With Mother’s Day here, I thought of how my mother would remind me to wash my hands after coming in from playing outside. Trust me when I say I could get dirty as a rambunctious boy! Still, children have a way of resisting such advice and may have to be reminded more than once. That’s when mom would pull out the trump card: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
I grew up in a Methodist family, and it so happens it was John Wesley who made this statement in a sermon in 1788, although versions of it go back to ancient times in Babylonian and Hebrew tracts. Wesley was living in a culture that had become lax in personal cleanliness, and so he reminded them that they should wash before coming to church.
Not only was it respectful to your neighbor, but also toward God. Although not a requisite for salvation, being clean on the outside came to be seen as a sign of spiritual purity in the sense that we use water to symbolize being washed clean of our sins by the mercy of God through Christ Jesus. Ezekiel 36:25, for one, talks of how God will sprinkle clean water on the people, and they will be clean, cleansing them of the impurities of idol worship – cleansing the heart, the spirit.
Although Wesley’s proverb was not technically a biblical mandate outside of its spiritual meaning, it had a huge impact on the culture, and hygiene became a Christian value and a cause to promote in the Church’s mission, even into other cultures. All this with little understanding of microscopic germs and viruses and the like.
Now, however, we have a better understanding of the danger of germs! “Cleanliness is next to godliness” may not be a biblical quote, but mothers who taught this value have been vindicated! Washing hands has become a crucial part of our fight for life and health, and those are certainly important to God! So, I want to thank my mom, now in heaven, for all those times she nagged me about washing my hands. Maybe you should, too. It seemed like a little thing at the time. It could even be annoying, I’m sure, but Covidity has shown us just how smart our mothers were and are!
Thank you, Mothers! Keep nagging your kids to wash their hands! And thank you all in advance for using hand disinfectants now and when we all get back to church! (Am I nagging?)
The peace of God be with you, Pastor Gary