Ivory Soap and The Heart
From my time as a Cub Scout, I’ve had a fascination with Ivory Soap, for it was on countless bars of Ivory Soap that I learned whittling and carving with a pocket knife. While I have not done it in a long time, I will admit that even as I got older, from time-to-time I’d snag a couple of bars just for some entertainment.
As anyone who has opened a bar of Ivory Soap probably knows, Ivory’s catchphrase was, “99.44% pure.” Ivory also, if I remember correctly, floated, which was distinct for the time. I never did a chemical analysis of it, but if I had to guess, I’d say that had something to do with why it was so easy to work with as a scout.
Every time I’ve encountered today’s beatitude, I have at some point thought of Ivory Soap, because of Jesus’ reference to purity. Here’s Matthew 5:8 -
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
What I have come to realize as life goes on, though, is that Ivory’s claim to be 99.44% pure was a negative claim - that is, it was talking about what was not present in the bar of soap.
I think we have easily, often, and quite understandably moved in a similar mindset with respect to measuring our faith more by what is missing. How many of us haven’t thought - or said - something along the lines of, “Well, I try to be as faithful as the next person…after all, I don’t [fill in the blank]?”
However, where, if anywhere, do we see God defining faith by what is not there instead of what is there?
When it comes to examining the purity of one’s heart, that’s actually a relatively simple thing to measure. It’s a question we best be keeping for ourselves - how pure is my heart - because only God knows the true nature of the heart of another. How can I be so sure it is easy to measure the heart? Simple.
Is our life devoted completely to nothing more and nothing less than the will of God?
Do we love the Lord our God with everything we have and our neighbors as ourselves?
Like everything else in the beatitudes, there is a consequence for the blessed - in this case, the pure in heart will see God. Where we mustn’t be caught up though, is in attempting to be pure in heart SO THAT we will see God. The point Jesus is making here is that when we are pure in heart, we will see God because there will be nothing else competing for our vision. This is the hope - for here and now as well as for eternity.
Ivory Soap did a great job marketing itself as being pure because of what was not in a bar of soap. Let us make sure that we live in such a way that the purity of our heart is defined not by what is missing, but, rather, God who fills our heart.
Grace & Peace,
Lamar