Everything Will Be Clean

October 16, 2007

Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

For I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then Greek. For in it is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous by faith will live.” Romans 1:16-17

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. Luke 11:39-41

Piety

Father, help us when we act like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. Just as they desire to obey you, so do we. Just as they are trapped by their sins and viewpoints, so are we. Forgive us and teach us the way to cleansing our (external) body and our (internal) spirit. Give us an outlook that is marked by a preferential option for the poor, rather than a preferential outlook for our own health and well-being. Create in us a clean heart, an unselfish heart. Amen.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/101607.shtml

Sometimes we can get trapped in our old habits and ways of thinking. This trap keps us stuck in the past or present, unable to see the new information that is staring us in the face. Jesus continues his table-turning teachings of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel.

Today’s lesson begins as Jesus does not perform a ritual washing before he eats with the Pharisees. He knows that this will be a problem and that his hosts will notice what He is doing – or in this case NOT doing.

Luke does not place Jesus as an outsider criticizing the Pharisees. Instead, he is among them trying to teach new lessons. The NAB notes explain that the denunciation of the Pharisees in Luke 11:39-44 is set in the context of Jesus' dining at the home of a Pharisee. Controversies with or reprimands of Pharisees are regularly set by Luke within the context of Jesus' eating with Pharisees. Others appear in Luke 5:29-39; 7:36-50; 14:1-24.

Yet, like the disciples, the Pharisees just don’t understand the new perspective that Jesus offers. Jesus tries and tries and tries to teach them his new message. Instead, the Pharisees cling to old laws and viewpoints. Today, they are clinging to the old laws about purity.

As St. Paul teaches in Romans, the violation of purity comes from the choices we make. Jesus underlines that by teaching that nothing that Gods makes can be bad. Like the yellow and red buttons read, “God Don’t Make Junk.”

“For although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. (Romans 1:21-23)

Impurity, then, is created by the mind of people, not by the handiwork of God. God simply allows us the freedom to make choices, even if the choices are bad. So rather than create and perpetuate rituals of cleanliness, Jesus tries to teach that everything made by God is good. He does this with his words as well as with his deeds.

This chapter, which begins with Jesus teaching a new way to pray, includes this new perspective on the goodness of everything which comes from God.

Jesus does not only make the distinction between the interior and exterior cleansing, He also delivers a lesson in how we can achieve interior cleansing.

But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you (Luke 11:41). Love and mercy require us to help the poor – echoing the message about the poor reflected throughout the Gospel of Luke. Behold! Such action is one detergent to wash away the greed and selfishness that turns our interior being unclean.

Action

What old ways of thinking do you need to break out of? How do the attitudes of the Pharisees come out in your life? What are you doing to change that?