Dirty Jobs

              Our porch was approaching disgusting and the beautiful fall weather was around the corner.  I wanted my porch back.  So, after years of neglect, the power washer came out.

            Because we have limited time for yard work and because I am more of a detail person when it comes to cleaning, I offered to do the power washing.  After twenty minutes of plugging things in and hooking things up, I realized this was not going to be a “quick” job.  After using the power washer for the first ten minutes, I also knew that this would be a “dirty” job. 

            The front of the house was the toughest to clean.  It had just taken a beating with years of hard weather conditions.  Hurricanes, blizzards, tornado winds, sun, and dirt, lots of dirt.  And the bugs!  However, as I moved inward, toward the house itself, it was not as dirty. 

            It took muscle and patience and being ok with getting wet and dirty in order to stick with the job.  And after a couple of hours I had managed to power wash only a third of our porch. 

            Chris asked me what I thought after I was done.  I told him that I could come out here and wash this porch every day – there would always be dirt and bugs and debris.  Our porch and lower floor of the house was the first defense against the elements, so it made sense that it would need to be washed regularly.

            It made me think of another dirty job, washing feet.  Four boys, three under the age of seven…   They have some nasty feet.  Their feet are so gross, that we have a scrub brush in their bathtub just for their feet.  As soon as they say “I’m going outside, Mom,” I know their feet will be dirty.

            We get dirt on us just from walking around in the world.  The dust and dirt and heat and wind can beat a body up!  We all need to regularly wash off the refuse of life. 

            When Jesus took a bowl and a towel and told his disciples to let Him wash their feet, He was doing a pretty dirty job.  He was the “power washer” they all needed.  Peter of course didn’t see how dirty he really was, and neither do we.  We don’t see the poo on the bottom of our shoes or the leaves in our hair or the toilet paper hanging out the back of our pants.  We think because we may go to church, read the Bible, pray, or stay pretty moral that we can’t be all that dirty and we certainly don’t need a power washing!  I mean, come on, I stay home and cook and clean all day – how can I get stained by the world?  But I do. Watchman Nee puts it this way,

”Let us suppose a young mother is preparing dinner and has something

 cooking on the stove.  All at once the baby cries, the door bell rings,

the milk boils over – everything comes upon her together in a rush. 

She runs to one and missed the other!  After everything is eventually

 settled she sits down, and it seems as if she needs a power

 to lift her up to God again.  She is conscious of something there –

not sin, but as it were a deposit of dust over everything. 

It clings like a film, coming between her and her Lord,

and she feels tarnished, soiled.  There is not that clear way

which takes her through to God at once.  This I think illustrates for us

 the need of feet-washing.”

            The dirt and dust will come, it is inevitable, and so we need to be washed.  Now, we are not made of wood and trex and vinyl siding.  We are flesh and bone, heart and soul.  We need a more gentle washing.  The touch of a hand, the smile on a face, the twinkle in an eye, a bear hug, prayer with a friend, and the pure water of the Words of Life.  Renewal and cleansing come from encountering another who is reflecting the heart of God.  “The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, ESV)

            This washing of one another is like that feeling you have after you have had a long day and you take a nice hot shower.  I think of my grandmother’s summer shower ritual.  In the summers, she would wait until the end of the day to take her shower and then come out into the living room before she said good night.  She would be in her nightgown and robe, with her Noxema in hand.  She would rub that Noxema into her skin and that cool clean aroma would travel across the room.  When she was done, she would say good night and she would go to sleep.  I always thought now that is a woman who knows how to work hard and wash up well.

            The smell of Noxema still stops me in my tracks today.  I associate the smell with a good deep clean.  My hope is that I will stop and get my own container of comforting “Noxema” out when I see another soul in need of some good clean washing.  And I intend to stop if anyone ever comes along with his/her cleaning salve for my soul.  We have the promise of blessing in refreshing and being refreshed by one another.  So, strap on your towel, grab your Noxema, and let’s go walking around this world together. 

~Your Fellow Sojourner

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.  During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,  rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.  He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”  Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”  Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” … When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.  Truly, truly, I say to you, no servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” John 13:1-17 esv