Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Trinity Sermons. You may have heard it said,
cleanliness is next to godliness. But did you
know that that's not actually in the Bible? Obviously,
cleanliness is important, but is it really godly?
Does it matter whether we shower before we come
to church? Rob is going to unpack for us where
this phrase comes from and what the real spiritual
truth is underneath it all. Today's reading is
from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, verses 1
through 8, and 14 through 23. The Pharisees and
some of the teachers of the law who had come
from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw
some of his disciples eating food with hands
that were defiled. that is, unwashed. The Pharisees
and all the Jews do not eat unless they give
their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to
the tradition of the elders. When they came from
the marketplace, they do not eat unless they
wash, and they observe many other traditions,
such as washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked
Jesus, Why don't your disciples live according
to the tradition of the elders instead of eating
their food with defiled hands? He replied, Isaiah
was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites,
as it is written, These people honor me with
their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain. Their teachings are
merely human rules. You have let go of the commands
of God and are holding on to human traditions.
Again, Jesus called the crowd to him and said,
Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.
Nothing outside a person can defile them. by
going into them. Rather, it is what comes out
of a person that defiles them. After he had left
the crowd and entered the house, his disciples
asked him about this parable. Are you so dull?
he asked. Don't you see that nothing that enters
a person from the outside can defile them? For
it doesn't go into their heart, but into their
stomach, and then out of the body. In saying
this, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went
on. What comes out of a person is what defiles
them. For it is from within, out of a person's
heart, that evil thoughts come. Sexual immorality.
theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.
All these evils come from inside and defile a
person. The word of the Lord. I thought to set
up today's topic, I would talk to you a little
bit about something that I call holy hygiene.
And this is just me, it's just my own personal
little ritual that I go through each and every
Sunday morning in order to prepare to come here
and be with you on a Sunday morning. So I just
thought I would, I've brought some of the products
I use up here to show. So, for example, I always
start by washing my hands very, very carefully.
And then I use a little bit of sanitizer. Three
pumps, mind you. One for the Father, one for
the Son, and one for the Holy Purell. And then,
of course, we have to move to this area, the
whole teeth area. So, of course, you've got to
brush your teeth. Do a little bit of that in
the morning. And a little mouthwash. A little
Listerine, gargle that. And it's always nice
to keep with you a few Tic Tacs, right? So that
during that good morning, hello, you don't get
the dragon breath, the Godzilla breath coming
out of my mouth. So got to keep those handy.
Then, of course, a little deodorant. I prefer
Old Spice. You know, it's hot under these lights,
guys, but I like to stay dry. An Old Spice helps
me do just that. Besides, if I'm making a point,
I don't want you to notice these puddles under
my armpits. I want you to be paying attention
to what I'm saying. So a little Old Spice, and
a little cologne never hurt either. Just a little,
oh, it went up. I thought it was supposed to
come down. Oh, yeah, you walk, that's how you,
a little cologne just to, you know, a little
cologne, maybe a little more cologne, whatever
your preference is. Also, there's the nails,
right? You got to trim your nails, especially
when you're flipping the pages of the Bible,
right? You got to make sure you're not shredding
through the word of God. So you got to clip your
nails. And then I do kind of style my hair a
little bit, right? So I'll give it a little of
the old spray because when the Holy Spirit gets
blowing up here, man, I want to stay locked in.
I don't want my dude to get out of control. And
then, of course, you want to do a little clip,
a little razor. of the old beard there. You don't
want to end up looking like John the Baptist
in the wilderness. Pressed clothes, you know,
clean, nicely laundered clothes. Make sure, you
know, your fly is up and all that. I like to
be open. I like to be vulnerable, but not that
open. and and not that vulnerable and so so this
is kind of the routine this is the holy this
is the holy hygiene habit that i that i'm in
and and the reason i do this is so i can stand
before you you know cleanly pressed and minty
fresh because after all because cleanliness is
next to Godliness. That's right. We're in the
middle of this teaching series, which is called
The Bible Doesn't Say That, where we're looking
at some of the misquotes and mistakes and misunderstandings
of certain Bible passages. And today we get to
this one. Cleanliness is next to godliness. How
many have heard this one before? Not everybody
has. Not everybody has. How many have said this
before at one point in their life to someone?
Yeah, and on this Mother's Day, it's usually
mothers who end up saying this to us because
they want us to take a shower or something like
that. Now, I want to have a few disclaimers right
off the bat. The first is, that was just a bit
of an act. I am not a clean freak at all. If
cleanliness is next to godliness, then my garage,
for example, is the portal to hell. because it
is not in good shape. And the second thing we
want to make really, really clear to all of you
here is that here at Trinity, we are not big
on how you look or how you dress when you come
to church at all. You know, we have this saying,
we say that at Trinity, we're just a group of
ordinary people. We dress in ordinary ways. We
come, we are just ordinary people learning to
follow Jesus in our own day. And, you know, just
come as you are to Trinity. The third thing I
want to say, though, is even here at Trinity,
staff and I, we are not the tidiest of people.
And actually just in this last week, we did a
little spring cleaning. Here's a little shot
of that. This is brand new. Oh, yeah! I did get
rocks away like three years ago, remember? But
this becoming a video, somebody has some emotional
attachment to those rocks. No. Somebody does,
because they all have people's names on them.
Oh, they do. So somebody's going to see this
on Sunday morning and be like, why did you throw
out my rocks? No, that's gross too. I'm going
to go to the kitchen with this. Don't deal with
it in there. That's disgusting. They're so sick.
Don't come in here. Hey, that looks like ours.
Sally. Is this ours? Okay. So, yeah. So listen,
if the Bible doesn't say that cleanliness is
next to godliness, who did? Well, actually, it's
interesting. It was a preacher by the name of
John Wesley who first put these words into print
back in 1791. He was doing a sermon. And the
sermon was to his congregation about how they
should dress a little nicer and come a little
cleaner to church. Again, that is never a sermon
that we would preach here at Trinity. We think
you guys look great as you are. But what he said
in that sermon was this. He said, sloppiness
has no part in religion. Being clean is a sign
of spiritual purity or goodness. Cleanliness
is indeed next to godliness. In other words,
John Wesley is saying when you come to church,
don't dress like a slob because cleanliness is
next to godliness. Now you'll notice he does
say it is indeed next to godliness, which makes
us think that perhaps the saying was already
out there in the world. People were using this
quote. Where it came from, we don't know. Maybe
this fellow 200 years earlier, Sir Francis Bacon.
Mmm, bacon. Cleanliness. in the body was ever
deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.
So maybe that's where it came from. Now, even
though the Bible actually doesn't say these words,
cleanliness is next to godliness, with all of
these sayings, what we have found is there's
always a little bit of truth to them, right?
There's always a part of them that is true. And
so yes, cleanliness is not next to godliness.
But neither is being a slob next to a godliness.
And so I want to suggest to you just right off
the bat, here are four possible ways in which
maybe it is a good idea, according to the Bible,
to be a clean person. The first is out of respect
for creation, right? God made you. God gave you
that body that you have. You are fearfully and
wonderfully made. You're God's handiwork. And
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. The
Bible says all of these things. Therefore, take
care of your body. Keep it clean. Keep it healthy.
It's a way that you care for this body that God
created. The second reason why the Bible might
say we should be clean people is that we should
take some responsibility for all the stuff that
we've been given. You've got stuff in your life.
You've got apartments and houses and backyards
and clothing and cars. And all of it is a gift
from God. And so we are responsible for taking
care of that stuff and being good stewards of
that stuff. And part of that means keeping it
clean and keeping it tidy and keeping it well
ordered. So that's another good reason to be
a clean person. A third reason to be a clean
person, according to the Bible, is out of regard
for others. Think of it this way. Think of hospitality.
When you keep a clean home, then guests and neighbors
who enter your home, they feel welcomed. They
feel at peace. They feel relaxed. They feel safe.
They feel cared for. Even here at Trinity, it's
important that we keep the place clean because
people notice stuff like that. If one of our
guests, went to the bathroom and there was no
TP, I can guarantee you they would not be coming
back next week. We do this out of regard for
other people. And the last reason why we might
decide to be clean is because of these rituals
of our body. You see, the Christian faith is
a bodily faith. There's a whole bunch of things
we do with our bodies that connect to our spirits.
For example, when we fast, we're doing something
with our body to teach us to hunger for God.
When we get down on our knees and we kneel, we're
doing something with our body to teach us humility,
right? it could be that for some that when we
wash ourselves or clean ourselves, we're doing
something with our body to teach us the need
to be cleansed and purified by God. So yes, in
a way, in a way, always in a way, cleanliness
and godliness can go together. But if we really
want to know where this saying came from, then,
I mean, we got to trace it back to the Bible.
Now, I know we already said, Rob, you said that
the Bible doesn't say that. You said that it's
not found in the Bible. And that is true. It's
not there in the Bible like that. But there was
a time in Israel's history where purity laws
and cleanliness codes were all the rage. Now,
if you read the Bible, there's definitely a arc
and there's a change that happens throughout
the Bible. And in fact, Jesus was one of the
people who did battle with the clean police and
the clean freaks. of his own day to kind of rethink
what God actually thought about cleanliness.
But yes, we do have to go back to the Bible.
In fact, if you look at our reading today, what's
happening here? A bunch of religious professionals,
Pharisees and teachers of the law, they're called,
they are sent to make sure that Jesus and his
disciples are following all the clean rules from
the Bible. We're even told that they came to
Jerusalem, from Bethsaida, which is a hundred
kilometer journey by foot, right? So these guys
were serious. They didn't just happen upon Jesus.
They came down. They're not messing around. They
are on a mission to enforce the clean rules that
are found in the Bible. Now, the Bible is full.
rules about how to keep clean. Now, you might
say, well, why on earth would God do that? Why
did God use these rules to tell people to kind
of honor all these customs and rituals and traditions?
Well, there's actually kind of a good reason.
Let's understand it first. The reason is that
God had chosen Israel. To be a holy people. That
means to be a people who were set apart. A people
who were different. A nation for himself. And
part of being set apart, God said, was that you
have to live differently. Visibly differently,
right? So holiness wasn't just something you
believed. It was how you acted. It was how you
spoke. It was what you ate. It was what you wore.
It was what you touched. It was how often you
washed. All of these things set you apart and
people could see you are a different people.
You are the people of Yahweh God. And so that's
why, you know, God told them you are to distinguish
between things that are holy. And things that
are ordinary. Things that are unclean. And things
that are clean. Because I want you to be different.
I don't want you to be like everyone else. I
want you to stand out. I'm a holy God. Be different.
Think of it this way. Imagine you're going on
a big date. Or imagine you're going in for a
big interview. What would you do? You would get
cleaned up. You would wash up, right? You would
brush your teeth. You would use a little cologne.
You would use the mouthwash. Why is that? Because
you want to make a good impression? and you're
going into the presence of somebody who's really
important to you, you don't want to smell like
gym socks. And so the spirit behind these cleanliness
rules is that you just don't waltz into the presence
of God without doing a little bit of scrubbing
first. Now, what made you unclean? According
to the Bible, what kind of things made you unclean?
Well, you can read it if you want, but you touch
a dead animal, you're unclean. You touch a dead
human, you're definitely unclean. If you have
skin rashes or sores on your body, you're considered
unclean. If you have bodily discharge of any
kind, gross, yes, but unclean. You eat the wrong
food, you're unclean. You touch the wrong animal.
You touch a lobster, for example, for some reason,
unclean. If you have mold in your house, unclean.
If you have mildew in your house, you don't just
call the plumber, you call the priest, right?
And the priest will come. There's pages in the
book of Leviticus about this. The priest will
come and inspect the mildew. They will see where
the mildew is. They will try to remove the mildew
in a proper way. And if not, they will literally
burn the whole thing down. Right? These rituals
taught Israel, what did they teach them? That
impurity separates us from God and that cleansing
is required to come close to God. Now, Jesus
would have agreed with this in its spirit. We
must be cleansed in order to come close to God.
But what Jesus would ultimately disagree is how
that cleansing takes place. Jesus had a very
different kind of cleansing in mind, as we will
find out. So Jesus kind of agreed with this in
spirit, but where Jesus definitely disagreed
with these religious clean freaks was in something
known as the tradition of the elders, right?
So notice what the Pharisees asked Jesus. They
say, so the Pharisees said, hey, why don't your
disciples live according to the tradition of
the elders instead of eating their food with
defiled hands? Now you might be like, what is
the tradition of the elders? Is that just the
Bible? No. It's not the Bible. You see, here's
what happened. Over time, all these religious
professionals, they developed an even bigger
set of rules outside of the Bible in order to
help people follow the rules inside the Bible.
And they started out as oral teachings. Oh, you
should do this. You should do this. But eventually
they got written down into these two massive
collections called the Mishnah and the Talmud.
And the Talmud alone contains something like
63 or 65 books. about what the law meant and
how you were supposed to live it out. And if
you've got a bookshelf big enough, if you've
got a budget big enough, you can actually go
and you can buy the Talmud, you can go buy the
Mishnah. And one of the rabbis in Jesus' day
said, this is what it is. The oral law, the tradition
of the elders, is like a fence around the written
law. It's meant to protect people from accidentally
breaking God's rules, accidentally... becoming
unclean. But what happened is, over time, the
fence became a fortress, and people were more
interested in the fence than getting inside the
fence to meet with God. Let me give you just
a few examples of some of the crazy traditions
of the elders that were in the mission of the
Talmud. Again, you can read this, but for example,
on the Sabbath, it was forbidden that you look
in a mirror. You weren't allowed to look in a
mirror on the Sabbath because you might say,
see a gray hair when you look in the mirror and
you might be tempted to pluck that out. And if
you did that, that was tantamount to harvesting.
To reaping, and you weren't allowed to reap on
the Sabbath, and so don't even look in the mirror.
It's against the tradition of the elders. Seriously.
You weren't also allowed to wear false teeth
on the Sabbath. I didn't know this. They had
false teeth 2 ,000 years ago. Isn't that interesting?
But you weren't allowed to wear them on the Sabbath
because if your false teeth fell out, gross,
then you would pick them up, and that would be
work. That would be labor, and you weren't allowed
to do that on the Sabbath either. My favorite
one, though, is on the Sabbath, you weren't allowed
to, oh no, you were allowed to spit on a rock.
But you weren't allowed to spit on the ground.
Why? Because if you spat in like the soil, your
spittle might form a little bit of a ditch or
a furrow. And that would be like plowing a field.
And so you weren't allowed to spit on the ground.
You could spit on a rock on the Sabbath. And
there were all these rules. All these rules about
cleanliness too. In fact, Mark says that the
Pharisees and all the Jews, they do not eat unless
they wash. wash their hands in a special way,
holding to, and there's those words, the tradition
of the elders, right? Now, where it says, unless
they wash it in a special way, that's actually
in the real translation. It says, unless they
wash their hands with the fist. Now, what does
that mean? I wanted to show you because I looked
this up. The way that the tradition of the elders
said you had to wash your hands before you ate
was, first, you had to put your hands, fingers
up. like this, over a bowl, and someone would
pour water on your hands, and then the water
would get all dirty and defiled and drip off
your wrists. It wasn't supposed to run down your
arms. It was supposed to drip off your wrists.
Then you would turn your hands, fingers down,
and they would then do the exact same thing.
They would pour the water on your hands, fingers
down. And again, the defiled water would drip
into the bowl. And then you would use this fist
to rub this hand, and then you would use this
fist. To rub this hand. And this is how, you
know, up, down, rub, rub. That is how you properly
washed your hands before you ate according to
the tradition of the elders. And the kicker is,
some really devout followers observed this not
just before meals, but between every course of
the meal. Right? So this is getting extreme.
You can see why Jesus is taking issue. And some
of them became... Actual like superstitions,
like crazy superstitions. I mean, check out what
this one rabbi, Rabbi Tanith said. He said, whoever
lives in the land of Israel and eats his food
with rinsed hands may rest assured that he shall
obtain eternal life. In other words, you want
to go to heaven? Then you wash your hands, right?
