Several years ago my husband and I purchased a "fix-er-upper". At the time of the purchase the house appeared to be strangely suspended in time and was tenaciously clinging to its red shag carpeting and avocado colored appliances. We were on a shoestring budget for the rehab work and set about to do most of the work by ourselves. We pulled up what seemed like acres of carpeting and pulled down paneling made from what appeared to be close to a forest full of wood.
The final task in the denuding of our house was to tackle the well-glued graphic green and yellow wallpaper that hung in both bathrooms. I began the process with great vigor but slowed quickly as I realized it was going to be a bit like an archeological dig in which I would uncover multiple layers of wallpaper each more about personal taste than the last.
On one particular afternoon I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor, in the corner behind the door, when I heard by mother-in-law yell, 'hello' from the front door. I was on my own that day because my husband had returned to work after his weekend off and she had come with the excuse of lunch but I am confident her real intention was making sure I wasn't using power tools without proper supervision.
I guided her to the bathroom with my voice and she found me behind the door looking a bit discouraged by the strength of the wallpaper glue and the slow pace of my work. My mother-in-law, whose name also happens to also be Judy (I know you're thinking what I was thinking when my husband and I first started dating...but I cleared that up in the first few dates with a conversation that went something like this, "When you say the name Judy do you think laundry and cooking?...because I am not your mother.") assessed the look of despair and did something not many mother-in-laws in the history of the world have done. She sat down on the toilet in front of her daughter-in-law and asked if she could help remove the bathroom wallpaper.
She worked tirelessly on the tedious task of peeling wallpaper off of the walls. Inch by painstaking inch she worked until every last piece of 70's wallpaper surrendered. In the days following her task I followed up her work with a beautiful coat of paint and now everyone comments on how beautiful the bathrooms turned out. I must admit I get all the credit and almost no one knows that my mother-in-law did the work that made it possible and I don't always remember to tell them.
In Mark 9 two of Jesus disciples ask him for a place in his kingdom, they want a prominent place where praise will be prevalent. Jesus responds to them, "whoever want to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be a slave to all."(v43-44) Apparently, if you want to follow Jesus there is work to be done for which you will never receive the credit. In fact, someone else may very well come in with a topcoat of shiny paint and they will get all the praise. Apparently, if you want a place in Jesus kingdom you will find yourself working tirelessly on the tedious. Apparently if we want to be a household name in Jesus' world you and I might want to think about spending time working in the most unglamorous rooms of his house.
This morning we have the privilege of having Gary Walter, president of the Evangelical Covenant Church, with us to deliver God's word to us. These days Gary is often out seen up front in his work for our denomination yet what I know to be true of him is that he not just a man who puts on a shiny top coat. Gary works tirelessly on the tedious, is not intimidated by those things in our denomination that need to be updated for the next generation, is willing to let other people take the credit and is always willing to work in the most unglamorous rooms of the kingdom that God is building.
