But Is It Really Clean?
With the Covid-19 threat, we have all become very conscious of keeping things clean. Some things are obvious, like washing our hands, our clothes or taking a shower. But what about things we cannot see, light switches, our steering wheel, the handle of our shopping cart. We ask ourselves, “but is it really clean”? I am no epidemiologist, so I can’t answer those questions, but something that is really important to me is our spiritual life and walk with Jesus. We can renew, clean up our act, but there come times when we say, “but is it really clean”?
The God We Serve is Pure Holiness and Light
It is a hard question, but the God we serve is pure holiness and light, and there is nothing better than to be close to Him. John opens our eyes when he writes,
“God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:5,6).
We would tell ourselves we walk in the light, but we also give ourselves a pass and justify it with “well, just a little darkness” and it is nothing anyone can see, but like the virus on the doorknob, “Is it really clean”? Our relationship with God is so much more than even catching Covid-19.
James Put It This Way
“Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).
A lot of us, especially those of us who trace our spiritual life back to only adulthood, remember the “before” picture and all the filth we got rid of when we decided to follow Jesus, and we would say, yeah, that’s gone. But the challenge to me awhile back was the little phrase, “all that remains”. It is between filthiness and wickedness which I would say are synonyms here. I think James is calling us to go the rest of the way and really clean up our act.
Peter Challenges Us
“Putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Peter 2:1,2).
There it says “putting aside” again, like James did, and look at the list. Like a little invisible virus, the five things to put aside are sneaky, subtle, invisible things that affect us greatly, but no one else knows they are there unless it’s God Himself or a highly skilled detective. Deceit for instance is not what you would call outright lying, but we might as well call it that.
Receive the Word of God
Note that James and Peter both, in calling us to put aside the remnant of spiritual dirt in our lives, give a flipside that is positive. Instead, receive the word of God, knowing what it can do for you! Long for it with the urgency of a baby who wants his bottle. Know that in getting rid of the remnant of dirty things, sweeping out the corner, wiping off the flush handle, washing our hands before we eat, getting rid of evil heart attitudes, it will be healthy for us, physically and spiritually.
Both of these passages are part of my journey. Many times I have come to something in the scripture, and my immediate response to it is “well, I don’t really struggle with that”. But my question, especially as I grow in spiritual maturity is “Well do I”?
Am I A Racist?
I would share an example from my own life, and the scripture path we have followed in the blog is how I got there. It’s a subject that is much on my mind this week with the tragedy and the response to the killing of George Floyd. So, the question I asked myself as I began this journey years ago is “am I a racist”? And if the answer to that question is “yes I am”, then as a follower of Jesus Christ, I have to repent, and remove that as a part of “all that remains of wickedness” (James 1:21). It has been a long learning process that I would apply to any “remains” in my life, but I would share this one with you today.
“You know, your jokes are not funny”.
I grew up with people who looked like me. We had very few ethnic minorities among us. It was the All in the Family age, and for me, racism took the form of ethnic jokes of all sorts. I thought they were terribly funny, but inside I told myself I did not mean any harm and intended no prejudice. I even told my dumb jokes to my African American friends. One day in college, a Christian brother told me, “You know, your jokes are not funny”. That went right through me and I asked his forgiveness, but there was a long way to go to clean up “all that remains”.
Still Not Clean
When I graduated from college, I became a teacher, and sponsored the class of 1990. One of my students was African American, and her sister died. I went to the funeral, and I was sitting behind the maybe four or five other Caucasian people in the service. The service was very upbeat and culturally jubilant. I saw the people in front of me laughing about it. I wanted to slap them upside the head, I had found the service moving. But I went home and wondered if I had ever made fun of someone’s culture. The answer was yes. You know, the germs on the doorknob, still not clean, still dangerous.
God Uses Unusual Things to Speak to Us Sometimes
For me it was a couple of movies. One was the movie Glory, about the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment in the Civil War. They were treated like dirt, by fellow Union soldiers, and disrespected by many of those who trained them. They charged Fort Wagner near Charleston and most of them died. It led to hundreds of African Americans enlisting and President Abraham Lincoln said it was one of the things that turned the tide of the war.
Yet another was Tuskegee Airmen, the story of the all African American 332nd fighter group of World War II. It was an uphill battle for all of them, they were held to a much higher standard than Caucasian pilots, but at the end of the war, their record was they never lost a single bomber they escorted to the enemy. But the thing that made me cry, was hearing that General Benjamin O. Davis, their commander, went through West Point, and no classmate spoke to him the entire time. That night I repented to God for the racist attitudes I’d had, I knew they were real. I tried to imagine that young man so far from home with no friends to support him in a terribly tough experience.
Racism goes away with real friendships between Christian brothers
My love and my resolve has grown stronger, especially as I have become friends with people who do not look like me. We talk about our careers, our families, our kids, and our grandkids. We are all facing a lot of the same things in life. I have an accountability partner, Adrion Roberson, and we have had a lot of honest, open conversations, even about racism, we are not afraid to do that. I have found that racism goes away with real friendships between Christian brothers.
In 1964, I was five years old when the Civil Rights Act was passed. Adrion and I were born about two miles apart. If our dads had both worked for the railroad, my Dad told me that they would not have had the same locker room or drinking fountain. That was not that long ago, the hurts, the emotions are still much there. We can understand that if we will.
Come Clean With God
Maybe our problem is not racism, maybe it is something else that we are being dishonest with ourselves and God about. The principle is still the same, it is time to “come clean” with God, and get things right. Let’s put aside the remnant of wickedness and latch onto God’s word like a baby wants it’s bottle. It will draw us closer to God and each other.
Chasing Sunsets – Pastor Clay’s Devotions
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