Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 11: 37-41 (NRSVA):
37 While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. 38 The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.’
Today’s Reflections:
Between yesterday’s and today’s Gospel reading, we have skipped over a short passage about various aspects of light. In short, we are to be full of light, not like the kind of people Christ describes in today’s reading.
Jesus has been invited to dinner by a Pharisee. He seems to go straight to the dinner table, and sits down – or, more correctly, reclines – at the table that has been prepared to eat. The unnamed Pharisee is quite shocked when Jesus does not first wash his hands before eating.
Of course, I wash my hands regularly – you might say almost religiously – before I sit down to eat. But here we are not dealing with a question of hygiene, but of ritual washing. Jesus had omitted to perform a religious ritual that was expected of pious and religious Jews, although not actually part of the Mosaic Law. Originally the rule probably had a hygienic purpose. By giving it religious sanction, one made sure that it was carried out.
In ordinary day-to-day life, I imagine Jesus had no problem about this ritual, but it is likely that here he is deliberately making a point. It allows him to draw attention to what he sees as false religion. A person’s virtue is not to be judged by his performance or non-performance of an external rite.
As Jesus tells this man in a graphic way, some Pharisees appear to concentrate on making sure that the outside of the cup is clean while inside it is full of all kinds of depravity and corruption – like the judgmental thoughts in this man’s mind and the sinister plotting that some Pharisees were directing against Jesus. God is as much, if not much more, concerned about the inside as the outside.
Instead, Jesus says, ‘give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.’
When the inside is clean, there is no need to worry about the outside. Giving alms is a positive act of kindness to another, an act of love and compassion. It neutralises the greed and rapacity of which he accuses them. It is not, like washing my hands, a purely empty ritual which says little and is almost totally self-directed.
It is so easy to judge people by their observance or failure to observe certain Christian customs, which are inherently and logically of moral nature. In other places in the Gospels, Jesus tells us not to judge because it is very difficult to know what is going on in another person’s mind. What he really emphasises here is the inner spirit and motivation. Once I get that is right, everything else seems to fall into place.
I once came across q piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:
I was shocked, confused bewildered
as I entered heaven’s door,
not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its décor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp –
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from sixth class
who swiped my lunch box twice.
Next to him was my old neighbour
who never said something nice.
Bob, who I always thought
would rot away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking oh so well.
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How come these sinners get up here?
God must have made a mistake.
‘And why is everyone so quiet,
so sombre – give me a clue?’
‘Hush child,’ he said ‘they’re all in shock.
They weren’t expecting you.’
If I saw myself the way others see me, I would be less reluctant to open my mouth so often.
But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist.
And it’s not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.
There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage.
But David offered no Biblical standards of marriage, while Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines – hardly a Biblical standard of marriage.
I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops. These distortions inform and underpin many of the negative responses, particularly among people and groups that call themselves ‘conservative evangelicals’, to the appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally as the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In the Church, there can be no discrimination against people in ministry based on gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity or language, for God knows no such discrimination.
I too easily become a hypocrite when I use the words or behaviour of others to condemn them, without having the courage to say exactly where I stand.
Father Tikhon (Murtazov), who died some years ago [9 June 2018], was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun) of Snetogorsk Monastery, recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.
Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’
‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’
We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.
Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing we have sanitised our hands, are wearing colourful facemasks, seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning – or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 14 October 2025):
The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 14 October 2025) invites us to pray:
We pray for all those suffering from illness, that they may find healing and comfort in your love.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Lord, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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