Cleaner than Clean
(Rutgers, October 11, 1998; 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, y ear C;
Baptism of Lucy Dunn Ellis and Erica Bucchieri)
II Timothy 2:1, 8-13 (NT, pp. 228, 229); Luke 17:11-19 (NT, p. 82)
My wife Margaret and her friend Charles from Iowa
were attending a meeting together here in New York City
when he decided the evening needed some levity.
First Charles told Margaret a joke that Iowans tell on themselves
when they visit New York City.
"What's the difference between Iowa and yoghurt?"
''I don't know."
"Yoghurt's got a live culture!"
And when Margaret finished laughing, Charles told her a second joke,
one that Iowans tell about New Yorkers
when they return home to the folks in Sioux City.
"A mother was pacing around her Manhattan apartment
waiting for her 6th-grade son, who was late getting home.
She had to go out that evening,
so she'd already set the table,
taken the supper off the stove, and,
in her impatience, arranged the food on the plates.”
Finally, she heard the lock turn,
and as the door opened, she called out,
"Johnny, hurry up! Get in here, and sit down at the table!
Your dinner's getting dirty"
Dirt, filth, dust, grime, grunge, soot, smut-uncleanness of every kind!
It's something we New Yorkers contend with all the time.
When I go over to play with my 8-month-old grandson Max,
one of the first things my son Steve reminds me to do
is to go wash my subway-and-bus-riding hands
so that they'll be clean,
since dirt can be harmful to health.
Then, at 7:00 pm, Max is given his bath.
And as Steve and Jenny bathe Max., I sit in the living room
remembering back some 30 years to when Margaret and I
gave Max's father his bath,
and recalling how only a few other experiences in life have
been as pleasing to my senses of sight, smell, and touch
as wrapping that freshly bathed, shampooed, oiled, and
powdered baby snugly in a towel and touching my nose
to the top of his cleaner-than-clean head
and inhaling deeply.
Yes, the dirt on our hands + bodies is readily seen and easily cleaned.
But what about the grime and grunge on our souls?
Recently, Psalm 51 has become much better known to us Americans
because President Clinton's quotation of it was so much in the news.
In that prayer of confession, the psalmist cries out to God,
"Wash me thoroughly. . ., and cleanse me ..." (Psalm 51:2).
What this psalmist asks of God is not clean hands, on the outside,
but rather a clean heart & a new + right spirit, on the inside (v.
10)-
because, says the psalmist,
''I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me." (v. 5)
These references in Psalm 51 to washing, to guilt at birth,
and to our need for a clean heart and a new and right spirit within
invite us to consider the relationship
of our sacrament of washing and cleansing-baptism-
to the Christian concept of the grime on our souls,
to the Christian doctrine of original sin.
In this doctrine Christianity asserts the universality of the corrupting
influence that comes from humankind's undue focus on self-interest.
It's harmful to our spiritual health that every one of us
is inclined to put self-interest above everything else,
that every one of us is inclined to treat our own self-interest
as the most important end to be achieved,
rather than as simply one feature of an interconnected,
world-spanning network of ends + interests to be achieved.
Western civilization this side of the 18th century + the Enlightenment
has insisted that human reason can master the self
and can overcome the power of the prejudice, self-interest,
and parochial loyalties that lie within us.
But, as the great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has stated,
the human self has proved universally resistant to being mastered
by reason. ("Sin," in A Handbook of Christian Theology (1958), pp.348-351]
Our faith in the power of human reason to improve our morality
has proved quite ill-founded.
For the self has proved itself universally capable of subverting
every one of our rational faculties to the service of self-interest.
However unpopular the concept of original sin may be among
us moderns, it has nonetheless proved to be, says Niebuhr,
one of the most empirically verifiable of all Christian doctrines.
And one has only to look at President Clinton to find a fresh example
of the power that passion has over reason
and of the victory that self-serving interest achieves
over national well-being.
But this example offers us no occasion for finger pointing.
For President Clinton's actions are but one case "writ large"
of the condition of grime-on-the-soul which affects us all.
The capacity and inclination of the human self
to place its own interests above all else are universal.
The taint of self-serving passion and pride is found everywhere.
Babies born into this unhealthy atmosphere of sin can
no more avoid accruing grime and grunge on their souls
than babies born in certain polluted parts of this city
can avoid a greatly increased risk of asthma.
Because of this universal taint of self-serving passion and pride,
human accomplishments fall far, far below the measure of our ideals.
But our condition, though real, is not without hope.
For in the person of Jesus, God came into this world to deliver us
from the power of sin and the pollution of self-serving interest.
By the grace of God brought to us in Jesus,
our souls can be "washed clean."
Our basic propensity for inordinate self-regard may be
transfigured into healthy forms of creativity
and redirected into a life that serves others.
It is this grace-that washes us clean, that transfigures our souls,
and that redirects our lives-that God bestows on us in baptism.
It is this God-given grace that washes away the dirt we accrue
in our lives, and that bathes, shampoos, oils, and powders us
into a God-pleasing condition that's cleaner-than-clean.
And, as we were told in our First Lesson from Second Timothy,
though we, in our subsequent lives, may prove faithless
to the God who cleanses us in baptism,
that same God will remain ever faithful to us,
standing ever at our side inviting us "to come home,"
encouraging us to renew regularly our baptismal
vows of faith, and to once again come to rest
enfolded to God's bosom
in a state that is cleaner-than-clean.
The story of the cleansing and purifying of the ten lepers in our
Gospel Lesson has been read by some Christians
as an allegory of baptism and confirmation.
In baptism, God cleanses us and heals us.
In baptism, God undertakes to accompany us on the journey of life.
But we do not become fully whole
until faith brings us full circle -
to offer the grateful acknowledgment
that it is God who has cleansed and healed us,
that it is God to whom we owe thanks for our well-being.
In this allegorical reading of the Gospel Lesson,
the healed leper who returns to Jesus to give him thanks
represents the baptized child who as a youth or adult
returns to the community of Christ
to give God thanks for the gift of wholeness
and to confirm her baptismal vows through
a statement of personal faith and thanksgiving.
I invite you to join me in a communal journey of prayer and nurture
to the end that Lucy + Erica may indeed be numbered among those
who during their journey of life return to Jesus to give thanks
that in baptism they have been made cleaner than clean,
that in baptism they have been promised God's eternal love,
that in baptism they have been offered the gift of freedom
from the pursuit of self-interest so that
they may pursue instead
a ministry of love and mercy to others.
Thanks be to God! Alleluia!
Let us pray.
O God, in baptism You have washed us + made us clean; You
have set a clean heart and a new and right spirit within us; You have
promised us Your eternal faithfulness.
We pray that You will help Lucy and Erica to confirm their
parents' faith as their own and to consecrate their lives, in gratitude
for Your grace, to the service of others.
And we pray that our lives, too, may be acts of constant
thanksgiving for Your grace and love.
In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
Return to Sermon Archive