Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." Then he called the crowds again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." Prayer: God of steadfast love, we pray that you would write your love upon our hearts. We listen with expectant ears to the words of our Savior, who made known to us your commandment to love one another. May we sense your Spirit at work this morning, opening us to the well spring of love you have for each of us. May my words be transformed into your word for each person gathered here. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

I will never forget the first time I read Shakespeare's MacBeth. The words that haunted me were Lady MacBeth's, "Out! Out, Damn Spot!" I envisioned her almost howling. The words seemed to me a bridge from sanity to insanity. She crossed the bridge. She could not get her hands clean because it was not her hands that were soiled. It was her soul. Her words have captured the attention of people for centuries because although she is insane, she is doing something that sane people do regularly. She tries to move the evil within her soul to the outside of her body. We want to do that, too. We want to locate evil outside ourselves. When I am big enough to admit that I have done something wrong-that I have sinned-I immediately look for someone or something to blame. It is amazing to me that I can be big enough to admit a mistake, but not to take responsibility for it. This story is about the issue of where evil originates and how we can be cleansed from it. The scripture is about the tendency of the Pharisees had (and we have) to try to locate evil outside themselves and through religiosity to distance themselves from it. It is not about washing hands before meals and good hygiene. It is about habits of the heart because it is through our hearts that Jesus brings cleansing. One of the ironies of this story is that our first reaction can be to harshly judge the Pharisees for being judging. We are critical of them for designing an elaborate system of rights and wrongs, but we do the same thing. We in the church can get so embroiled in arguments about the best ways to serve God, that we actually stop serving God. Focusing on the wrong things can become a habit. Years ago I heard someone say, "When God measures a person, God puts the tape around the heart, not the head." I wish I knew who to credit for that thought. I believe it sums things up pretty well. Even late in life my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Ray were affectionate with each other. One time I asked Carolyn how she fell in love with Ray. She said that soon after they met, Ray had some health problems. He was rushed to the hospital. When Carolyn got in to see him, she asked what the diagnosis was. Ray said, "My heart is simply too big for one person. I need to share it with you. Will you share it with me?" Carolyn's heart melted. She was a nurse, and knew how serious an enlarged heart was, but the way he told about his heart was affectionate and endearing to her. They married not long after that and shared a lifetime developing loving habits of the heart. In Jesus Christ, God has just too much heart for one person. The first step on our spiritual journey is to see God as embracing the world in love. Jesus tells us that the measure of a person cannot be known by looking at the outside. We need to reverse our normal approach. We are always trying to locate evil outside ourselves. What we are called to do is accept the heart of Christ, and learn to do what he does: look for the good in others and ourselves. Lest you think that I am not being practical, let me mention a good management reason for switching our perspective. We spend much of our time focusing on the things that employees, friends, and spouses do poorly and we tend to neglect the things they do well. If instead we would focus on the things they do well, and find alternate ways to get the other things done by someone else, our lives would be better. I often point this principle out to couples in premarital counseling. You can't image the stress that is relieved when the attention is focused on the good. Together they can figure out how to get the other things done. The second step on our spiritual journey is accepting the love of Jesus for us. Often we have a terribly difficult time accepting and loving ourselves. That is why we hurry to point fingers at others-we don't want to face ourselves, but God's love isn't limited by our own ability to love ourselves. I have a friend named Dennis who likes to coach people into accepting God's love by saying, "Think of the person in the world who loves you the most. Then remember that that God loves you that much and more!" Sometimes we get so focused on finding faults and changing other people that we aren't very loving. Francis MacNutt tells a wonderful story about this: "Several years ago, [a woman named Ann] asked a friend to pray with her husband. Ann complained that her husband never went to church or to the prayer meeting. All he wanted to do was sit in front of the television and watch football games. "Ann wanted God to make her husband more spiritual. For Ann, 'spiritual' meant that he would pray and attend church as much as she did. Ann believed Jesus prayed all the time, and so did she. As Ann had become increasingly absorbed in prayer and church attendance, her husband had become less and less interested in these things. His wife wasn't any fun and he figured Jesus wasn't either. "Sensing that the one who really needed healing was Ann rather than her husband, [the friend] asked if he could pray with her. As he prayed with Ann, he could see that she felt deeply moved by what was happening. Suddenly Ann burst out laughing. She said that she had seen Jesus come into her house, go through the kitchen door and into the living room, which was a mess. Ann felt embarrassed, because she would have cleaned up the house if she had known Jesus was coming. But the mess didn't seem to bother Jesus. "Jesus asked Ann where her husband was. Ann answered that he was in the basement watching television. Jesus went down the stairs into the basement. When he didn't reappear for a while. Ann went downstairs and found Jesus sitting on the couch next to her husband, watching the football game. "Ann understood that Jesus wanted her to do the same thing. Jesus wanted her to stop overusing prayer and churchgoing, and start enjoying life with her husband." [Francis MacNutt as quoted by Matthew Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Dennis Linn in Healing Spiritual Abuse & Religious Addiction, (Paulist Press: New York/Mahwah, 1994) pp. 1-20] The first step on our spiritual journey is seeing the tremendous love that God has. Second, we are to accept the love of Jesus for us in our hearts. The third step is to accept and build in our hearts the love of Jesus for others. Sharing Jesus' love for others can be life giving. In a workbook for youth called Faithful Questions, there is a poem by a woman named Hope Douglas Harle-Mould: There was an old woman, a shut-in with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) which was getting worse. She could hardly walk. Many nights she would cry herself to sleep knowing she would probably never leave her home again, until she was taken out to be buried. One day, something made her pick up her Bible, where she found the words of II Corinthians 12:8-10. Paul wrote, "Three times I prayed to the Lord about this (physical ailment) and asked him to take it away. But his answer was: 'My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak'…I am content with weaknesses…for when you are weak then I am strong." The woman saw herself for the first time as God saw her. God had a purpose for her and God's strength would be perfected in her own weakness. She looked around her apartment and saw her typewriter. Her typewriter would be her eyes and hands in the world. Her typewriter would be her salvation. Her ministry would be letter writing and her cause was human rights. From her bed, she typed letter after letter trying to set 'prisoners of conscience' free. Through Amnesty International she adopted a prisoner of conscience in Indonesia. They gave her sole responsibility for obtaining his release. She knew little about her prisoner. He was accused of being a Communist when he joined a non-violent protest against the thousands of prisoners being tortured. He himself was arrested and tortured. He had been behind bars for five years. Her letters began. She wrote to the dictator of Indonesia. She wrote to the minister of justice and the cabinet. She began writing to subordinates in the government. Then she wrote to the prison administrators and wardens. Eventually she wrote to the guards in his prison. "One day she was writing her 17th letter to the minister of justice when she stopped to open her mail. Her prisoner had written her a letter. It was from his own home. He was free. He wrote: 'They kept seeing and hearing my name. I had been lost and forgotten but you wouldn't let them forget me. When they finally released me, they said my file was two inches thick with correspondence. They said that it was too much trouble for one prisoner. I owe you my life. May every political prisoner's file become two inches thick. Thank you.' "Streams of tears wet the envelope. The woman shook her head, reading it again and again. Now she could die in peace, knowing that she saved one person. Except for one thing-that last thing that he had said. She continues to type…" ["The Freedom Fighter," Hope Douglas Harle-Mould, quoted in Faithful Questions: Faith for Life, by Joyce MacKichan Walker, (The Logos Program Associates, 1989) pp. 47-48] The scripture we read today is not about washing hands, it is about brave, clean hearts. To grow such hearts we must be nurtured in the communion of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.