Another rabbi who was imprisoned by the Romans,
I read that once he was only given a very small
amount of water per day. But rather than drink
that water, he used that water to ceremonially
wash his hands. It was more important for him
to follow the tradition of the elders than it
was for him to actually stay alive. And then
it got even more superstitious. There was this
belief. There was this belief out there that
there was a demon named Shibta. And what would
happen is when you were sleeping at night, Shibta
would sneak into your bedroom and would get all
over your hands. And then in the morning, if
you got up and you didn't wash your hands, then
Shibta would get inside of you and do all sorts
of damage to you from within. This is like, now
listen, washing your hands is a good thing. Washing
your hands before dinner, it kills germs. But
the reason that Jesus had no time for this stuff
is because he knew that no external ritual could
really make you clean before a holy God. This
wasn't about holiness. This had become about
outward, surface level, performative, fear -based
superstition. masquerading as religion. And Jesus
knew God was after something much, much deeper.
That's why he says, you guys have let go of the
commands of God and you're just holding on to
human traditions, right? You nullify the word
of God by your traditions that you've handed
down. And many other things like that. In other
words, Jesus is saying, this is just the tip
of the iceberg. The Mishnah, if you read it,
there are like 35... Full pages on how to wash
dishes, how to clean kettles and dishes and cups
and couches. Cleanliness in Jesus' day had become
a religion of its own. But Jesus came to teach
that real cleanliness starts in the heart, not
in the sink. Because you can follow all the rules
and you can wash your hands. When you can avoid
all the lobsters, you can burn all the mildew
and check all the boxes, but still be filthy.
Now, why is that? It's because Jesus knew that
godliness is not an outside -in thing. Jesus
said nothing that enters into a person from the
outside can defile them. And it makes sense.
He even says, hey, it just goes in one end and
it comes out the other end. It's an in and out.
That doesn't defile you, Jesus said. Instead,
Jesus says, cleanliness is an inside -out thing.
What comes out of a person is what defiles them.
What comes out of your mouth is what defiles
you. What comes out of your actions is what defiles
you. What comes out of your thoughts, what comes
out of your words, what comes out of your heart,
all that washing, it doesn't get to that. right?
That's just an act. In fact, at one point, Jesus
calls these people hypocrites. And hypocrite
is just a Greek word that means actor. They're
putting on a show. They're pretending. It's all
a role that they are playing to cover up what's
really happening inside of them. No, real transformation,
real purity begins on the inside when we're washed
from the inside out. Now, This may be a good
point just to stop and ask the question about
our own traditions. As Anglicans, we've got lots
of traditions. Lots of things we do, you know,
hand washing, you know, basins, bowls, candlesticks,
you know, actions, prayers. There's a lot of
traditions that we have here at Trinity. But
many of them are very, very meaningful. But we
should always be asking the question, the same
question. Do we ever let our traditions get in
the way of the commandments of God? Are we clinging
to human things and forgetting the God things
that we really ought to be doing? We've got things
we do here. We sing. We pray. We listen to sermons.
We share communion. But are those changing us
on the inside? Or are we, when we come to church,
are we just actors going through emotion, but
none of this is actually getting inside of us,
right? We're leaving completely unchanged. Jesus
does not want. outer cleanliness or outer actions
or outer rituals unless they're tied to inner
transformation. So I'd say that the Bible actually
doesn't say cleanliness is next to godliness.
What the Bible actually more closely says in
the end is that cleanliness can actually be a
cover -up for lack of godliness. Because what
Jesus really teaches and what the Bible really
says is that God is not looking for sanitized
hands. He is looking for sanctified hearts. Do
you want to know what the Bible really says?
It says that man looks at the outward appearance,
but God looks at the heart. Here's what the Bible
says. It says, wash yourselves and make yourselves
clean. Ooh, our hands? No. Remove your evil deeds
from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, right?
