STILL DIRTY

Ready or not....here's our dirty laundry. Well, it was washed, but because garage and chore rags tend to keep their stains, they still look dirty. To keep my fixer-husband happy, I do a “rag wash” every so often. As I was pinning them up to sun-dry (NO way will these greasy rags go in the dryer!) I thought of the phrase “hanging out your dirty laundry.” I've learned the idiom came into use about 75 years ago and referred to letting others know your family's dirty secrets when they really don't need to know.

Has that happened to you? It has to me, several times, in person or via letter. As I endured the negative communications, I asked myself why I was being told this. I also realized this person was wanting to vent and have somebody pity them than submit to a healing course of action. So...I did the best thing I can do when somebody throws dirty laundry at me: pray.

In situations like this, I'm encouraged by the counsel of the apostle Paul when he had to have some frank words with new Christians who had long lines of “dirty laundry” as they came out of pagan worldliness. From sexual impurity to anger problems, they had a lot of re-learning to do as believers. Listen in:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up...Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:29-31)

There must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be any obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking which are out of place....(Ephesians 5:3-4)

Besides person-to-person contact, such “dirty laundry” comes into our homes through the media. Some of it is labeled as “entertainment,” “social media,” or “news.” But it's still like stained rags.

I've heard people complain that the restrictions of the pandemic have brought out the ugliness of human interaction. Dare I suggest that the problems of the First Century are still around in the 21^st? But Paul's advice is just as appropriate for us as for those early Christians:

Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them....Be very careful, then how you live—not as unwise but as wise...(Ephesians 5:8-10, 15)

Know the advice that immediately follows that counsel? To sing! Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (5:19). To be thankful to “God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 20). And especially be thankful that God can lovingly transform any spiritual “dirty laundry,” no matter how stained.