And Jesus Said, "Mind Your Business"

One day in Jerusalem the disciples forgot to wash their hands before they ate, and the Pharisees took this personally. (Always interesting, isn’t it, what things we decide to take personally?) They said to Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples wash their hands like they’re supposed to?”

And Jesus said, “Mind your business.”

Actually he said, “Please. You’re mad because my disciples didn’t wash their hands, which is a tradition thing. But you’re encouraging people to provide support for their families, and that is a sin thing.”

We were discussing this in Sunday school, weeks ago, but I keep thinking about it, because it reminded me how bad mortals are at figuring out morality. We mess up on it all the time—not just what is right and wrong but what is a matter of right and wrong. Because, of course, washing your hands before eating is a good idea; I highly recommend it. But not doing that isn’t sinning. God doesn’t get mad about it.

When I say “mortals are bad at figuring out morality,” what I mean is that I’m bad at figuring out morality. Once, in high school, I was apologizing in prayer for my B’s. It’s one of earliest distinct promptings I remember having: God said, “I don’t care about your B’s. I don’t care about your A’s either.” It’s not, I believe, that God didn’t care about my education or the effort I was putting in or what I was learning. He cared, it’s just the results of those efforts had nothing to do with my standing in the kingdom of God.

It is going to surprise none of you that I struggle with this as a mom the same way that I do as a wife or a student. And, for sure, some of that is down to oldest-daughter-of-an-older-daughter-of-an-oldest-daughter perfectionism, but I’ve been looking around, and I feel like this is something that society just sucks at too. Everyone seems to have opinions about how people are mom-ing: whether they’re working or staying at home (a complete false dichotomy, so far being at home is the hardest work I’ve ever done); breast feeding or bottling; running around frantically to keep their house clean or sitting in a mess.

So here I am, worrying when I can’t get Molly to stop crying or fretting over when I washed my hair last or how we’re getting take out for the third time this week.

There are rights and wrongs, and there are rights and wrongs in parenting. There are appropriate, kind ways of speaking children and not that. There are good ways of providing emotional, spiritual, and physical support and not that. But so much of this—how cute the pictures are; whether or not you have that one product; which instagram sleep training you subscribe to—so much of this isn’t a matter of morality at all. So much of the stuff we judge each other on and feel judged about is stuff that I don’t think Jesus really cares about.

Humans aren’t good at knowing what things are a matter of morality, which is I think one of the many reasons Jesus asks us not to judge each other. We’re just really bad at it.