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 should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
John 13:14-17
Humility is hard. In our lives (or at least in mine) meekness often seems like weakness, and is to be avoided. So I’ve cultivated an identity in which I am faultless, all-knowing, and independently strong. Because of this, I see myself as 'better' than most work, and/or 'better' than a lot of people.
What a crock! But we all know this is what’s admired in our culture. And I want to be admired... so I go along. Happily.
I know this isn’t the posture God calls us to and not what Jesus was about at all. Humility is a worthy Christian goal and one that takes work and practice.
“It’s a lifelong struggle,” said my new friend Gwen, who is quite humble herself. She's a new acquaintance, and I’m not sure if she’s Christian, but she lives in a house without running water, cares for two elderly parents, is gentle, honest and unassuming, and is an excellent worker. “You’d be surprised what you can do without,” she says.
She is also wise – humility is a lifelong struggle.
Incidentally, in the past six months I have cleaned a lot of toilets. Most of them used by strangers, and not all of them tidy. See, when we began to operate a bed and breakfast here at the farm, I understood there would be cleaning. Perhaps in some distant corner of my mind I wondered who’d be doing that cleaning... not considering for a second it would be anyone as wonderful and special as I(!) But, later (insert comedic descending trombone notes here – wah, wah, waaahhh), there I was, cleaning toilets – lots of ‘em. And very much resenting it and the people who used them.
Did I actually blame folks and their necessary bodily functions? (After all we did rent them the room and charge them for it.) No, I just cussed them a little in my mind. But that wasn’t really my problem. My problem was that I thought I was better than cleaning toilets for people. Guess what: I’m not. I know that, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
Jesus said he came not to be served, but to serve. Then again he was God on earth, and I’m just a flawed human. But it sure paints a clear picture.
So, I will continue to struggle, and with God’s help may yet learn to clean toilets (and wash metaphorical feet) with a glad and willing heart.
God bless you!
Neil
