May Jesus Christ be
praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.
At the entrance of many
stores and many restaurants, and every few feet in the hospital and nursing
homes there are stands with automatic dispensers for hand sanitizer. We see
these every day. There is a constant invitation to clean our hands. There is a
constant reminder that it is good for us to keep our hands clean. And that is a
good thing because clean hands help prevent the spread of disease and they help
to keep us healthy. It is good to be concerned about clean hands.
The Pharisees were
concerned about clean hands, but they had a different reason. For the
Pharisees, cleaning your hands was about religious observance. It was a ritual
practice and those who did not follow this practice were considered to be
unclean. They were considered to be unfaithful to all of the additions that had
been made to the Law of Moses. For the Pharisees, failing to properly clean the
hands was an outward sign that the person did not offer proper respect to the
law and proper worship to the Lord. For the Pharisees, cleans hands were a sign
of righteousness and fidelity.
The Lord Jesus, on the
other hand, was more concerned about clean hearts. Hands are external. We can
see them, we can show them, we can shake them, and we can easily clean them.
But the heart is hidden. We are careful to reveal it, even more careful to
share it, and the heart is much more difficult to clean. Within our hearts we
keep love, and affection, and compassion. But we also keep grudges, and
bitterness and jealousy and rage. We keep all kinds of things hidden in our
hearts. That is why it is so much easier to wash our hands than to clean our
hearts.
Fortunately, my dear
brothers and sisters, the cleaning of our hearts is the work of the grace of
God, with our cooperation. The Lord God, who loved the people of Israel enough
to give them the law so that they could live with justice and in freedom, has
planted his law in our hearts. He has planted his word within us so that we can
be a witness to the world and an offering to him. The Lord has claimed our
hearts by his gift so that we can reject every evil that arises in our hearts.
He has willed to make us new by the word of truth. By his grace and by the gift
that we make of our hearts we are able to renounce our selfishness and embrace
the generosity of God.
But then, if we embrace
the generosity of God and we walk the road with Jesus, we might get our hands
dirty. The Pharisees criticized the disciples of Jesus because their hands were
dirty. But the disciples’ hands were dirty because they had been working with
the Lord Jesus. They had been feeding the poor on the side of the mountain.
They had been fishing on the sea. They had been visiting and curing the sick.
Their hands were dirty because they had been laboring in the vineyard of the
Lord. And we are blessed to have many opportunities to get our hands dirty in
the vineyard of the Lord.
We can get our hands
dirty feeding and serving the hungry with the Brothers of the Missionaries of
the Poor in our parish. We can get our hands dirty by teaching and working with
our children and young people in our faith formation program. We can get our
hands dirty in the holy work of caring for our families. We can even get our
hands dirty by picking up a hymnal and singing at Mass. We can get our hands
dirty in the vineyard of the Lord right here, right in this parish, right in this community.
As we lift up our hearts
in the Eucharist, we ask the Lord to make them clean and to strengthen our
hands to do his work in the vineyard. Amen.
Preached
at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC
