Text: I thought I would send something else out today. Though it is not a scriptural quote, it does deal with portions of scripture that address themselves to purity and holiness. From Dirt, Greed & Sex by Wm. Countryman. I'm thinking about a transition into another book from scripture for these devotions. I originally said we would start with the sermon on the mount...we did. By next Monday I will have decided on the next series of daily readings. I may do this once in a while. Faithful people dealing with how we are to be faithful in our age have many good things to say to us!
Purity is thus a system with the human being at or near its center. Dirt is what lies outside the system, what is perceivedas not belonging in association with people of this particular society, whether as unfamiliar, irregular, unhealthy, or otherwise objectionable.
The enormous differences in purity systems from one culture to another show that humanity does not automatically attach the labels "clean" and "dirty" to the same objects or actions.
Perhaps it is easiest to see our purity rules at work in connection with food. "Dirt is mater out of place." Thus, the coffee in the cup is clean, but the pair of pants I just spilled it on is dirty. The very young child has no sense of food on clothes as constituting dirt; it is something learned.
I remember someone saying to me that most men who go into the public rest rooms walk out without washing our hands. A comment from a woman was - Yuk! She went on to say that she thought the practice of washing after using the toilet was universal. I must say, I rarely leave a rest room without washing my hands after that odd conversation. Then just in the last week, headlines said that we may be trying to be "too clean." The extensive use of antibacterial soaps and lotions potentially are doing us more harm than good. I was cleaning the screened in porch last week and as I was moving furniture I found various clutters of dead insect bodies underneath some well spun spider webs. Obviously I cleaned up the dead insects...but I continue to leave the spiders to their feast...and to the task of clearing my porch of small critters (this last practice of mine is thanks to words by Don Yehling about the goodness of spiders). In many ways, we each designate things "clean" or "good" or "wholesome" etc. In many ways, we even do that with people - they can "fit-in" or "make the grade" or "be respectable" etc. It is one way to designate people, clean and unclean...sort of. These designations are powerful stuff. They can ruin someone...they can make someone welcome...they can ignite something deep in our unconscious world that sends up past "red lights" that were etched into our psyche years ago. Amazing. Therefore, it may just take "Amazing Grace" in order to see things and people in a new saving light.
Connections: What do you consider dirty - unclean...and then clean? For example: I find it interesting that even though I don't buy into a formal code of "purity" or "cleanliness" when I have a piece of clothing that has a stain - even a little one (a blemish would be a biblical way to speak of it) I notice that I will take that article of clothing out of the circulation of things I wear for certain events and situations. Ha! What areas of your life do you find yourself labeling things like this? What do you or do you not do because of your labels?
O God who gathers in the least and those who are push away, remind us to question our rules of life....remind us to hold your gracious reign up as the measure of the life we will follow so that we too may become agents of grace...and amazing people. Amen
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