Or here's a wonderful prayer. God, create in
me what? A clean skin? A clean... house? No,
a clean heart. So let's just end by asking the
question, how do we cleanse ourselves? How do
we get clean? Well, I want to end and suggest
three ways to you. I think this is like really
the most important part of everything I've said
this morning. And the first is this, Jesus's
touch makes people clean. The gospel says, that
Jesus came into this dirty, grimy, messy world
of ours. He came into our stinky lives. And he
came and he hung out with some of the messiest
people you can imagine, the tax collectors, the
sinners, the prostitutes, rich and poor. And
he did it for one purpose, to cleanse them. It's
this really interesting reversal that happens
with Jesus. Jesus wasn't contaminated by impurity
when he touched untouchable people, lepers or
sick people or dead people. But instead, they
were contaminated by his purity. They were made
clean. Craig Blomberg puts it this way. He said,
Jesus exhibits a contagious holiness. He does
not fear contamination by being associated with
the impure. Rather, he believes that his purity
can rub off on them. And one of my favorite authors,
N .T. Wright, says the same thing. Jesus' holiness
was not compromised by contact with impurity.
Rather, his holiness overcame impurity. So how
do you get clean? Jesus' touch makes people clean.
That's the first way we get clean. The second
way we get clean, though, is to realize that
Jesus' word declares us clean. You know, Jesus
didn't just touch people clean. Jesus said things,
and people were made clean. He would say, be
clean, and they were clean. He would say, your
faith has made you well, and they were well.
His word has this authority, right, to make people
clean, to restore their dignity. You know, Jesus
knew that food didn't make you unclean, but he
knew that his word could make you clean. In fact,
did you notice in a reading today, somewhere
down there, it said, for it's not stuff that
goes into your heart, but into their stomach
and then out of the body and blah, blah. And
it says, in saying this, Jesus declared all foods
clean. Jesus, the same voice that spoke the universe
into existence, the same voice that said, let
there be light, now says, all food is clean.
Let there be cleanliness. And what Jesus says,
go. If Jesus declares you clean, then you are
clean. Then you are forgiven. So how do we get
clean? His touch makes us clean. His word declares
us clean. And finally, Jesus' blood. washes us
clean. You might think blood is one of the messiest
things ever. How could that make us clean? But
at the cross, Jesus removed every single blemish
and every single stain in your life. His blood
purifies us once and for all, washing us from
the inside out. That's why at the center of the
Christian faith is not a bathtub. It's a cross.
And it was there on that old, rugged, dirty bloody
cross that Jesus did that what no soap could
ever do, what no sanitizer, what no ceremonial
ritual could ever do. There, he became unclean
for us so that we could be made clean forever.
John writes, the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses
us from all sin. The Pharisees, thought cleanliness
came from a ritual jesus shows us it comes from
a relationship they believe cleanliness came
through water jesus shows us cleanliness comes
through blood on the cross all our sins all our
shortcomings washed away not with divine disinfectant
but with his own life so listen i started today
And I showed you all these products that we use
sometimes to make ourselves clean and to make
ourselves presentable. And, you know, we may
be tempted to say, okay, yeah, I'm going to come
to God, but I'm going to clean myself up first,
right? I got to make myself presentable in order
to go into God's presence. But remember this,
we don't come to God after we've cleaned ourselves
up, right? We come to God so he can clean us
up. And I would just say, if today's message
has stirred anything up in you, a desire to be
made clean or to have a fresh start with God,
then let me invite you to consider baptism. Baptism
is not something we do to clean your skin. That's
not how it works. Baptism declares that Jesus
has already cleansed you in your heart by faith.
And if you've never taken that step, we would
love to take that step with you. Please talk
to me after the service. But let's, in the meantime,
come to Christ. Broken, yes. Dirty, yes. Hurting,
yes. And let him touch us clean, declare us clean,
and let his blood wash us clean. Not based on
some religious ritual, but based on what he did
on the cross for us 2 ,000 years ago. Thanks
be to God. Amen. Thank you for listening to this
week's episode of Trinity Sermons. This sermon
was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville in
Mississauga, Ontario on May 11th, 2025.