hands

Recently I had the experience of learning to eat Indian food using my hands, with chapati to scoop up the meat and sauce. I've looked into different cultures and food a bit since then.

When I thought about Jesus and eating habits all I could remember was the Pharisees getting upset about the disciples not washing their hands before eating. I always wondered why they got so wound up about that, apart from the religious ritual surely it is down to the individual whether they eat with mucky hands or not? Then I realised that at a party they would all have been eating with their hands from a communal dish. In that circumstance I would certainly mind if someone else at the table had dirty hands!

Washing your hands was for hygiene sake and also for spiritual purity. If someone stuck dirty hands in the food they spread germs to everyone else. If they were "unclean" then everyone else also became "unclean".
In the UK we have our personal plate and fork. We keep our germs to ourselves, and so does everyone else.
Going on a bit of a spiritual tangent from that thought....

In our UK churches do we have shared lives? Do we have hygienic spiritual lives, keeping our problems to ourselves? Do we expect others to keep their problems out of our way so we don't get affected or "contaminated"?
If (in the words of the communion) we all truly "eat of one body" then we are in a way sharing our food, we are "eating from one dish", we are making ourselves vulnerable to each other. What affects me will affect you. What you struggle with will have an effect on me.

That does not mean going up to someone and saying "you need to sort yourself out mate". It means we share each other's burdens, and support each other when someone goes through a tough time.

It also means we have a responsibility to keep ourselves clean. Not a hypocritical kind of "Oh, I must wash my hands 'cos it's Sunday" but living with clean hands that don't do what they ought not to, a clean mind that has not thought what it ought not to, clean feet that have not been where they ought not to, and a clean heart where Jesus can live and my brother is loved because it has not been made foul or dirty by my lifestyle through the week.