August 24, 2021
This week’s Tuesday’s Thoughts on Scripture comes from Mark 7:15: [Jesus said] there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” (NRSV)
When I was in my teens, my granny (father’s mother) lived with us. She and I had a tendency to argue a lot. Well, ok, I would argue and she would mostly just take it. Definitely not my shining moment in time.
Back then, after supper, it was my job to wash the dishes. Granny would dry. Or we would reverse the tasks. When I dried, it would please me greatly to throw something back to rewash that I felt had not been cleaned completely. You missed a spot, I would proudly tell her. That was the time she would finally retaliate - I wish you were as clean on the inside as you are on the outside.
Yes, I deserved her comment, but it hurt, nonetheless. I wanted to be clean on the inside, to be kind and understanding and patient. But the harder I tried, the further from my intention I would get. I liked to think it was Granny who was pushing my buttons, but that was not the case at all. It was inside me, fueled by my anger. My life had changed with her coming to live with us and I had nowhere to process that. I was mad and this was long before I knew God, understood grace, or considered someone else's feelings ahead of my own.
In our scripture verse, Jesus was talking about the accusation made to his disciples for not washing their hands before they ate and thereby not following the law. It was not the germs that defiled, Jesus tried to tell them. Instead, it was their hardened hearts that kept them from right relationship with God. Just as it was my anger that kept my Granny at arm’s length. She knew that, but had a hard time helping me understand. Fortunately we had opportunity to get past all that before she died. Oh, she was a wise woman!
Blessings. And prayers.
