[Propertalk] The Rev. Reggie Weaver - Cleanliness or Godliness - Day1.org - September 02, 2012

[Joe Parrish]

http://day1.org/4046-cleanliness_or_godliness 

The  <http://day1.org/4044-the_rev_reggie_weaver> Rev. Reggie Weaver
The Rev. Reggie Weaver is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago,
IL. 

Member of:

Presbyterian Church (USA) <http://day1.org/presbyterian_church_usa> 

  _____  


Cleanliness or Godliness


Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23


14th Sunday after Pentecost - Year B


September 02, 2012


I've spent many summer days at my Aunt Briddie's house. Aunt Briddie is my
father's oldest sister. She and her husband, Uncle Hubbert, enjoyed
entertaining, so many summers when some of the extended family would come
into town, we would gather at their house; and among other things, we would
do a lot of eating.

Now, when it comes to meals, no one in my family is a real stickler for
table manners. We don't really care on which side of the plate the fork is
supposed to lay. If you want the peas, you don't really need to wait for
someone to pass them. Just get up and grab the peas, reach across the table
if you have to. But Aunt Briddie would--and still does--get irritated if
someone showed up at the table with dirty hands. If it happened to be me,
she'd kinda nudge me behind the shoulder and say, "Boy, go wash yo' hands."
Being a little child, I might run back to the bathroom and turn the water on
without actually washing them and try to come back to the table. But Aunt
Briddie had a way of knowing when that happened, so she would just say it
again, "Boy, I thought I told you go wash yo' hands." Now if you made Aunt
Briddie repeat herself like that, you had a feeling that if you didn't do
what she said that time, then it was all over for you. You weren't going to
eat that day, and you might not live to eat again. So you ran back and
washed those hands.

We all know that there are good reasons for keeping our hands clean, with
all the germs and diseases out there--and I'm sure Aunt Briddie was
concerned about all that. But it always seemed to me that there was
something more than hygiene behind her insistence. I never knew what that
was, as a child, but whatever it was, it showed itself in these expressions
she would make while we were eating....

 

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