James, the brother of John reflects on the importance of washing your hands, but rebels against the ever present ‘thought police’

I can’t believe it!  They’re at it again – the thought police, the Pharisees!  This time they’re like a bunch of old nannies complaining that we haven’t washed our hands properly!

Well, nah de da de da!  What a thing to get so worked up about! Surely, they have got more important things to worry about?  Or have they?   It’s like they are watching us all the time… and you never know when they are going to pop out of the woodwork with one accusation or another.  All day, every day they are on alert, ready to pounce on Jesus.  It’s getting so tiresome!  You’d think it would be for them, too, because Jesus has sent them packing with their tails between their legs so many times already. But they are obsessed!  Obsessed with Jesus (who they have obviously declared ‘public enemy number one’); obsessed with their stupid laws (which they keep throwing in our faces all the time); and today they are obsessed with us washing our hands!

 My mother used to be like that when I was a child… a right nag about she was about it too.  Ask John – he’ll tell you!  ‘Let’s see your nails and the backs of your hands’, she’d demand and, believe you me, if she judged they weren’t clean enough we’d soon feel the back of hers!  After that, we’d make sure we scrubbed harder next time!   So, yes, we know how to wash our hands.  And when and where we should, too.  Mum taught us well.

So, I can see that it is important … but this fuss? 

‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’ Ma used to say, but they have taken it even further than that: ‘Cleanliness is godliness’ – that’s what they are teaching.  They have made a whole religion out of it!   And because we don’t comply with their petty rules and regulations as they expect, they’ve made us out to be heretics, can you believe it?!   They are very serious about it too.  I wouldn’t put it past them to demand stoning to death just for a little dirt under the finger nails!  It really feels like it’s gone that far!  How absurd!  But you have got to laugh… or else you really, really would cry!

Ok, Ok, I know it is not about dirty fingernails, really.  If it was, it would make more sense. You don’t want extra sand in your sandwiches, do you?!   My Mum was a good teacher so I know all about hygiene. But this is not about hygiene; it’s about tradition.  And this tradition is becoming more poisonous than anything I’ve ever got on my hands, I’d say.

And didn’t Jesus tell them!  Without a moment’s hesitation, he laid into them.  He quoted he prophet Isaiah at them and then said: ‘You have abandoned the commands of God and hold onto the traditions of men instead!’   (No holding back there, then!)

Jesus is obviously sick of it, too; rule after rule, regulation after regulation, ‘do this!’ and ‘don’t do that!’.   Layer upon layer of tradition has wrapped God’s word up and hidden it away so it is no longer recognisable at all!  Jesus just wants to rip all that packing away so we can get to the heart of the matter. But they still insist on it all, don’t they?  It’s clear that they prefer the wrapping paper to the present!  And if anyone dare question their bows and ribbons, then…!

Jesus carried on and tried to show them how they use their traditions to accuse us and strangle-hold others, whilst always finding a loophole for themselves. The hypocrites!  

For example, Jesus pointed out, Moses taught; ‘honour your father and mother’.  He even underlined its importance by ruling the death penalty for anyone who abuses their parents.  So, you and I would think there is not much of a get out for those who neglect their old mums and dads, right?  But they, Jesus accused, have found a clever way of getting round it.  ‘’You think that if you declare that something is ‘dedicated to God’ then it no longer has to be accounted in your ‘income column’ or assets.  That means you can say that you no longer have it to give to your parents when they need it.  But it’s a let out!  A con!’’ he insisted.   And so, it’s not God’s Word they are teaching. In fact, they nullify the Word of God by these man-made regulations… doing just the opposite of what it intends!  And this they are doing all the time, says Jesus.

‘Listen to me and understand this everyone’ he said. ‘Don’t get het up about rituals, rules and religion.  These count for nothing!  It’s not your hands that make you dirty, it’s your heart.  Nothing outside of you can make you unclean.  It’s what comes from deep inside that makes you unclean.’

When we were too dull to understand this straight away, he went on to say, ‘it’s not how or what you eat that matters (whatever all the regulations say).  What goes into the stomach is irrelevant.  That’s not the place of infection.  It’s the heart!  It is in the heart that all evil thoughts are given birth and nurtured.”  

So, he’s taught us, it is by their hearts that people are judged clean or unclean in God’s sight.  Clean hands may be important, but they have nothing on a pure a heart.  You can have the cleanest hands in the whole wide world, and yet have the filthiest heart.   And visa-versa.  I know plenty of working people who have the filthiest of hands, but biggest and best hearts I have ever known!  “It’s this that you should be concerned about”, Jesus says, “not pointless traditions, meaningless symbols, and empty pomp and show”.

I’m beginning to wonder now, if the Pharisees are actually hiding behind all their outward rules and rituals; using them as a smoke-screen because, for some reason, they dare not look at what is hiding in their hearts? 

To be honest, I wonder if I am a bit nervous about looking too deeply inside myself!  

But clear away tradition and get back to God’s word and what do I remember?  What was it that Samuel told Jesse that day when he anointed David as King; ‘People judge by outward appearance, but God looks at the heart’?   Indeed, in David’s own words: ‘What you desire is truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place’. (Psalm 51)    

Far from being overly concerned about washing my hands, I go along with David and say, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and put a new and loyal spirit within me.’