The Smell Under the Kitchen Sink

One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four…

The smell started as a vague drift of unpleasantness. But as I cleaned off the counter, a sniff of something not quite right remained.

After a few hours I came back into the the kitchen, and it smelled like a cadaver lay under the sink.

A rotten potato’s stench is unbearable. The whole house grows infected with its odor.

I’ve known a few rotten potatoes in my life. I’m sure you have too. The longer the decay, the greater it permeates.

It reminds me of tolerated sins, the kind we look to pull others into. Nurtured hurts and disagreements with allies who empathize and even encourage bitterness and resentment. They reach into our political views, and we cultivate their voices, while scrolling online, sitting in church, chatting with friends.

Tolerated sins, like rotten potatoes fester in the presence of self-justification.

Recently I talked to a believer in Christ who held a deep grudge against her Christian family. She’d housed and nurtured wounds for decades. Estrangements she’d imposed divided the family, and she looked to me for an ally.

How well those festered hurts, imagined or real, had thrived. Watered and fed within her mind and heart, they marinated and spread like weeds. Years of loving interaction were lost between grandparents and grandchildren, siblings, and friends. In in their place was a slimy stench, not the aromatic sweetness of shared family.

Nobody won. Everyone lost.

In the last weeks, I’ve smelled sweet perfume crossbred with stench. I’m perplexed by its dividing of Christ’s Family.

Most of us will die little people, relatively unknown. And when we are gone, we will have only a small stage of people to speak ill or good of us. But as someone who loves Jesus with all of my being, I can think of no other stench as deep as having my entire life dissected into parcels of judgement to either assuage or intensify another’s worldview. And shame on those who would so tarnish one of Christ’s children, and in the process, His name.In the last weeks, I’ve smelled sweet perfume crossbred with stench. I’m perplexed by its dividing of Christ’s Family. Share on X

The Apostle Paul spoke of the fragrance we carry. With a nod to a Roman Triumph, a civil celebration which permeated the senses, he described the aroma of a believer.

Heroes of war and elaborate battle mock-ups were carried through cheering crowds.The victorious general, dressed in a majestic toga and decorated with a laurel wreath on his head, rode in a magnificent chariot.

A procession of horses and chariots rolled over streets strewn with flowers. The big wheels crushed the fragrant blossoms. Incense filled the air.

Captured, the defeated prisoners shuffled in chains toward death.

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 ESV

I’ve certainly not lived a perfect life. I’ve carried arrogance, judgmental thoughts, unforgiveness, wrong attitudes, slander, gossip and ungratefulness inside my heart. With my own blame filled arguments, I have at times, even nurtured those “tolerated” sins. Overlooked and hidden, they grieved the heart of Christ and masked His sweet fragrance to the world.

Neither in public nor in private do Christians live perfect lives. Yet, Jesus did. He lived perfectly and died perfectly for my sins. Jesus saved me, broke my curse of sin and redeemed my life. And when someday I go to be with Him, by the grace of God, I pray the fact of my salvation will never be debated by others left behind who also claim the title of forgiven in Christ.

I just read through the book of Job. Once the advice and criticisms started rolling from Job’s miserable non-empathetic friends, what they threw at Job strayed farther and farther from the truth. Their accusations and arrogance, argued that he had brought on his own suffering because of sin.

Their arguments reached a fever pitch, but it was unjust, a pile of rot.

One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four…

However, the pinnacle of abuse came when they tried to discredit Job’s salvation. His “friend” Bildad ends chapter 18 with a shattering statement pointed directly at Job’s salvation.

“ Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, such is the place of him who knows not God.” (Verse 21 ESV)

And this tragic judgement born of self-righteousness by supposed “friends,” prompted Job’s answer. It is a response that has formed an anchor for countless believers and for thousands of years. 

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”  Job 19:25-26 ESV

Those words were forged through the fires of deep suffering. Its resulting submission ultimately released the sweet perfume of a faithful and trustworthy God. It ultimately revealed truth in an ungodly and unfair judgement of Job’s righteousness.

Maybe, it’s time to look under our own “kitchen sink” to find that every and all sin is intolerable. May we rid ourselves of slanderous rot that demeans the truth of Jesus’ forgiveness and forfeits grace to our brothers and sisters who know their Redeemer lives. It’s time to get serious about our faith by ensuring that what abides in its shadows wafts only the sweet presence of Christ.

*Features Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash