Peanut Butter Fingers

My children love, and I mean LOVE, peanut butter.  Their great grandma introduced them to “peanut butter suckers” (read “spoons of peanut butter made to sound fancy and like candy”) and they’ve been begging for them ever since.  And the sandwiches!  Peanut butter with banana (toasted, of course), peanut butter and honey, classic PB & J.  Having apple slices?  Spread some peanut butter on them! 

Anyway, they love their peanut butter.  And, being young children, they aren’t super careful about where the peanut butter gets.  I mean, it gets everywhere.  Their fingers and cheeks are kind of a given, but I find it in their hair (all the way on the back of their heads), smeared on their chairs, stuck in the grooves of our wooden table, smudged on their bedroom window.  Today I found some in my daughter’s bed.  Seriously.

Now, I’m not so good with sticky fingers or slime of any kind.  When I make a wrap, I feel the need to rinse my hands after handling pretty much every ingredient.  (Set out the tortilla, spread on the ranch *rinse* lay out the meat *rinse* lay out the cheese *rinse* place the tomatoes *rinse* -- you get the idea.) 

I like clean hands, preferably clean and dry hands. 

But, my kids are messy, and they love peanut butter. 

So, I’m helping lead a teen girl’s Bible group this summer and the lesson this past week was on beauty.  The woman teaching read the story of the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5:21-43.   She’s unimportant and considered gross and “unclean” by the community.  She sneaks up to Jesus in a crowd and touches his robe believing that will heal her.  It does, and Jesus feels it happen, so he stops to talk to her.

Jesus.  JESUS!  Like one of the most important and well-known people around.  He talks to her – the person that nobody else even wants to get near.  He had enough love and compassion in him that it didn’t disturb him to be around her.  He wasn’t afraid of being contaminated by her.

She reminded me of my kids and their peanut butter fingers, and I realized how ridiculous and unloving I can be.  During dinner, I lean away from their outstretched hands in order to avoid the gross, slimy fingers. Inwardly, I cringe at the goop, avoiding it if at all possible.  Too many days pass when I’d rather protect my skin from goop than let their hands touch me.

But Jesus sets a different example for us.  And it’s on an even grander scale.

I mean, these are my own kids, and I’m afraid of their slime.  How can I ever really love other people?  Jesus went to be with people whose lives were deep in the muck.  He talked to them, went to their houses, let them touch him, and loved them. 

It’s a small step, but it’ll be good practice: it’s time to let the peanut butter fingers touch my arms, and love the kids they belong to.