bed, you can pause at your lunch hour, or you can review the day with God before going to bed. A couple of weeks ago, the comic strip character Ziggy is shown looking up towards a sunbeam. He says, “Oh, I’m not asking for anything…. I just wanted to know how you are doing today!” Did you ever consider saying that to God yourself?

The second essential practice is some form of Sabbath. Yes, ideally, we all ought to be able to take an entire day – and just do nothing! If an entire day isn’t possible, pencil in some time, any amount, to rest from your labors – and from all electronic devices, to study, pray, enjoy nature, or just rest. The third practice is regular worship, ideally every Sunday. If we are to continue to grow as Jesus’ followers, we need regular spiritual nourishment, just as much as our bodies need physical nourishment. The fourth and final practice is some regular form or self-reflection. We need to take the time to periodically ask ourselves these questions: how does my life reflect my faith? How do my practices, my habitual behaviors, my daily life both draw me closer to God and increase my compassion for others?

And then we can trust that, when we ask for God’s grace to do all this, God will lavishly bestow that grace on us. We trust that God is indeed “the giver of all good things,” who will enable us to show forth our commitment to Jesus and our praise of God not only with our lips but always in our lives.