Is Cleanliness Really Next to Godliness?

A couple months ago, while looking for books on procrastination and spiritual solutions thereof, I came across a book titled Jesus Doesn’t Care About Your Messy House: He Cares About Your Heart. I could not click “borrow with Kindle Unlimited” fast enough. Without knowing it, I’d found exactly what I was looking for. 
To make a very long story full of psychological terminology short, autism and ADHD make it extremely hard for me to initiate and complete tasks I don’t like doing. The motivation I need to overcome this task avoidance usually involves the fear of external consequences. If I don’t write this blog post, I don’t get paid. If I put off doing my taxes, it delays my tax refund so I won’t have money to spend on things I enjoy. 
However, there are no real consequences to having a messy and cluttered bedroom. It affects no one but me. Every now and then I have to let a repair person or a cable tech access parts of my room, but I have plenty of notice when that will happen so I can clear a path or clean the closet where the cable panel is. But months or years can go by in between handyman visits, so the clutter and mess continue to build up to a point where addressing the issue requires a massive amount of energy and manpower and a level of executive functioning that I rarely have. 
In other words, I really, really needed to read this book. 
In the beginning of the second chapter, author Dana K. White searches for the origin of the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness” to see if it’s in the Bible. She finds that it originated with John Wesley in his Sermon 88, “On Dress.” Since White doesn’t identify as a Methodist, she pretty much stopped with “No, it’s not from the Bible,” and moved on. But since you and I are Methodists, I had to dig deeper into it.
What jumped out at me first when I read that passage in Sermon 88 was that the line “Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness” is surrounded by quotation marks, but there’s no attribution given. So I turned to our resident Wesley expert, Pastor Lew, for assistance. He pointed me to Wesley scholar Frank Baker, editor of The Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial Edition, who footnoted this line as arising from the Midrash Rabbah.
From what I can tell, the Aggadic midrashim are a set of Hebrew rabbinical texts “that [incorporate] folklore, historical anecdotes, moral exhortations, and practical advice in various spheres, from business to medicine.” In modern terms, they’re sort of commentary blogs on the Torah and the Tanakh, otherwise known as the Pentateuch and the Five Scrolls. 
Baker attributes the “cleanliness is next to godliness” line to Rabbi Phineas ben-Yair in the Song of Songs midrash, as part of a sorites that begins with “‘zeal leads to cleanliness’ and continues on to ‘purity’ or ‘godliness’.” He then cites another rabbi’s summary of the same passage as “‘the doctrines of religion [are] carefulness… abstemiousness next to cleanliness, cleanliness next to godliness.’” Baker also notes that a version of the line appears in Sermon 98 as well and “thus, it had passed into its proverbial form before Wesley.” 
So let’s look a little closer at Sermon 88. It appears to be addressing styles of apparel and whether or not it is a sin to wear ornamentation such as “gold, or silver, or precious stones.” The overall point of the sermon is that a person who dresses in ostentatious or costly apparel to set themselves apart from others is guilty of the sins of pride and vanity. 
The only reason the line “cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness” appears at all is that the passage emphasizes that slovenly, or messy, apparel does not count as the humble apparel Wesley is prescribing for his followers. Humble apparel must be clean and neat in order to honor God. 
So the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness” in this context has nothing to do with housekeeping at all. Inasmuch as it’s talking about hygiene at all, it’s saying that bad hygiene does not count as humility—that keeping clean and neat does not qualify as the sins of pride or vanity. 
Yet, when the phrase is wielded as a weapon against people who are bad at housekeeping, it tends to refer to the sins of sloth or gluttony rather than pride or vanity. People who are bad at housekeeping are viewed as lazy, incompetent, and selfish. We have too much stuff and too little sense. We overconsume and underperform. We don’t care enough to keep our home clean and livable. If pride enters into it at all, it’s that we’re too proud to admit we have a problem and enlist help. 
White states that “I need to refute the statement because the statement is false. The statement is convenient, though, and its convenience means it gets used often enough for people to forget it isn’t actually true. Anything we incorrectly assume about God is dangerous.” She adds,
Cleanliness has nothing to do with godliness. Rather, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Nothing we can do achieves godliness. Nothing. We are incapable, on our own, of having anything to do with God. God is holy. We’re not. We consistently commit sins like selfishness, pride, and greed. But if we believe “cleanliness is next to godliness,” then we start to think that if we could just get our houses clean, we’d be good. But we’re not good. It’s impossible for us to be good on our own, and that’s why there’s grace. Seeing cleanliness as the thing that will get me godliness-adjacent takes my focus off Jesus. He is the only one who can get me to godliness. … Godliness/holiness that lets us have a relationship with God comes only one way: through Jesus’ sacrifice and our acceptance of the mercy and grace He gives us. That’s it. Saying cleanliness is next to godliness isn’t just not right; it’s wrong. The concept implies we get closer to God by washing behind our ears or by doing the dishes.” (pp. 25-26)
Finally, someone gets it. 
White goes on to talk about the struggles of being a person whose brain simply doesn’t operate the same way “normal” people’s do. Advice that works for those people doesn’t work for us. We have to find ways to clean and organize that work for us, and they’re not going to be the ways that my mother would do it. My mother was a literal ‘50s housewife. She’s the best housekeeper I’ve ever lived with. 
I moved back in with my mom because I was tired of living with people who were messier than I was. Our apartment kitchen was basically unusable because neither my two roommates nor I ever cleaned it. None of us cleaned the bathrooms or took the trash out. It was a real problem after we’d been in the apartment for six months or so. Finally, I stopped being able to overlook the mess I lived in, and I moved out. 
What White says in this passage was a revelation to me:
Realizing my brain was designed instead of defective helped me to relax. I gave myself permission to figure out how to keep my home under control in a way that made sense to my brain, even if it was different from what the “experts” said to do. I don’t use that as an excuse but rather as freedom to not feel like a failure when traditional organizing advice doesn’t work for me. That advice is written by people who were created to think differently than I think. Accepting that I was created by God to have exactly the brain I have was a lovely, freeing realization (emphasis added). (p. 77)
I’ve spent my entire neurodivergent life being told, both explicitly and implicitly, that I’m defective. That I’m broken. That I was made wrong. But I’m not.
Because God can’t make mistakes. He can’t make a person “the wrong way.”
God gave me a wonderfully imaginative, creative brain. One that makes connections and recognizes patterns with a speed and efficiency that borders on superpower. It’s just that every superhero has a weakness, and mine is cleaning. Clutter is my kryptonite. 
And like the Apostle Paul, I now recognize that God isn’t going to “fix” me. Because I don’t need fixing. Paul realized that he was “content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). 
I might not be the best housekeeper in the world (or even this house), but that doesn’t make me lazy, selfish, or incompetent. It makes me stronger by forcing me out of my comfort zone to find strategies and systems that will work for my unique brain. It’s a challenge—one that God knows I need. Because God made me to be exactly the way I am. 



