Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? 41 So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over. Luke 11:37-44.
Jesus had little patience for the religious leaders of his day. This animus Jesus felt for the privileged has been true throughout history. For example, God tells Israel, “I hate all your show and pretense…” Amos 5:21-24. The prophets of the Old Testament often railed against their people because of the way they kept their religious rituals but ignored the needy, orphan, disenfranchised, and lonely.
You could say that it has been a common fault of human beings that we miss the point of spiritual rigor. We do this whenever we turn fasting, prayer, worship, or any other gesture, thought of as religious in some way, into meaningless rituals. Rituals we perform for the sake of performing them. For the awareness and approval of others. For the self-fulfillment we get from doing them.
The apostle Paul spoke similarly about this when he said, “Even if I speak the language of angels, yet don’t have love, it has gained me nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. God has never been impressed with a big show done for the credit of self or the tribe to which I belong.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day did as well. Jesus said that their preoccupation with minutiae took their minds of what would most important. “You wash the outside of the outside of the cup but the inside is still unclean.” Jesus remedy for their ritual was to give to the poor. To take their attention off of self-interest and place it on others.
Lent helps us to pay attention to internal matters. It helps us to dwell on living a life of concentration of matters which lead us to self-sacrifice rather than self-aggrandizement. Lent is the devotional gateway to the Cross, the ultimate expression of love and concern for others.
Prayer: Dear God, we of the capitalist nation have well-honed self-interest, and it dulls all our other senses. Focus and diligence for the things you desire. So we ask for your help to think more about cleaning the inside of the cup, readying our hearts for your entry into them. In Jesus’ name we pray this. Amen.