Dirty Windows

July 7, 2022

From Pastor Joe Wamack

A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. Soon after, as they were eating breakfast in the kitchen, which overlooked their backyard, they saw their neighbor in her backyard, hanging clothes outside on a clothesline.

"Wow, I didn’t know anybody still hung clothes outside anymore. They must be poor”, the young woman said. “That laundry is not very clean. Look how dingy all the whites and colors look. She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap, or to use bleach or to buy a new machine."

Her husband looked at his wife, continued eating, but remained silent.

And so the young wife noticed this habit their neighbor had of hanging clothes outside, always while they were eating breakfast. And each time her neighbor would hang her laundry, the young woman would make the same comments about how the clothes were dingy and not clean looking.

About one month later, as the woman was fixing breakfast for her husband, she was surprised to see the neighbor was hanging lovely white, clean clothes on the line and so she said to her husband:

"Look, our neighbor lady has learned how to wash correctly. Look how white those whites are. It’s about time! I wonder who taught her."

The husband said, "To be honest, Honey, I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows. They were pretty dirty."

Verily I say to you: don’t judge what someone else is “hanging” if your windows are dirty and you can’t see clearly. Our perception is tainted by circumstances, assumptions and our own background. We judge people based on what we think we see-when what we see is only a partial reality. Even Jesus had enough sense to speak of dirty laundry when he said, “let he that is without sin, cast the first stone.”

Who am I to judge you and your life? Your journey has been different than mine and all of life is nothing but choices and consequences stacked up on top of each other. We each have stories to tell of miles walked. We are walking libraries of stories.

Today-just for today-may our hearts be empty of judgment and full of acceptance of others. You never know what is on their hearts or just how their “laundry” got the way it is. Who knows, it might be that your windows are dirty!