Luke 11:37-41 While he was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him; so he went in and sat at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you.
Practicing internal alms giving was a strange idea when I read this. Jesus said, "Give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you." In general alms are given to the church and to the needy. Usually I would think of those alms in terms of money or needed material items. Sometimes it is food for the poor or coats for the clothing drive. It sounds like Jesus is saying we can give those alms and not be clean. He points to the inside and wants our gifts to come from there in order to be clean.
In another passage of scripture Jesus takes the opposite position saying that it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. He seems to minimize the outward physical manifestations while enhancing the importance of the internal provocations. I do know this much from listening to Jesus, I need to have my insides in the right place but the outsides can just be for show if my heart is not right. Alms given from empathy and compassion are very different to Jesus from alms given from obligation, fear or pride. What do we invest the most in cleaning, the outside for appearance or the inside for holiness? Where do your alms come from?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment