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“Out, damned spot!” may be one of the most widely recognized lines Shakespeare ever wrote. I wonder why? In a more innocent age it might have been for the forbidden thrill of saying “damn.” But of course that doesn’t apply any more, does it. It’s one of the milder epithets available. If that’s the worst you catch your kids coming out with, be grateful.

So why is the line so popular? “Out, damned spot.” Who remembers what play it’s from, or who said it, or what’s going on? I see a gratifying number of nods out there. Anyway, for those of you who’ve forgotten their high school English: it’s said by Lady Macbeth, Act V, Scene 1. Let me set the scene for you. It is night, and we await the arrival of Lady Macbeth, who has been sleepwalking ever since Duncan, the King of Scotland, was murdered in his bed. What the doctor and gentlewoman who watch do not know is that it was Lady Macbeth herself who killed the king, heedless of her husband’s misgivings. They only know that their lady has been sleepwalking, and they are worried. Lady Macbeth enters, carrying a candle.

The doctor says, “What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.” The gentlewoman, who had asked the doctor to watch with her, explains. “It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.”

Lady M: “Yet here’s a spot. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two; why then, ‘tis time to do’t: Hell is murky! - Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What have we to fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? ... What, will these hands ne’er be clean? ... Here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

All the perfumes of Arabia cannot, indeed, cleanse Lady Macbeth’s hand - or her dreams. Because it is not her hand that is stained, but her memory, and her conscience. And it occurred to me to wonder, as I was studying today’s Scripture, if the popularity of this quotation does not have something to do with recognition of a universal human condition. Is there anyone among us who has not occasionally wished for the power to wash away an action, or a memory?

But of course Lady Macbeth is stuck with her ceaseless midnight washings, because she is hiding from her conscience.

The Pharisees’ handwashing is not a perfect parallel to Lady Macbeth’s, of course. And yet all the washing in the world will not clean them, either, though the busy-ness of their religious activity allows them to pretend that it works.

I don’t want to give the Pharisees too bad a rap, though - because they meant well. They were struggling to impose their vision of morality and obedience to the law on Israel. Maintaining purity was a key item on their agenda. Their standards of purity were designed to promote the smooth running of a holy community.

Let me give you some background on this. This word “aniptos” or “unwashed” doesn’t have anything to do with hygiene. (Kids, don’t use this passage as an excuse to come to the table unwashed.) The word also means public, or common, as opposed to “set apart” or “holy,” dedicated to God. And holiness was an important part of the Pharisees whole program. What they wanted was to make holiness - that is, access to God - available to all the people, not just to the priests, the special elite. They had much in common with the reformers of Luther and Calvin’s day. And so they took the Levitical rules which applied only to the priests, and tweaked the system so that it could be used by the common folk as well. It might have been difficult to follow all the rules, but it was possible.

The broadening of access to God wasn’t the only motivation behind the development of these traditions. Another, equally important, was to deter pagan influences from eroding the purity of Judaism itself. The system encouraged people to make a conscious effort to set themselves apart from the unwashed (read unenlightened) hordes who were destined for destruction. Actions such as washing hands were tangible, positive gestures that displayed who was on God’s side and who wasn’t.

Also important was establishing the illusion of order, of control. The Pharisees believed that God created order, and that human affairs prosper only when things are ordered. But not only was order objectively good, it was also comforting. In a world where so little could be controlled, being able to control access to God in the humble, everyday acts of life was something to cling to. When the psalmist said that you must have clean hands and a pure heart to approach God, the rabbis could explain how you could pass the test.