When I am sitting on the floor in the bathroom, wearing my purple rubber gloves, scrubbing the blue toilet, I wonder if Jesus would clean toilets. Would Jesus sit beside me and clean the toilet with me?
Would Jesus say, “Pamela, I will scrub the toilet for you.”
I don’t like to clean the toilet. Okay, I hate cleaning the toilet. The job seems menial, something a lowly servant would do. Are there some jobs that are for Kings and some jobs that are for servants?
Do I have a bad attitude?
I keep thinking of the story where Jesus washed the disciples feet. Do you know the story? Jesus is having meal with his students, his disciples. They don’t sit in chairs at a table. The table is low to the ground. They sit and recline on the floor. ,
The roads they walk on are dirt roads. The men wore sandals. The men didn’t wear closed toed shoes and socks, drive in cars, and walk on carpeted floors. They walked. Their feet were dirty.
In that time period it was customary for a servant to wash the feet of the guests when they arrived. At this meal there was no servant. Everyone was sitting around the table with dirty feet. No one offered to wash the feet of another.
Jesus didn’t wash the disciples feet when they arrived; he started to wash their feet during the meal. Jesus got up from the floor and took off his outer clothing. He wrapped a towel around his waist and poured water into a basin.
Jesus washed the disciples feet and dried them with the towel that was wrapped around his waist.
I wonder what the men thought as they watched their teacher washing feet. Their teacher was doing the task of a menial servant. In the book of John there is no record of anyone offering to do take the place of Jesus and wash the men’s feet.
When Jesus had finished washing everyone’s feet, he put on his clothes and sat down again. He asked the men if they understood what he had done.
Jesus told them they should wash each others feet.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
John 13: 14-15
Jesus wants us to serve each other. Jesus set an example of service. He was the Lord and the Teacher,yet he did a job that a lowly servant would do.
Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
John 13: 16-17
Jesus said, “No servant is greater than his master.”
Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. I don’t know if Jesus would wear purple rubber gloves, but I do know he came to serve.
Jesus would clean toilets.
If Jesus can wash his disciples feet and serve humbly I will clean my toilets with a humble attitude. I will quit complaining.
I will wear rubber gloves though.
Do you think Jesus would clean toilets?