January 8, 2026

Does God Want Us to Set New Year’s Resolutions?

The practice of making New Year’s resolutions dates back nearly 4,000 years to the Babylonian Empire. A New Year festival called Akitu prompted the Babylonian kings to deliver a “negative confession” — a statement of sins the king avoided committing that he resolved to avoid in the upcoming year as well. However, the Babylonians considered the spring equinox to be the start of the year. It was the Romans who established January 1 as the beginning of the new year. January was named to honor Janus, the two-faced god who looked both backwards at the old year and forwards at the new year. The Romans reflected on the past year and then made resolutions or pledges for the new year. 
It was the Puritans who are credited with bringing the practice of setting New Year’s resolutions to the colonies that would become the United States. Most notably, preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards is credited with establishing resolutions related to personal growth and development. Edwards was known for making a list of 70 resolutions that he supposedly reviewed every single day. For example, one of his resolutions reads, “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.” This particular resolution was written in 1722. Thus, the practice of resolving to improve one’s productivity in the New Year is older than the United States itself.
Moving ahead to 1775, we find John Wesley introducing the covenant renewal service. The original covenant renewal service could take place at any point in the year, but later in life, Wesley started holding covenant renewal services on the night of December 31 and calling it a Watch Night Service. Many United Methodist churches today still hold covenant renewal services on the closest Sunday to January 1. 
The cornerstone of the covenant renewal service is the Covenant Prayer:
“I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”
The purpose of praying the Covenant Prayer during the covenant renewal service is as follows: 
“When we pray this prayer we remember that we are baptized. We renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin. We accept the freedom and power God gives to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. We confess Jesus Christ as our Savior, trust wholeheartedly in his grace, and promise to serve him as Lord, in union with the church. And we renew our promise to live as faithful members of Christ's church and serve as his representatives in the world.”
What other promises—also known as New Year’s resolutions—should we make to, or with, God for 2026?
Christian thinkers and writers have differing opinions on the effectiveness of New Year’s resolutions. Scientists have proven that the majority of resolutions are abandoned after 30 days, and less than ten percent of resolutions are ever achieved. In my own life, I did once manage to keep my resolution until the middle of October, and the reason I abandoned it was actually due to a mistake I made in measuring my progress (i.e., I thought I had failed but I’d actually succeeded). But by keeping it going for over ten months, I had performed better than 97 percent of people who’d made resolutions that year (2015). 
Psychologists have determined that most resolutions fail because they are too grandiose, too vague, and too resource-intensive. People set goals that are overly ambitious without a realistic plan for how they will achieve this lofty goal. They set goals that are too broad and lack measurable metrics. They try to achieve too much too soon with too little support and motivation. And they commit to goals without ensuring that they have the ability and/or resources to meet the goal. 
Christian writers, then, suggest that we go wrong when we attempt to achieve our resolutions with our own strength and willpower. Rather, most entreat us to rely on God’s strength rather than our own. Some suggest that we pray for God’s wisdom in order to discover what resolution to set. “Ask God to show you how to accomplish those goals and what steps you need to take,” advises Cat of 412Teens. Leah Jolly notes that 
“Sanctification, or growth in holiness, happens by the power of the Holy Spirit. Setting personal goals can help us ‘keep in step with the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:25), knowing all the while that ‘it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2:13). If it helps to use the New Year as an opportunity to embrace the invitation to pursue godliness, prayerfully consider the areas God might be calling you to grow in this coming year.”
Most Christian blogs about resolutions advise us to make sure we have the right motivation for the changes we want to make. Are our goals God-honoring or self-honoring? “When our motives are right, accomplishing our goals will have greater value to us,” says rhema.org. Goals like losing weight or exercising more consistently should not be made purely out of vanity. Rather, we should want to “honor God with our bodies” (1 Cor. 6:20). 
PureFlix.com's journal notes that “Setting goals for the new year, as Christians, means setting them WITH God, not just for His name sake [sic]. …Ask God to help your eyes, ears and heart to be open this new year in order to hear His word and feel Him moving you in a certain direction.” Many Christians will resolve to read Scripture or study the Bible daily, pray more often or more consistently, become involved with a new ministry group or project, or start a daily gratitude practice. 
With the right motivation and inspiration, we can be the resolution-makers who beat the odds. God wants us to succeed, as we hear in Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

January 1, 2026 

“There Goes Mr. Grim”: Grief, Redemption, and the Making of The Muppet Christmas Carol

by Amanda Straw

The Muppet Christmas Carol was released on December 11, 1992—51 days after my dad passed away at the age of 49. Jim Henson, the father of the Muppets as well as the production company that bore his name, also died far too young. He was 53 years old when he passed away in May 1990. And both deceased fathers left behind families who weren’t sure how they were going to navigate the world without them. 
As I started reading about the making of The Muppet Christmas Carol, looking for interesting tidbits along the lines of the ones I’d found for A Charlie Brown Christmas, I noticed that the two main threads I was coming across were grief (over Jim Henson’s sudden death and the loss of creativity and leadership it entailed) and redemption (both of Scrooge in the narrative and of Paul Williams, the film’s composer who had recently achieved sobriety after decades of drug and alcohol abuse that made him nearly unemployable). And I found that I could easily relate to both of those. 
Over the past decade or so, and especially during the height of the pandemic in 2020, there has been a cultural shift towards acknowledging the reality that grief and mourning make the holiday season very difficult for a lot of people. Blue Christmas services “[create] a safe space, a place where it is okay to not be okay” and where “there is comfort and healing from being with those who understand your pain.”
The services tend to emphasize that Jesus is the light of the world. Healing and hope arise from the “reminders that Jesus is [our] healer and he will never leave [us].” We are not alone in our grief, notes Chris Weisheim of Radiant Bible Church. “Jesus was forsaken and alone so that we never would be. He is near, even if our pain clouds our ability to feel God’s presence.”
The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first Muppet production filmed after Jim Henson’s death, and both his son Brian Henson, who was running the Jim Henson Company at the time, and the rest of the longtime Muppet performers felt his absence acutely. Brian had never helmed a feature film before and was convinced that he could never live up to his father’s example as a director and creative lead. 
But Brian, who had worked on a number of more mature films such as The Dark Crystal and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, turned out to be the best choice. “I was able to bring that darkness that I had been working in, and mix it with the comedy,” said Brian. “It's Dickens and Henson. Scrooge is the leader of Dickens. Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit is the leader of Henson. The two contrasts crash into each other.” And therein lay the magic. Brian went on:
“When Scrooge comes home and he’s an angry, lonely man, and the first ghosts show up, I knew I was going to scare people. There were kids crying in the cinemas [when the film was released in 1992]. … You need to go to those dark places for the ending to be as joyous as it can be.”
“I’ve never been able to watch Christmas Carol dry-eyed,” said Dave Goelz, who played both Gonzo and Robert Marley (Waldorf). “The comedy deepens the emotion – it ambushes you. It remains my favorite film we’ve done by a good margin.”
I, too, have never managed to watch the entire film without tears, and I’ve seen it dozens of times in the past 30+ years. I start crying when Tiny Tim dies and don’t stop until the film ends. I used to be really ashamed of that, because I was well over 30 years old and still crying at a children’s movie, but I’ve tried to reframe it as simply being a human response that is neither positive nor negative—it just is. I’m also sure that it’s a habitual response based upon the fact that I originally saw the film so soon after my father’s death, and thus that grief is bound up in the viewing experience for me. In a way, the joy at the end of the film, when Tiny Tim (“who did not die”) and Bob Cratchit celebrate Christmas with the changed Scrooge, drives home the contrast in my own life, where I haven’t had a true family Christmas in close to 35 years. 
Many of the Muppet performers were apprehensive about moving forward without Jim’s guidance. Said Goelz, “We felt an enormous bond and really wanted to do this film because of what it said about humanity.” Steve Whitmire, who took over the role of Kermit from Jim Henson himself, put it this way: 
