Cleaning, More Than Just Swiping and Dusting—A Self-Disciplining Ministry to My Home

“Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Ps 51:7)

Have you ever wondered why we clean? Or even better yet, why we need to clean? Cleaning is such a basic and daily chore, performed by our parents, grandparents, and so on. An old, universal habit, passed on to generations of different social statuses, races, religions, cultures without any official training. As women, in the face of cleaning, we tend to take sides: we either love it, or we dread it.

Cleaning. I love cleaning. Cleaning is to me what peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are to kids. It satisfies my sanity. My self and my brain hit a chaotic point without it. It influences my mood, it grows on me, it infiltrates my nervous system. Today, I can state with super confidence, therefore, that cleaning and I are very, very close friends. We have girls-day-out every day!

But me and cleaning were not always friends. You see, when just a youngster in Romania, my mother “forced” me to clean. My mom has always been an intimate friend of cleaning. When I was just a toddler, I had chores to do around our home. And it seemed to me that while I was at war with cleaning, mom was its captain. I always lost the daily battle, and had to swipe the floors, dust, vacuum, shampoo the carpets, wash dishes, clean the oven, etc. (emphasis mine—note the attitude of a victim who loathed cleaning). I despised cleaning. Not only had it conquered my mom, but it also now tried to subdue me! And how I was to resist it!

Now as a grown woman, I have learned to love what my mom forced me to do. I find it relaxing to put my home in order. As a Christian woman, I see that this is not just a quirky personality trait, but there is a connection between cleaning and the Gospel. The Gospel redefined all aspects of my life. It even redeemed my relationship with cleaning by the renewal of my mind and of my attitude.  By understanding its biblical significance, I was able to start delighting in cleaning as an opportunity to display, through daily, mundane acts of it, God’s plan of redemption for all, and declare victory over chaotic and stained places.

The very idea of cleaning is at the center of the gracious love of Christ. Sin stains, the blood of Christ purifies.“ And the blood of Jesus, [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). The Gospel message declares war against sin. God instituted for us the gracious redemption to holy, clean, pure hearts through the power of the cleaning blood of Christ. “ But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Cleaning, therefore, is God’s redemptive process on our hearts. Cleaning comes from God and it is graciously poured on us. It is a victorious agent over sin, the profane, the unholy, by the power of God’s Word. God disposes of it as He pleases (Isaiah 1:18). Cleaning is God’s ministry on our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. I, thus, welcome His cleaning on me.

One of the most significant scriptural and practical moments for me is Jesus washing his disciples’ feet in John 13. Here is the Master of the World, the Savior of humanity, kneeling humbly at the feet of his disciples, washing dirty, smelly feet. His action reiterates the same gracious and redemptive Gospel message throughout the entire Scriptures. The symbolic wash of the feet points over and over again to Jesus’ blood washing away the sins and purifying our souls. But it also creates a practical ministry for Christian women. When Jesus, the Master, becomes like a servant by washing the culturally dirtiest part of the body, He leads the way in showing Christians that cleaning each other’s feet is also the ministry of serving each other. Cleaning, in this instance, bears the practical hand of servanthood. Here is what I practically learned about cleaning from Jesus’ example:

1. Cleaning is the ministry of serving. It serves big feet and small feet. It washes big hands and small hands. It serves family and friends. As a wife and mother, I am striving to serve my husband and my children with the same humble, self-sacrificial attitude as Jesus did to his disciples. By God’s grace, I was placed in a family, and therefore, my home is my primary place of ministry. Day in and day out, through acts of biblical womanhood, I am to Christly reflect Jesus’ washing of the feet.
2. Cleaning has a location, at the core of dayliness, and it expands in all the circle of influence. The location of the washing of feet intrigues me. Jesus cleans these dirty feet in a rural, Middle-Eastern typical home. There, in a room, on a chair, surrounded by typical furniture, with a towel on the waste and a pitch of water in the hand Jesus starts cleaning. In the middle of a typical day, in a casual home, Jesus serves. Serving should happen in our homes as well, overflowing into the ministries God placed us in. Jesus washes feet for the feet needed washing. The need of cleansing is all around us. From hearts to bodies to places. From little mouths, to dirty rooms. Stinky toilets, greasy dishes, spotted clothing, dusty floors, smelly diapers.
3. Cleaning is an intentional discipline. Cleaning feet in Jesus’ times was not an elite job. That’s why not too many disciples were lining up to do it. Actually, no one wanted to do it. Culturally, it was degrading, lowly, dirty. Dust and smells stuck to the skin as the feet trod in the dirty streets of Jerusalem. Cleaning feet was a drag for most disciples just as sometimes cleaning houses can be for us, women. And rightly so. It is dirty, dusty, and stinky. And yet, why would we even expect it to be otherwise? I believe that the mind (our expectations, attitudes, thoughts, etc) has been cultured to think about cleaning as something either lesser, or unnecessary, or an inconvenience. And yet the renewal of the mind and of the attitude is the first sign of the believer’s cooperation with the Spirit through the Word of God. “Instead, let the Spirit renew your thought and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:24).
4. Cleaning is more than just dusting, swiping, folding clothes. It carries the seal of redemption of the fallen. Personally, when I clean, I am reminded that God is the author and perfector of faith, the cause of our spiritual cleansing, and the creator of order. When I wash a dirty dish or a dirty piece of clothing, I have a visual of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross: his blood has washed away my sin. This is something I can gather my kids around and share with them the ever so gracious reality that Christ washed me clean. With every swipe, vacuum, dusting, I reiterate an act of cleanliness and declare Christ victory over stale, scarlet, chaotic stains. 

My attitude towards cleaning reflects (or not) the Gospel. Christians, and specifically feminine Godly women, have been given the gracious privilege to clean. Cleaning is more than just a physical action on an environment. It really is a spiritual ministry and discipline that carries significant Gospel symbols and realities. Cleaning is yet another daily and practical tool to share with my daughters the message of the redemptive Gospel of Jesus Christ. By understanding the depth of the discipline of cleaning as a Christian woman can help me draw near the cross and learn to joyfully better minister to my home. Therefore, cleaning and I stayed very, very close friends to the day.