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Hello, and welcome to The Comfortable Words.
I’ve been thinking a lot about soap. Like detergent.
This week, Eric and I power washed our house, and then we painted it.
It was a lot of work, but a power washer is a very cathartic tool. You just don’t know how dirty a thing is until you wash it with soap.
Water alone doesn’t do it. Water just hits the wall and trickles down, leaving the dirt. But with soap, something happens. You spray it down, let it sit for just a second, and then the power washer makes this, like, miraculous thing. It swings from the left to the right, and the water carries off the soap and all of this dirt, and all at once, you see this line.
Clean on one side. Years of filth on the other.
And you only see the filthy side once the clean is right next to it.
Soap actually sticks to dirt. It goes looking for it. It finds grime that you never knew was there. The scientific process of something becoming clean is called detergency. I know this because I went down a detergency rabbit hole this past week.
Stick with me, friends…
The comfortable words today are from St. John. It’s the night before Jesus dies, and he’s at the table with his friends.
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he got up from the meal, took off his outer cloak, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You don’t realize now what I’m doing, but later you’ll understand.” “No,” said Peter, “you’ll never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” “Then Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well.” (John 13:3-9)
Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.
Jesus comes to Peter like a servant, and Peter resists. He resists that Jesus would stoop so low. He resists that Jesus would get his hands dirty.
Let’s flip Jesus’ words around for a moment and hear the invitation inside of them: If I wash you, you can be a part with me.
Peter turns right around, “All of me, Jesus.” He says, “Hands, head, everything.”
Peter was a wreck’s wreck. He knew water alone wasn’t going to do it. He knew he couldn’t get himself clean. He needed something that would stick to his sin and carry it off.
In Luke 11, we see Jesus talking about washing up again.
He’s at dinner, and his host is surprised that he sits down to eat without washing first. So Jesus begins to talk to the Pharisees about what’s really important.
They are much less self-aware than Peter. Their outsides are all fancy and perfect. They assume no one will look further. They’ve clothed themselves in religiosity. Their CVs are full of accomplishments. They were brilliant. People loved to listen to them. But Jesus saw deeper, just like he did with Peter.
Then the Lord said to the Pharisee, “Now you, you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you’re full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people. Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now, as for what is inside you, be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for you.” (Luke 11:39-41)
Here’s what Jesus says to them: “You’re dirtier than you think, my friends. You’re so covered in your own pride and self-servingness that you don’t notice the grime in your own heart.”
So what separates Peter from the Pharisees?
Think about the wall that I was cleaning.
You can’t see the dirt until it’s next to something clean.
Peter stands next to Jesus. He sees the perfection of his Lord and recognizes that he just can’t measure up. But the Pharisees measure themselves against one another and their exteriors, and they all think they look fine.
The word gospel means good news. So what is the good news when it comes to soap and power washers and dirty feet and sinful hearts? The good news is that in a world filled with grime, there’s a supernatural way to be made clean. To be renewed… to be brought back again to newness. There’s like a soap that rinses us clean. It’s the grace of God through Christ. It’s the forgiveness of sin, the removal of cosmic debts, the resetting of a broken foundation.
And Jesus says to us: if you let me wash you up, you can have a part of me.
Before I power washed our house this week, you know what? I didn’t actually think it was dirty. I didn’t think it needed to be cleaned. It looked fine to me. Then the first blast of soapy water and rinsing, and I saw decades of grime had muted what the house was meant to look like.
And here’s the really comforting part. It could be restored. I only had to consent to the truth that it was dirty, and say yes to the washing.
Jesus spoke to Peter with such great kindness. He wanted Peter to have a part with him, a companionship.
Do you find it curious that the God of the universe shows us the way to Himself by taking on the nature of a servant? It was the servant’s job to wash feet. Here Jesus is in the room lining himself up with the least privileged person there.
So much religion in our world is covered in layers of grime we barely notice anymore. So many religious leaders in our world are covered in the same. So many followers of Jesus, we become confused about what’s clean and what’s filthy. We learn to despise humility and weakness, compassion, mercy, and submission… and we’re drawn instead to surety, power, influence, ego.
But Jesus comes to us, he comes to me, and he asks a very personal question: will you let me show you the layers of grime? Will you let me clean you up?
Would you today consider opening yourself to asking God to examine your heart?
To search you? To see if there’s anything that needs to be cleaned up inside?
Are there places where you have judgments or meanness?
Where you’re proud?
Where you’re more attracted to power and certainty than to the weakness of Christ?
You see, the gift of a power washer is that it reveals.
It showed me the true color of our house, and it was exhausting work. And at first I was astonished and kind of embarrassed about how dirty it was, but then I was delighted! Watching the soapy water rinse off years of grime and grit, and then the fresh and clean colors underneath, it was just worth all the work.
And this is an invitation that we have, spiritually speaking.
We have an invitation to take off old ways and put on new ones.
It’s so comforting to know that we don’t have to be stuck with the old ways. It’s so comforting to know that we don’t have to clean ourselves up.
Would you come to the Lord today? And would you invite him to clean those areas in your own life, in your own heart?
Would you humble yourself?
Allow yourself to be exposed and then cleaned in the gentle and redemptive ways of the Lord?
I’ll end by reading from Psalm 139.
You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I get up, you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down. You’re familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue, you know it, Lord, completely.
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you’re there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you.
The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.
And as the psalm ends in verse 23:
Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me… clean me up… wash me… in the way everlasting.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.