“On my best days, I have this sense that I’m channelling Jim in some way. We and Kermit all share a dualistic view on life, where the good stuff and the bad stuff equals itself out. Kermit looks for equanimity in things: he sees the best in people, and sees the worst in people, and nurtures them beyond that without criticizing them. It’s the way Jim was, and it’s the way I’ve tried to operate in my own life as well.”
Brian Henson also chose to see the best in Paul Williams when he hired him to write the film’s soundtrack. Williams admitted to a BBC reporter that “I had misplaced the 80s. When you misplace an entire decade, you have earned your seat and you are officially an alcoholic. I had a reputation in Hollywood as an alcoholic and an addict.” By summer of 1992, Williams had two years of full sobriety under his belt, proudly noting that his “sober birthday” had been March 15, 1990. 
Brian Henson admitted in the oral history of Carol that 
“I was surprised my dad had moved off from Paul’s work for the second two Muppet movies. Then I learned it was because Paul had substance abuse problems that got bad after the first Muppet movie. When I reached out to him, he was just recently sober after a really long period of being self-destructive and he really wanted to do it. The studio was concerned but when he first started sending his ideas, it became clear it was going to be great.”
Henson added that “It was fantastic for Paul. The fact that it was a movie about redemption and how you can change your life and become what you think is a good person and the self-loathing deep down can finally be expelled? That very much matched up with where Paul was at in his life, so his songs are as strong as he’s ever written.”
I too found redemption after years of struggle. Having not grown up attending church, I declared myself an atheist a couple years after my dad died because I didn’t feel like I lived in a world that God had any presence in. I was badly bullied in school due to disabilities I didn’t know I had in addition to my perfect grades and numerous awards and accolades. If there was a God, clearly I didn’t need him to achieve academic perfection. I was doing just fine on my own. 
However, God does indeed work in mysterious ways. To make a long story short, God reached out through my longtime therapist to invite me into his house and his presence. Last week my therapist said to me, when I was talking about how much I enjoyed taking pictures at the Advent and Christmas events at Hershey First, “Could you have ever imagined, twenty years ago, that this is what you’d be doing now? You’d have slapped yourself for suggesting it.Ӡ She’s right—I’d have never imagined not only attending a mainline church, but working as a staff member also! 
The twin themes of grief and redemption make The Muppet Christmas Carol more than just a festive Christmas musical film for children. Meredith Braun, who played Belle (young Scrooge’s lost love), said “I get a lot of emails every year around Christmas from people growing up with loss and explaining what the movie has meant to them. It’s lovely. I’m honoured to have been a part of it. How lovely to be associated with something so joyous and genuinely trying to do good.” Dave Goelz (Gonzo) expressed a similar sentiment: 
“It’s such a powerful story of one person’s redemption but it’s also universal. Wouldn’t it be great if every dangerous person in the world had that realization and changed? It’s profoundly touching on a macro scale. This is one of my absolute favorites of all the things we’ve done. Jim was in every frame of this film, for sure.”
That’s the thing about loss—there are reminders of those people all around us, especially during the holidays. While the loss is fresh, those reminders can be heartbreaking and difficult to bear. But after some time, those reminders can be the very thing that keeps our lost loved ones close to us. Like ornaments on a Christmas tree, they make the holidays brighter and more beautiful. As Williams wrote and the Muppets sang, “The love we found, we carry with us so we're never quite alone.


December 25, 2025





† She’s not wrong. I definitely would not have tolerated any mention of organized religion as a 22-year-old. Atheists can be incredibly insufferable, my prior self included. 

Previous Entries