Who’s going to wash the dishes?
Who washes the dishes? I remember when I was in college and my roommate and I would have our guy friends over for dinner. These were the nights when we would go all out and actually buy meat. But, there was one rule: if we buy the food and cook, you do the dishes. In my new apartment in Chicago, we do things the real American way: everyone does their own dishes (for the most part). It’s fair. But in India, it’s not how things are done. The wife, mother, or servants do the dishes. If you are in a cafeteria setting, maybe you do your own dishes, but the boss or person of authority will rarely be allowed to wash his dish.
My friend, Yuvraj is the kind of guy by Indian standards who could go his whole life without washing a plate. That would be very normal. He’s a U.K. educated upper-middle class twenty-nine year-old from a good family. But, Yuvraj is a follower of Jesus. And sometimes when people follow Jesus they find themselves in very different roles than would be seen as normal.
He has recently moved out of his comfortable family house and into a very simple cement house in the slum. Him and his wife now sleep on the floor; carry water in from a hose outside to wash dishes, and share a bathroom with at least twelve people. Why? It’s not easy, and it’s not that they have some weird preoccupation with suffering… They are real; they want nothing to do with hypocrisy. They believe that the Creator of the universe cares about the suffering people of the world, and sent his son Jesus out of love for them. The God of the universe cares about the woman who lives across the gully from them in a three-sided shack with her children. God sees this sweet lady who never asks for anything and whose children get bitten by rats while they are sleeping. So Yuvraj and Mary see her through God’s eyes, and they insisted that she accept a bed from them—so her and her children have a chance to sleep through the night without rat bites. They imagine that if Jesus were living in their neighborhood, he might do something like make friends with her.
But back to dishes—plates. So Yuvraj started this training program in which he goes into a small town or village area and teaches a group of people problem solving skills, has them get into groups and try to think of solutions to real community problems they are facing. And, when he hears the best problem—solution he has a grant that will help them start working to implement these solutions. And, each day of the seminar starts with a time of spiritual reflection. So one day my friend Yuvraj taught devotion about Jesus washing the disciples feet. Most of the participants were Christians and all of the participants were rural Indian farmers. Then they started the training for the day and at lunchtime had a cafeteria-style-wash-your-own-plate-routine. On this day Yuvraj finished his lunch first and after washing his own plate turned to the next man and said, “Would you allow me to wash you plate?” The man blinked, and stepped back, with his month open. You have to understand that Yuvraj is so well spoken in English that sometimes people think he is a foreigner. The third man elbowed him and reminded him of the teaching of Jesus washing his disciples feet. Yuvraj laughed and said, yes, but I’m not going to say like Jesus that you have no part with me, if you don’t let me wash your plate. I am only requesting that you allow me the honor of washing your plate. As the men continued to come up to the sink, some allowed him to wash their plate and others didn’t.
Later Yuvraj brought this up to me, because we were talking about foot washing—which is something I love to do in a worship service, but Yuvraj was saying that foot washing has been ritualized beyond meaning in some contexts. On Good Friday, the priest will wash the communicants feet and it is like receiving a blessing—but the ordinary yet disruptive act of Jesus washing his followers feet has been lost. In Jesus’ cultural context, you would come in the house from a day of walking around on dusty streets and either a servant would wash your feet or you would wash your own feet. It was just a normal thing, like sanitizing your hands after moving around in a crowded place, buying lunch, pouring a glass of water, or washing the dishes in your neighbor’s house.
