Hopefully we have dirty hands

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time B August 29, 2021 Take a moment and look at your hands. Think of the things that you did with your hands, the things you’ve touched, the people you’ve helped, the loved ones you’ve held. It may seem strange but one of the most moving things for me is distributing communion. I’ll be honest I really don’t like to put communion on the tongue, but the hand… there is something special about the hand. Hands say so much about the person. Hands get more beautiful as they get older, as the lines get deeper, the skin gets more worn. There is a real beauty in the hands of our elderly parishioners. I think of all the things that they have done, all the people they have touched, the hands they have held. How dirty are your hands? I hope that you have dirty hands. I know, our mothers always told us to wash our hands before meals. Right now, we are supposed to wash our hands for at least 20 seconds, the time it takes to pray an Our Father and a Hail Mary. But if you have worn and dirty hands it probably means that you have spent a lifetime of service. A lifetime of giving. If you keep your hands in your pockets, they might be clean, but in order to give you have to take your hands out of your pockets. No for the follower of Jesus, dirty hands are a good thing. In the Gospel the Pharisees were criticizing Jesus disciples because they had dirty hands. They were talking about ritual purity. For the Pharisees what made one pure, holy or good was following all the laws. If you scrupulously washed everything you were clean, not just on the outside but on the inside as well. But Jesus responded that he wanted his disciples to have dirty hands. Jesus said that it isn’t what comes from the outside that is going to make you dirty, rather it is what comes from the inside. Jesus said go ahead and get your hands dirty, if your hands are too clean you probably aren’t doing the right things. In today’s second reading James takes the same approach. He says, it isn’t enough to just hear the word, but we must be doers as well. We must put God’s word into practice. It isn’t enough to just profess your faith, we must live out our faith. James talks about purity saying it means we care for the widows and the orphans. In another words, we reach out to folks that are need. In Jesus’ time people got too caught up in the externals of the faith. We can’t make the same mistake today. We get too caught up in the externals of our faith and we forget what is essential. We have clean hands but empty hearts. I can’t say it enough that how important our Food Bank is. It is one way that we can get our hands dirty serving the poor and hungry. But we can’t rest on our laurels. We also have plenty of widows in our parish, people who are mourning the loss of a loved one. There is a group of 5 men who regularly help with our funerals. They are getting their hands dirty, but this ministry needs to grow. The situation of people without homes continues to be an issue in our neighborhood. As the largest church in the area, we have an obligation to be in the forefront of this issue. Yes, let’s be a community of people with dirty hands. That is the kind of service that Jesus wants from his followers. If your hands are too clean maybe you pray too much. Let’s get our hands dirty, let’s be a community that reaches out to those who are most in need the widows and the orphans of our day. We come together each Sunday to hear the word, but let us be more than just hearers be doers as well. This is the religion that is pure and undefiled. This is how to keep oneself unstained by the world.