Sometimes, chickens leave behind more than eggs and meat.
My maternal grandmother had a dozen or so chickens wandering around her yard. At night, she enclosed them in a small pen with a coop, and there they slept.
Being country boys, my cousin and I romped outside most of the time, foraging in the woods, playing in the hog pens, and mulling around in the yard—the same yard the chickens scratched in. Since we didn’t always wear shoes during the summer months—and even if we did—our grandmother would warn us before we came onto her porch or into her house: “Check your feet (or shoes).”
Chickens, it appeared, left more than eggs, and my grandmother didn’t want it in her house or on her porch. When we discovered this unwanted material on our shoes, we paused to scrape it off on the dirt or a grassy patch. Doing so became such a habit that eventually our grandmother didn’t have to remind us as much.
In Jesus’s day, getting one’s feet dirty was a fact of life. If people wore shoes, they wore open sandals, and open sandals don’t keep out dirt. And since the main form of travel entailed using one’s feet, people’s feet stayed dirty. When guests arrived, the owner—or more commonly a slave—washed the guests’ feet. He didn’t, however, wash the entire person. If the person needed a full bath, they could take care of it themselves.
Jesus’s meaning is deeper. The bath happens when we trust Christ as our Savior. God the Father takes the righteousness of his Son and applies it to our sins, making us pure and holy in position—although not in practice.
But daily living is like walking in my grandmother’s yard. We’re subject to getting our feet messy with unwanted things. The world is full of sinful influences and tempting temptations.
The news isn’t all bad, though. Jesus says we just need to wash our feet. Through the spiritual disciplines of praying, meditating on the Bible, and confessing, we scrape our feet across the dirt or a grassy patch, removing what shouldn’t be there. Confession brings restoration, and knowing God’s Word keeps our lifestyle aligned with God’s principles.
Learn to mind what the chickens of this world leave behind.
Father, give me the insight and courage to avoid those things that dirty my feet and taint my soul.
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