Getting Rid of the Trash

The Vanderbilt baseball team won the national championship this year.  After sharing the victory with their fans, the Commodores moved their celebration into the locker room at the ballpark in Omaha.  With the stands almost completely empty, Vanderbilt Director of Baseball Operations Brooks Webb noticed a lone player still in the dugout.  Senior Stephen Scott, Vanderbilt’s OF/catcher, had just played in his last collegiate baseball game.  While his teammates were continuing to celebrate, Scott had remained in the dugout to clean up the trash that the players had left behind.

On Monday a teacher friend, Rhonda Munoz, took her daughter to an appointment.  On the way, they saw a huge mess in the road.  It was still there on their way home so Rhonda’s daughter took a video and sent it to her friend.  Within an hour of arriving home, Rhonda, her daughter and friend gathered trash bags and headed back to the site.  A box of copy paper was littering the roadside area.  The three began picking up the paper.  The UPS man stopped and thanked them for cleaning up the trash.  After running out of garbage bags, they had to stop and go and buy more.  Seeing the three working, a lady in a business suit stopped to help as well.  After completing the cleanup, the three were headed back to the car.  An administrator at the healthcare facility, across the street, came over and told the girls he had seen what they had accomplished and wanted to give them money for dinner.  He handed Rhonda a $100 bill.  Instead of buying dinner, the girls decided they want to use the money to do other good deeds this summer. 

On the way home Rhonda’s daughter thanked her for taking her to clean up.  She said, “I feel so good.  I really needed that.”  Rhonda responded in her note.  “The lessons learned today…listen to your kids.  They listened to you when you talked to them about doing the right thing.  They want to help others and do good things.  None of what I planned for the afternoon got done…and that is ok.  All of the laundry, dishes, and other chores were there when we finished.  I was in the billion degree Texas heat with these great kids helping them do exactly what we have tried to teach them.  I am amazed by their giving hearts and I can’t wait to see what they choose to do next.  It will be an honor to watch and help them.”

How commendable that people were willing to clean up messes that others had made.  These days, dugouts and messy roads aren’t the only places that need to be cleaned up.  In life, in order to make room for the new and what is best, we must be willing to get rid of the trash and things that make us less than we ought to be.  The New Testament writers include checklists to remind us.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Ephesians 4:31

Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

James 3:21

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

1 Peter 2:1

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these:  anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Colossians 3:5, 7-10