I was sent here to write textbooks for African Bible colleges. But for almost two weeks I scrubbed floors. How can I justify this? How can I call myself a missionary when I engage in such menial tasks? Is this a waste of my eight years of higher education?
I did not come here to scrub floors, but the floors were dirty. They needed to be scrubbed. Scrubbing a floor by hand (we had no equipment with which to do it) is hard work. But it does not completely occupy the mind. One can think while doing it. I did, and these are some of my reflections.
Scrubbing these floors has helped me reflect on several things.
Sanctity of Work
First, it helped me to think about the sanctity of honest work.
The attitude of many Christians toward work is little different from the attitude of the world in general toward work. Work is to be avoided if possible. Whereas we used to be ashamed to be idle, people are almost ashamed of working with their hands. We have not progressed from the situation Booker Washington faced. He wanted to give his students “…a practical knowledge of some industry, together with the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of knowing how to make a living….” But he found that, “the chief ambition among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they would not have to work any longer with their hands.”[1]
All of this is so contrary to what we find in the scriptures.
The Bible never actually calls Jesus a carpenter. He is called the carpenter’s son, but never actually called a carpenter. Yet it seems almost certain that he would have followed the trade of his foster-father. He certainly did some kind of work for the first thirty years of his life. He supported himself, and perhaps his widowed mother. He must have done so by manual labour of some kind. He had no schooling to qualify him for a desk job (Jn 7:15). If the Lord of the universe did manual labour, we should not refuse it.
Diligent work is commended in scripture. Whatever our task, it can be done in such a way as to honour our Lord. Paul tells the Colossians, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:17, ESV). A few verses later he tells them, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col 3:23-24, ESV).
Sadly, many Christians do not seem to reflect on the fact that our Lord did manual labour. When we look at their attitude toward work, they do not seem to be aware that Colossians chapter three exists.
We have not come to see that any job that a Christian does well honours the Lord. We do not seem to realize that any job a Christian does poorly dishonours the Lord. We need to preach the sanctity of work; we need to teach it; we need to practice it.
The Nature of Sin
As I scrubbed, I also reflected on the nature of sin.
The floors did not look dirty to the landlord or to his employees. They had become accustomed to the floors as they were, and therefore the floors looked fine to them. They were amazed when they saw the transformation that two weeks of scrubbing and three coats of wax produced. The last few days we were working on it, the landlord had one of his workers join us in the work so that she could learn how to make his floors shine.
In the same way, we have become accustomed to sin. It seems natural, even inevitable to us. We do not see our lives as our holy Lord sees them. Yes, we will admit that we sin, but the admission does not greatly trouble us. We have become accustomed to our sin.
It also occurred to me that these floors, even after all that work, would not satisfy someone whose job was to sanitise an operating room. They are still, by that standard, quite dirty. And two weeks of scrubbing does not mean that we can now coast for the next month. The floors will continue to need attention, or they will soon drift back into an embarrassingly dirty state.
In the same way, the life of the most faithful follower of Christ, is not everything it ought to be. We ought to be continually seeking improvement. As Paul observed,
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14, ESV)
We must not deny that we are sinners. As John tells us, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8, ESV). Yet John also warns us against complacency regarding sin. “By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:5-6, ESV).
We must not settle down in a dirty house, satisfying ourselves that, after all, everyone lives in a dirty house and most people’s houses are dirtier than ours. We need to scrub the floors and then continue to fight against dirt.
We aim too low. Jesus does not call us to be a little better than the world; he does not call us to be like our fellow believers; he calls us to become like him. Are we answering his call?
[1] Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, chapter eight.