Did you ever hear anyone say, “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it?” What’s the dirtiest job you’ve ever had? I remember my dirtiest job: The summer I was nineteen years old my Luther League buddy Mike and I took a job with a guy who was a member of our church. He was an independent contractor, and he was fixing up and selling some properties he owned in Southern California so he could sell them and make a big score buying undeveloped land further north. It was the dirtiest, sweatiest, most miserable summer of my life. Mike and I hauled trash barrels of mulch, mixed cement with shovels, did stone work, and painted houses indoors and out—all for the princely reward of three dollars an hour.
The physical labor wouldn’t have been so bad, but we were also subjected to our boss’s unending spew of verbal abuse. He addressed us as “ladies,” not unlike a Marine Corp DI humiliating recruits in order to break their willful spirits and make them obedient fighting men. The difference here was Mike and I weren’t going into combat. Our boss bullied us just because he was an ill-tempered, neo-fascist asshole—who forced us to listen to his diatribes about how the world was being ruined by Jews and liberals. That Mike and I listened to his verbal vomit without losing our own lunches still amazes me.
But, hey! It might’ve been a dirty, unpleasant job (It took me all summer to get the paint spatter out of my hair!), but I needed to do something to earn money for my next semester in college. I guess it all worked out in the end.[i]
At home we often ask our kids to do the dirty jobs. We cook, but we make the kids clean the dirty dishes. They can scoop up the dog’s poop or take out the trash. In the world of the Maundy Thursday text (John 13: 1-17, 31b-35), washing the dirty feet of your guests was a kid’s job. Or a slave’s job. Or a woman’s job. Whoever had the lowest status in the household was the one who had to do it. After all, it had to be done.
Our society has plenty of low-status jobs—jobs smart, college-educated folks just don’t want to do. You know: like collecting trash, stocking grocery shelves, picking lettuce, or bathing feeble, elderly folks who can’t bathe themselves. These jobs don’t pay a lot of money, and they don’t get you invited to black-tie fundraisers. But someone has to do them, and if COVID has taught us nothing else, it’s shown us just how important the folks who do dirty jobs really are.
In our Gospel lesson we hear Jesus give us a commandment: love one another as I have loved you. He’s just demonstrated his love by taking on the job of a slave, a woman, or a child. He, the rabbi and leader, has made himself the lowest person in the room by doing the dirtiest job. He’s telling us that this is how we are to love one another, by seeing no distinction and no hierarchy. We are not to value fame or wealth. We are not to keep score of achievements. We are not to judge, shame, or embarrass one another.
What we are called to do is see ourselves as servants of one another. We are to give and to acknowledge the sacredness of every person we encounter. When my late mother-in-law was in her last, declining days, my wife would visit her, bathe her, and help her dress. She’d tell her, “Mom, once, when I was little, you did this for me. Now I do it for you because I love you and I’m grateful for who you are.” The messiest jobs, I think, are so often done more out of love than necessity.
Jesus gave us a second command on this night: Do this in remembrance of me. Remembrance, that is, of the dirtiest job anyone could ever do—hang on the cross as a shamed and reviled criminal. Do this, he tells us. Eat this meal. Share this bread with one another. Come to the table together as a family and recognize each other’s sin, each other’s need, and each other’s faith. Put away your pride and know that we all are one in Him.
If my grouchy old boss from that backbreaking summer were to come and kneel at the altar, could I offer him the Body of Christ with love, compassion, and forgiveness? I certainly hope I could. To love as Jesus commands would mean seeing Christ in everyone. It would require putting away my sense of entitlement, my ego, and my resentments.
It may be a hard job, but—in this fractured, broken world—it has got to be done.
[i]
Just FYI, Mike went on to a successful career doing oceanographic research for
the Merchant Marines. He is now the chief engineering officer on the USS Iowa, a
floating museum he co-founded. He converted to Roman Catholicism, but I
consider this a lateral move. He’s one of the most interesting people I know,
and we’re still in touch 44 years later. Our boss went on to lose his dyspeptic
butt in the Northern California land scheme. Karma, dude.
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