[Hbr. 13:1-8, 15-16; Lk. 14:1, 7-14]
The references to various forms of impurity in this morning's readings might create a false sense of purity, because it’s not just about sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, it’s also about ableism and a disdain for the poor. It’s not just about a physical impurity, but also a mental one, a psychological one, a financial one, even a religious one.
This morning's readings go deeper than just external cleanliness.
Many readers of Hebrews might very well focus and even obsess about the marital bed, but that’s not the only topic discussed here. Luke from his side describes people who were physically imperfect and therefore ritually unclean, and therefore on the fringe of society and religion, unseen and uninvited.
We read how an emphasis on and a demand for physical purity leads to a religious mentality that makes a fellow human being completely invisible, ignored, even despised.
What does this mean for us today?
It’s an exhortation and a call to each of us to take a deep and candid look into our hearts and souls, and be very honest about how we deal with our own God-given physicality and spirituality.
Do we feel good about it? What's more, does it make us feel better, superior to the neighbour?
How do we deal with illness, limitations and healing; how do we treat the neighbour?
Are we grateful for our physical fitness, and do we make these physical and also material capacities available to the neighbour, to the other?
Or do we prefer to ignore them, often out of fear that it could happen to us too.
How do we deal with our religious capacities; do we share them or do we prefer to keep it all to ourselves, because 'the rest' wouldn't understand it anyway, ‘they’ aren’t ready for it yet, or in the right place.
People don't like to share, because they believe that sharing means loss. Like grace, kindness and service however aren’t a pie: the pieces don’t get smaller, just because more pieces are being handed out.
The readers of the epistle and the gospel narrative, and we ourselves, are urged to love and be hospitable.
The verse referring to the marriage bed isn’t only about marital sexual relations and possible adultery, but also about fidelity and respect for the partner, the neighbour, the other. The epistle to the Hebrews is an incentive to directly empathise and experience the situation of others, whether one knows it personally or not. It’s a call to contentment with what one has and consistency in our actions and thoughts, just as God remains consistent in his presence with us all.
Else, disdain and complacency will separate us from our neighbour, and separation from the other, a broken relationship is the first definition of sin.
Our contemporary society is obsessed with physical perfection, but Christ on the cross looked anything but a glamorous fashion model. And yet in the Church we speak of his glorified body; moreover, his Church with all possible people and their imperfections and shortcomings is his Body.
Our society is equally obsessed with psychological balance and spiritual growth, but only focused on one's own self, the ego. And in some ‘churches’ people are swindled into believing the can attain this.
And if we were to follow all the rules and regulations to the letter, but did it only for ourselves and because our own religious mindset assumes that we are so ahead of all the other sinners, what are those rules and regulations for? What good is our supposed and self-imposed ritual purity and spiritual development then?
Every outward law has a primary, inner goal, and if we don't realise that, we reduce it to dead folklore.
And it’s not as if we’re left at our own devices for this call, this vocation. Christ in his grace touches us too. We are part of the greater whole, to this we were created and called. To regard ourselves as more or different for the sake of physical and spiritual self-fulfilment is arrogant and pointless.
On the contrary, we’ve been given the opportunity to show love and hope, to know our neighbour as our full equal.
So-called purity culture and religious development shouldn’t be excuses for self-centredness and jealousy. The Scriptures exhort us to be in solidarity, to remain hospitable, kind, honest and sincere, with a dose of common sense and the ability to put things into perspective.
Does our 'cleanliness' make us happy, fulfilled? Is it for the good of others or just a hindrance to relationship and togetherness?
In Paul's words, Does it build up, or does it tear down?
Today's call for us all, as we’ve heard in the parable which Jesus told, and read in the letter to Hebrews, is how to interpret the concept of purity as one of humble service rather than one of perfection and exclusivity, and therefore also as a transforming, healing and loving contribution, rather than some grand go