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If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. -- Philippians 3:4b-9
When asked to write about grace, most writers tell stories of how they were radically saved and brought to a living knowledge of the Perfect Man. This is by no means a story about that. This is the story about how poop follows me around. Yes, I said poop, and yes, it can follow you around. It is also the story of how I’m really good at following rules, and making them up for myself. But mainly it’s about poop. So for any of you dear readers found squeamish, let yourself be warned appropriately.
Sometimes I love to see what major themes follow me around in life. Some are incredible, linked to the majesty of God and His creation. Many have to do with caffeine. Some are noble – bringing justice, hope, mercy, and love to the inner city, and some are hilarious and often take place within the framework of late nights in college, youth group, or with roommates. Some are tragic, and some are just plain so gross that I wonder why they become re-occurring nightmares.
In all of my dealings with two year-old children, the poopy diaper has been an unavoidable theme. All you who have dealt with this joy, join me with a smile. But you see, it’s not just the poopy diaper that has been my nemesis, no. It is the thing that I can best describe as the “Explosive Reactive Poop Experience” (heretofore ERPE) that haunts me.
For those not properly acquainted with the ERPE, it usually starts when things are going well. The child in your care is watching a video, playing tent with you, or even peacefully sleeping, and it happens. The poop does not merely get deposited into the diaper, underpants, or Pullup; no, it must be free! It liberates itself and runs out the top, down legs, into slippers, cribs, even finds its way onto fists, which the child insists on putting into his/her mouth! You usually become aware of an ERPE immediately. If the smell hasn’t clued you in, usually the wailing of the poor child standing in his or her own mess is a safe indicator that you have an ERPE on your hands. (Or rather, their hands, it will soon be on yours.)
In one particular incident, the ERPE happened on a first-time babysitting job. I had barely settled down in this new house, with a brief five-minute introduction to the schedule, and the child awakes screaming. The smell hit my nose before I turn on the light. And it was everywhere. This little boy had managed to wriggle the poop all over his sheets, blankets, pacifier, the divots of his Matchbox cars, and his entire body... and was now proceeding to wipe one eye with his fist, and stick his pacifier back into his mouth.
To make it worse, the lid to the baby wipes container had been left off overnight, rendering the wipes unusable. This boy’s brothers walked in to find their brother standing naked on the changing table screaming, and me with one hand holding him rummaging frantically for wipes. This proved futile so I picked him up, zoomed down the hall, and placed him in the tub. I ran water and scrubbed him down from head to toenails. Cuddling him in a soft towel, I dressed him, took all his bedclothes downstairs to wash, and the ordeal was over. The rest of our day was quite uneventful.
This was the tenth ERPE I’ve dealt with. Why is it that poop is a theme in my life? What could God possibly have in this nasty event for me to learn? I’m tempted once again to pass it off on the humor of the One who made the platypus, Easy Cheese, spleens, and John Denver. The Great Maker weaves laughter into my life often, but with ERPEs? I mean, really.
The knee-jerk application would be that poop is sin. That sin makes us messy and we need God to clean it up. I would say, in this case, that’s an okay analogy. I would suggest a different one though.
I’m the good kid in my family. The older of two children, I’d be hard pressed to count the times I’ve been spanked, seriously grounded, or otherwise punished on two hands. The only “hitch” in my “good Christian upbringing” testimony is that I bided my time getting around to making that crucial “decision for Christ.” Jesus wasn’t really real to me until the age of 13, a good four years after my brother decided, and a good 6-8 years after all my good Christian friends, who all seemed to have been born with an innate sense of their need for Jesus. With me, it took getting to a place where I couldn’t do things for myself anymore to really understand why I needed something more than just being the good kid.
I am great at creating rules to keep myself in line. I’m the queen of “if I just.” If I just sing beatifically in the choir, then God will cherish me. If I just give 10% of my money to the church, then God will provide for me. If I just punish myself enough for messing up, God will forgive me. And my crowning achievement: if I just live my life completely focused on knowing God, surely then He will give me a boyfriend. Instead of doing good things as my way of thanking God for who He is, and Jesus for what He has done, I have slowly taken these things that make me look good, clutched them tightly in my fists, assigned them too much importance, rolled in them, and become a very messy person.
In Philippians, Paul gives a challenge – find someone more righteous than me. Paul had it going for him. He was more perfect than an Eagle Scout – he was a Pharisee. In a faith dependent on righteous deeds to make one a pleasing child of God, Paul was, as he puts it, “flawless.” But Paul later calls his flawless life “rubbish.” (Literally here, excrement/dung.) Paul refers to the life lived by strictly following rules as excrement.
The question here is, how do all these good things that I do only add up to excrement? I will admit, the rules and morals I follow in life are good. It is good of me to not murder; it is good evidence of my faith in Christ that I love others, even those who may not love me.
Along the same lines, poop is a good and natural thing. It is necessary for the general functionality of our bodies. The issue is often when we end up making it into a mess. We say, wow what good things these are, so we spread it around a little bit. Our goodness gets everywhere, even under our fingernails. And then we realize something: we look into the face of Christ and see in the reflection that all of these good things are everywhere, and we are one big ERPE. So what does Jesus do while we stand there naked and filthy before Him? He carries us to the tub, and washes us off to reveal the clean, sweet smelling, cherished child we always were.
Paul counts all of his good things excrement compared to the righteousness Jesus gives us through faith. We as children of the King do not need to produce goodness to be good. We simply are righteous by our recognition of Christ’s work in our lives. Because He doesn’t need us for all of the hot shit we can do, He loves us because of the wonderful children we are.
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