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RSSClean Conscience, Clean Water
Pentecost 14, Proper 15, Year A
Genesis 45:1-15 or Isaiah 56:1,6-8
Psalm 133 or Psalm 67
Romans 11:1-2a,29-32
Matthew15:(10-20)21-28
Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.
Matthew 15:10
This is another one of Jesus' little jokes -- he often taught by turning conventional wisdom on its head. The people who listened to him certainly knew their own dietary laws -- there were things they couldn't allow to pass their lips, or they would become ritually unclean. Jesus knew all that, too: he observed those laws himself. But he made a joke about this thing that everybody knew and obeyed: It's not what you eat with your mouth but what you say with it, that compromises you.
They all got it immediately, of course. People probably laughed, because the stuffed shirts in the crowd sniffed their disapproval. But even they must have gotten it: it's not being correct that commends us to God and one another. It's being kind.
That said, here is a good example of an instance in which we're not supposed to take what Jesus says literally. He's not saying that it doesn't matter at all what we put in our mouths. Human beings can injure ourselves profoundly by eating or drinking something unclean. We can die from it.
In most parts of every developing nation, obtaining and maintaining a dependable supply of clean drinking water is a constant challenge. Maria and her husband Juan are a good example: their school-age daughter used to have to carry all the water for the family of seven from a stream ten minutes away. Cattle stood in the stream as she drew from it; they used it as a place to drink and cool themselves. It was not clean. The younger children were constantly ill with diarrhea, and the older girl was falling behind in school as a result of her early morning and early evening treks to and from the polluted stream. "We always worried about her walking alone in the dark of the early mornings and evenings. There are poisonous snakes around here,” said Maria.
The village of Bijagua, Nicaragua, where the family lives, sought help from El Porvenir, a Nicaraguan organization dedicated to helping poor communtiies like theirs in many ways, including developing safe sourcing of water. El Porvenir is a partner of Episcopal Relief & Development in the delivery of these structures, as well as in the education of poor communities in keeping the water supply clean and safe.
Jesus was right: spiritually, what you say matters more than what you eat. But the health reality is this: the food and water we eat must be clean, or our bodies will sicken and even die -- diarrhea is a major killer of children under five throughout the developing world. They deserve the chance to get old enough to learn the spiritual distinctions of which Jesus teaches in today's gospel.
