Christian teachings sometimes come across as very odd. Often the odd teachings get overlooked by preachers and pastors. Cup washing is a no no. That is a gospel teaching. Jesus picked up on the fact the people of that time were avid cup washers, pot washers, frequent hand washers. What he said about this would alarm the medics and fact checkers today, but is addressing a deeper, more important problem of equity, fairness. We are human beings. As such we are social. We are not isolated from those who need our help, poor and financially unstable people near by. Our state of fairness or unfairness matters, a lot. More than the cleanliness of our cups. More than hand cleanliness. It is dirtiness of a higher order if we are living an unfair life, unfair by weighting resources too much towards ourselves by neglecting giving to those more unfortunate. We are dirty if we do not redress the balance by generous giving, and this is priority above how clean our cups are or our hands or pots and pans in the kitchen. To wash the washing up, Jesus says, while ignoring how unfairly we are living and failing to redress that unfairness by giving to the needy, this is terrible because it is hypocrisy. He said to wash inside the cup before washing its outside, by which he meant we should ignore the cups while we focus on charitable giving or passing money to poor beggars. Think about it next time you wash up, or wash your hands. But you might not hear this in a sermon if you ever venture into church, and indeed, you might instead be asked to help wash cups after coffee and tea drinking after the church service, because this teaching is rather a neglected one, not taken too seriously in churches. The state of social fairness is more important than the cleanliness of our crockery and cooking utensils and hands. Jesus says so and this is recorded in the gospels. Medical advice or health advice so often runs counter to what Jesus teaches. Jesus condemned the drug focus of the medics, drug Pharma being a major component of what used to ge called sorcery. Jesus condemned it. He instead focussed in his teachings on simply health treatments like the oil and wine and bandages used by the Good Samaritan, the simple provisions of food and drink, but with his own healings freely provided to the seriously ill, and even the dead, such as Lazarus. His focus is on use of faith in God’s power over Nature, which can be invoked by an undoubting command or hand touch. He taught to use this faith in his name to do as he did and do even greater things, jamming with him because he too does the same. We are overwhelmed today by medical dominance globally, addicted now to obsessive hand-washing, reliance on medicines and following so-called science to the detriment of common sense. Jesus teaches the opposite. Who trusts and follows him today? When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
