Today, as I looked down at the kitchen floor after cleaning up after lunch, the coffee drips, stuck-on bits of banana, and huge dust bunnies between the refrigerator and the cabinet could no longer be ignored. So I implored my husband to roll out the refrigerator, revealing the months (maybe years) of dust, magnets, pencils, combs, marbles and sundry other things that have rolled underneath out of our sight. Even my son who will pick up toads and worms in the yard would not stoop to retrieve the trinkets buried in the dust. So, I did what every mom would do…I swept it all up and threw it in the garbage. Then, I filled the mop bucket and cleaned it up, rolled back the fridge and cleaned the rest of the floor.
As I was mopping, the Spirit moved me to pray the Jesus prayer with each mop stroke.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
The floor suddenly took on new life. A thirty-some-odd-year-old workhorse with spills, dried-on food, and ground-in dirt upon it. Ground-in dirt that no amount of scrubbing with mops, on hands and knees, and even the mighty Mr. Clean Magic Eraser could obliterate. The marks of years of dirty shoes treading on it are there forever, a testament to the many pastors’ families this parsonage has housed over its history. A floor that was now beginning to shine (a bit) with the sweeping of the mop over it’s surface (with the occasional need to scrape up some bit of something with a fingernail). A peaceful, good-smelling clean entered the kitchen and my soul.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
My soul, a thirty-some-odd-year-old, tender, self-conscious, but beautiful-in-God’s-sight, workhorse that doesn’t work as much as it should. The years of selfishness, of allowing others to sin against me, of all kinds of idolatry and laziness have left their mark there, too. Ground-in dirt that no amount of contrition will erase. No parenting book, no home-organizing manual, no New Year’s resolution can repair.
The only mop and bucket that can get that mess cleaned up is found in the holy waters of baptism, in which that old, dirty, tread-upon being is made sparkling clean. Jesus Christ himself claimed me, cleaned me up, and put on a new coat of wax—the garment of the baptized. He has fed me with himself, and promised to be with me even when the coffee spills, the baby throws down the bananas, and the dirt is ground in ever deeper. The marks of sin remain there, scars that serve as reminders of unfaithfulness and spur me on to be ever more faithful, to rely ever more on Christ rather than on my own unsteady and unworthy self. To return again and again in thankfulness for that mop and bucket that cleaned up the grime. To pray without ceasing, even while mopping up the messes of others.
