Clean Cups

My childhood was spent among the visually impaired, i.e., blind people. My mother was the principal of a blind school. All my childhood friends, except for my younger sister, were blind. One of my chores was to feed them evening meals. Since they couldn’t see if their cups were full, they always stuck their index finger in the cups as I filled them. A few years later, I served water in cups at my younger aunt’s wedding, and my index finger was in the cup. An elderly gentleman took me aside and said, “When you put your fingers in the cup, you dirty it. Hold it around the cup without touching the inside.”

The Pharisees and the Sadducees in Jesus’s time had different philosophies about cleaning a cup. The Sadducees cleaned the inside of the cup first. Then, they cleaned the outside of the cup. While they cleaned the outside of the cup, some of the dirty water went into the cup. Seeing that, the Pharisees taught that one must clean the outside of the cup first while the water could go within the cup. Then, they should wash the inside to remove all the dirt.

On one occasion, a Pharisee invited the Lord Jesus to his house to eat (Luke 11:37). As Jesus reclined to eat, the Pharisee was surprised that Jesus didn’t wash* himself before he ate (11:38). He didn’t say anything, but the Lord knew his thought and said,

“You, Pharisees, clean the outside of the cups and plates first.” (11:39a)

The Pharisee would have been thrilled that Jesus knew their tradition and might have believed Jesus approved it. Then the Lord said,

“But your inside is full of greed and common thoughts. Thoughtless people – Didn’t the one who made the outside also make the inside?” (11:39b–40a)

Whereas the Pharisees worried about outward cleanliness, they didn’t worry about inward purity – their thoughts were simple and greed – how they may enrich themselves with wealth. God who made their outward body and inward spirituality was the same God, and he cared for their outward purity and inward holiness. As such, instead of focusing on ritual purity, the Pharisees should focus on “giving mercy,” a metaphor for caring for the needs of the poor. When they do that, then everything about them would be clean (11:40b).

More important than ritual purity was one’s willingness to give mercy, that was, giving to the needs of the poor people. The Pharisee would have been somewhat surprised by his guest saying that to him as if he weren’t generous to the poor. But the Lord Jesus never minced words.

I often wonder if we and our churches have become like the Pharisees – spending far too much money on ourselves for rituals, functions, worship, etc., while the poor are struggling to feed themselves. Churches in the United States employ professional musicians to lead music during services, have large screens covering the entirety of the stage for visual effects, and buy state-of-the-art sound and video systems for their “productions.” Sadly, churches in the East are also following this pattern. We should focus on the inside of our worship – caring for the needy – rather than the outward show!

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*The word is baptizo, showing how versatile that word was in the time of Jesus.