For we [Bro Jed & Co.] are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?—2 Corinthians 2:15-16.
In other words we are a sweet fragrance to the saved; alas, to the lost and perishing, we carry the stench of sewage and death.
Bro Jed & Co. are God’s sewer workers. Daily for a half-century, we open the manholes and drop into the sewer tunnels where liquid and solid waste slowly flows, except when blockages interrupt the movement of the waste.
From the ground up our University campuses are a place of ivy towers and lovely green lawns. Below the surface, however, in the intestines of the campus, there is no beauty, just darkness and muck.
If the intestines get blocked, if the sewage system is obstructed by something, the campus and surrounding quaint town will see its pleasant streets awash with dirty stinking sewage.
Keeping the campus community clean is a team of dedicated sewer workers who may well have one of the worst jobs there is. They work in the dark, in dirty water, excrement, dead animals and garbage.
Pumping stations move the sewage from dorms, lecture halls and surrounding hotels and restaurants to sewage treatment plants.
The divers go underground to locate and remove blockages and make repairs and inspections. Divers have to survive in the poisonous atmosphere of the sewer pipes where toxic gases created by the waste can prove lethal when absorbed over a period of time.
There are other dangers such as being washed away by a sudden intake of water or sewage.
Sanitation workers must be in excellent health. Divers can't have high blood pressure or heart problems. They go through a physical examination regularly. It is important that they are intelligent, flexible and ready to respond quickly in emergencies. Above ground so-called students [party animals] are getting drunk and high on drugs and becoming woke.
When sewer workers are in the water, they can see little. They have to act the way they feel they should and the way they remember things and the way they assess situations. They are rarely seen although they go to work every day. They usually labor outside of busy hours and sometimes work at night.
The work is hard and dangerous. It can be freezing cold in winter and sweltering hot in summer.
Sewer work is vulgar. Brother Jed & Co. are regarded as uncouth usually by sinners and sometimes even by the church folks. We get down and dirty in order to maintain the sewage tunnels.
I have the credentials to lecture from the ivory tower to students who will at least make a halfhearted effort to be respectful. Above ground students during the day tend to put on their perfume but at night they slip down into the sewer and actually eat and drink of the filth below. The lower the better in their lifestyle.
When we come out of our ministry holes, we keep our ministry clean for the sake of the whiten sepultures but underground where we mostly work it’s a different story. We are often an embarrassment and disgrace to those who work in the above-ground places of worship.
