December 20, 2005

Clean Hands?

This psalm epitomizes O.T. religion, what Marcus Borg referred to as a 'purity' faith. In contrast Jesus was very unclean: talking with women! gentile women!, not washing his hands to eat. He said not one jot of the law should pass away. However the Sermon on the Mount shows the ways that Jesus transcended the law of Moses.

Speaking of Jesus Blake said he broke every one of the ten commandments and acted from pure virtue. So we're talking about two different kinds of purity: a religion of purity and a spirit of purity; the two are vastly different. You might say that the O.T. focuses on the first and Jesus the second. You might even say that the first is emphasized by (too) much of the conventional church, while the diaspora emphasizes the second.

2 comments:

Meredith said...

Larry,
I'm curious about this notion of "purity faith". Also, how did Blake come to the conclusion that Jesus broke every one of the commandments, and yet also acted from pure virtue? I plead ignorant in this history.

A religion of purity doesn't interest me very much - but a spirit of purity certainly does. I think you are saying that Jesus had this purity of spirit, and that even though he may have broken social laws of the times, his motivation was pure.

I read recently that no one ever went to the grave wishing to have loved less. In our social structure (social laws) we have a fairly restriced circle of people for whom we may openly express our love. Yet, my heart does not always acknowledge this boundary, and I often feel my heart take gigantic leaps across this socially prescribed boundary. To me, purity of spirit would be an opportunity to love openly and to love much, and to allow what’s truest in my heart to lead.

Larry Clayton said...

Meredith, purity as used by Borg in one of his studies, has an entirely different connotation from the way you used it here and the way it's almost constantly used in present day converse, like Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. The 'purity religion' he was talking about was almost the opposite of purity of heart. It was purity of conduct in relation to the laws. The puritanical pilgrims are another use of the word; they thought they were keeping their faith pure by burning Mary Dyer, the Quaker martyr. That kind of purity we don't need. And Jesus didn't have it and didn't teach it. In contrast he had and taught what you call a 'spirit of purity'. Borg referred to Jesus as a 'spirit person', which is nothing like the purity that the Pharisees demanded and that Psalm 24 suggested (at least to me). I wish I had access to the Borg book where he used the ideas of 'purity religion' and Jesus, the 'spirit person'.

Re Blake: Meredith, he was a poet! Poets don't speak properly like scientists. This was Blake's hyperbolic way of saying that the rules meant very little to Jesus, what counted was the spirit.

Look at Galatians 5:14 for a biblical understanding of the relationship between love and law.

I can conceive of a situation where loving my neighbor as myself might lead me to kill (very unquakerly of course).

Blake (and Jesus) wanted to emphasize that true religion is not a matter of keeping all the laws (which has the connotation of purity), but of loving instead.

Boundaries of love?: the only conceivable social restriction I can imagine would be the militarists requirement that you hate our enemies, and I have 'pure d' no use for that idea. What are you talking about?

Besides, we don't 'express love' by any particular feeling, but by our actions. Sending a letter to someone is prison is an expression of love.

Love is spirit; spirit is love. Love is pure, but not the purity of 'clean hands'.

Oh my, I'm all riled up.

It's a semantic problem; it's words that get us messed up, our varying ideas of what any particular word means.