Village Shepherd

The story was told in the press recently of two teenage sisters who befriended an elderly widow. The 87-year-old widow had lived alone for five years, in the same block of flats as the sisters lived. The two girls regularly ran errands for her and took her to the hairdresser and generally looked after her. She regarded them as her best friends, and they spoke of her as being like a granny to them.

Sometimes the old lady lent money to the sisters, and one day she showed them a small cubbyhole where she hid her jewellery and documents and about 800 pounds in cash. The girls, who were inseparable, hatched a plot to rob the old lady.

They took a two-foot metal bar from their father's toolbox, covered their faces and viciously attacked the old lady, who later died in hospital. Then they went off to a friend's house bragging about their actions and waving a wad of notes in the air.

They were arrested and convicted, but at the trial, despite previously being inseparable, each of the girls blamed the other for their appalling actions and each did their utmost to blacken the other's name.

In other words, they both claimed it wasn't their fault. Neither of them, they said, would normally have done anything like that, but they'd been dragged into it by the other. And one of the girls claimed that her sister was on drugs and regularly stole to support her habit.

Jesus wouldn't stand for any of that nonsense. He told the Pharisees that outside influences don't make you do anything. You choose your actions, and they come from inside yourself, not outside yourself. And you can't even blame your actions on drugs or alcohol, for those who reach the state where they're unaware of any of their actions, choose to get into that state.

Mind you, Jesus was coming at the argument from a very different position. He'd been breaking the law himself, along with his friends. They'd been seen eating food without first washing their hands, which was against the strict hygiene laws of the Jews.

There were very good reasons for those hygiene laws in the first place, as we know today. The Jews simply followed God's commands as they were given to them in the far off days of the Old Testament, but science has since proved those commands to be spot on. Those who fail to observe the proper hygiene around food become ill. But the Pharisees didn't know that, for they didn't have the benefit of modern science. It was only about a century or so ago that the relationship between the handling of food and certain types of illness, became apparent.

The Jews followed every tiny part of the law to the letter, and were deeply shocked by anyone who failed to do the same. They were especially shocked if someone who claimed to be religious and who claimed to teach about God, failed to observe the laws. And they told Jesus in no uncertain terms that he was defiled if he ate without first washing and purifying himself, or if he ate food which was classed by the law as "unclean".

But Jesus drew a distinction between the observance of the law, and keeping it deep within the heart. He said that it wasn't so-called "unclean food" or unwashed hands which defiled a person, but what that person was like inside, in those secret parts of being, where no-one else can visit.

Jesus gave a list of evil intentions which come from the heart, and the list covers the deeds and intentions of those two teenage sisters today. "For it is from within," Jesus said, "from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

That all sounds pretty obvious. And it's perhaps no great revelation to the normal, responsible, law-abiding citizens who still make up the majority of our country. Those who turn to drugs and theft and viciousness and murder are still, thankfully, in the minority. So whilst it might be relevant to those two sisters and others like them, what relevance does it have for us?

I think perhaps many ordinary people are afraid of blame, because to be blamed is such an unpleasant and painful experience. One way to avoid ever being blamed for anything, is to deny that it's my fault. If I can always place the blame on somebody else, then clearly that blame doesn't lie with me. Whatever's happened, I'm in the clear and can feel comfortably self-righteous.

There are a number of ways of placing the blame on other people, from a simple "I didn't do it! It wasn't me!" through "I couldn't help it! There was nothing I could do!" to "She/he made me do it!" Car insurance companies have long and quite amusing lists of excuses that drivers use to prove that whatever happened wasn't their fault.

Excuses are part of life and don't seem terribly important. We all use them from time to time, and they don't often lead to major upsets.

But actually, they're all part of that Pharisaical pattern that Jesus condemned. Whenever I use an excuse I'm claiming that my outside is whiter than white, but I'm allowing my inside to remain muddied, dirty. I'm doing just what Isaiah said in that quote that Jesus used, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' And Jesus added, "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

The Christian way is to be utterly honest with myself and to take responsibility for my own actions, no matter how painful that might be. This Christian way is a very challenging way, and no one can manage it in their own strength. But we have Jesus and we have his spirit within us and that means nothing is impossible.

And if we really want to be clean within and undefiled, then we have to forget about being pure as the driven snow on the outside, acknowledge the mud inside, and allow God himself to wash it away.