outward focused thoughts:  jesus and toilets
by dave workman

Just about every Saturday we go out with different teams of people and do free things for folks just to serve them...anything from a free car wash to a free bottle of water on a hot day to cleaning restrooms for area businesses.

 

Some years back I was with a team of pastors in Sheffield, England and we were teaching them how to clean the loo--the restroom--in pubs and businesses. It was during a conference and there were lots of different denominations there: Anglicans, Presbyterians, independent churches, and so on. We walked into one office and a very proper British woman greeted us at the door. I blurted out like the proper American I am:  "Hey, we're here to clean your loo for free today."

She said, "Who are you people?" I told her we were Christians from all sorts of churches...and rattled off some of them for her.

 

"Why do you want to clean our restroom for free?"

 

I gave our standard answer, "Just to show you God's love in a practical way... no strings attached."  I handed her a little card that basically said the same thing and she said, "I'll have to ask my supervisor." She disappeared into a board room where I could just barely see some suits sitting around a table. As they passed the card around to each person, I could hear them laughing. "They want to what...?" I thought to myself, this is way too much fun.

 

She eventually came back out and said "No thanks. We have professional cleaners come each day."

 

"No problem. You have a nice day."

 

She looked at the card again and said, "Tell me again; why do you clean toilets?"  "We just want to serve people today to express in some practical way how free and wonderful God's love is."

 

She was so puzzled. She looked at me and said, "Well, I'm a Methodist...and we don't clean toilets." I said,"Ma'am, it's not a doctrinal statement."  She paused and then you could just see a little cartoon light bulb go off above her head. She smiled and said, "You know, I guess if Jesus were here today, maybe instead of washing feet He would clean a restroom."

 

I couldn't have said it better.