The Dishwashing Feud

Excerpt from "Because He Fed Us: Ordinary Meals - Extraordinary Messages" by Anita Hinkeldey McVey

This is the story of a feud between my maternal grandmother and my husband's maternal grandmother. The two women never met. In fact, my grandmother passed away before I even met my husband. The "feud" exists only in my head and involves dirty dishes.

In elementary and junior high school, I spent many Saturdays at my grandmother's house. I would help her garden, clean, bake, quilt -- whatever was on the list for that day. Washing dishes was always on the list. This woman knew that hot water killed germs; therefore, the rinse water was scalding hot. Seriously, she boiled water on the stove to periodically add to the rinse water. No germs were going to survive that bath. If my cousin and I happened to be at Grandma's house on the same day, we would argue over who "got" to wash and who "had" to rinse and dry.

Fast-forward ten or fifteen years to the first time I washed dishes with my husband's grandmother. It was my first holiday meal with his family. The table had been cleared, and I took my dishwashing skills to the kitchen to help. I managed to get the washing responsibilities (no one else seemed to care), and about ten plates into the process, my grandmother-in-law leaned over my shoulder and said, "You don't have to get every speck off the dishes. What do you think the towel is for?" I begged my grandmother's forgiveness and washed a little faster.

If the simple chore of cleaning dishes could confuse me so much, imagine the confusion of the teachers of the law when Jesus used it to condemn their hypocrisy.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. - Matthew 23:25-26

They were so concerned over keeping the letter of the law that they became filled with pride, judgement, arrogance, greed, and self-centeredness. They were clean on the outside but filthy and corrupt on the inside.

No matter if you wash your dishes in a sink of really hot water or load up an automatic dishwasher, we've all found the dish with a sparkling exterior that was exposed to all the water and soup and scrubbing but an inner crevice of baked-on cheese that did not get the attention it required. That spot is the hardest to clean and causes us the most frustration and effort. We each have those "crevices" inside that require some extra cleansing. God will show them to you, and He will give you the tools to eliminate all the "specks."

Sometimes it might take a little time in hot water or require a little extra polishing.

Dear Father,

Clean my heart, my mind and my spirit. Thank you for sending Jesus to endure the heat and pressure of death so resurrection can free me from stains of sin. May I love others so much that greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, and judgement cannot survive in my heart. Amen.

Excerpt from "Because He Fed Us: Ordinary Meals - Extraordinary Messages" by Anita Hinkeldey McVey

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