Dirty, or just stained? Theology in a coffee cup.

Swiss Chalet is a well known Canadian restaurant chain specialising in spit-roasted chicken. Their meals are modestly priced and somewhat unimaginative — good, basic, wholesome fare. Not the place to impress an important client, but ideal for Mother’s Day. MacDonalds for grown-ups, they used to call it. Let me say that I generally enjoy lunch there, even though it rarely consists of more than a Chalet soup and salad nowadays.

This week I ordered a pot of tea with my soup and salad. The mug was badly stained inside, and had something hard stuck on the handle. I used my thumbnail to remove the fleck of what I took to be baked-on food, and told the waitress that my mug was dirty. So far, so good, except that she insisted my mug was clean. “It’s not dirty,” she said, “It’s just stained  with coffee.” (What happened to the standard, “Sorry, sir, I’ll replace it right away”?)

“Do you want a new one?” she asked. “No, just a clean one,” I replied. So she brought me a spotless mug, and I enjoyed my cup of tea without further ado.

That stained mug started me thinking about the difference between stains and dirt, and what cleanliness is. Dirt, by definition, cannot be clean, but a stain might not be dirty. I supposed from my waitress’s remarks that “clean” meant for her that the process of washing had sterilized the tableware although it may have left discolorations, or even some food particles. It is probably the same with fabric. A stain is the permanent mark left by old dirt, and no matter how often the material is washed, the stain may never disappear. I have shirts that prove this.

And so it is with life. The dirt that we all of us have around the edges of our lives, and sometimes nearer the centre, may be gone, but the stain is still there. But that’s no bad thing. In spite of what I often sing at church, I have no wish to be “white as the driven snow”, if it means that all memory of the mistakes and stupidities of my errant life is washed away. The results of my mistakes and the present hurt that they have caused are stains that admonish me and make me want to be a better person. I am not cowed by them, but I am chastened. I look at those figurative stains in the same way I reflect on the real scars on my body. When I see my shortened great toe, I vow to never again pull a lawn mower towards me over uneven ground, instead of pushing it. Looking at the scars on my legs, I rue the day I played soccer against someone whose leather studs had disintegrated, leaving just the nails to slash his opponents, and I stay clear of that type of person in future. The scars on my wrists remind me of past angiograms and help me to stick to my healthy eating plan. Our conscience is similarly scarred, and if we are sensitive to its voice, we learn not to repeat the things that have hurt ourselves and others.

There’s an old Salvation Army song that says, “My sins are remembered no more” (you can find it on regalzonophone.com). I can understand its sentiment, and I certainly believe that it is possible live a wholesome life without the burden of a guilt-ridden past (“victorious” living, I think old-time Salvationists called it). According to the words of the chorus, every “sin” can be taken away, and I wouldn’t be a Salvationist if I didn’t believe that to be true. All the same, I think that their stains will be with you as long as you live. What, then, of being “washed in the blood of the Lamb”, or wearing “garments white as snow”? Well, that’s an eschatological promise giving hope to all the faithful who will not undergo judgement (John 5: 24) and be passed spotless and unblemished into “life” because of the salvific action of Jesus.

I’ve met some who have considered themselves to be spotless already, and I didn’t much take to them. They were usually more sanctimonious than sanctified. The true saints I have met were always mindful of their own failings, yet overcame them to live victorious, yet human, lives. Immaculate they weren’t, but in the light of their goodness, or godliness, you couldn’t see any stains. But I have no doubt they were there, and they were holy in spite of them.

Or, possibly, because of them?