A few weeks ago, we got a new washing machine. Not exactly an exciting announcement, I know, but there it is. A washing machine is one of those decidedly non-exciting purchases. It’s like getting new tires on your car. You spend a lot of money, but in the end, your car really doesn’t do much of anything that it didn’t do before. I think the same is true with a washing machine. It is newer, maybe a little quieter. But in the end, it washes clothes. That’s pretty much it.

The new washing machine came about because, as you might expect, the old one broke. Melissa put a load of sheets and towels in one Monday evening. The machine would start and cycle for a couple of minutes; then it would shut off and display an error code. We researched the code and found that it signaled a problem with the rotor, the machine that turns the drum on the washer. Basically the tub would not turn to eject the water. We tried everything we could think of to rectify the situation. We reset the machine. Unplugged and replugged it. We took out all the wet items to reduce weight and tried again. But nothing worked. The next day I had a repair person come and take a look. Long story short, he said he could replace the rotor, but couldn’t say definitively whether that would fix the problem. And the new rotor would cost more than we paid for the machine originally. So since the washer was 12 years old, he recommended replacing it.

So that’s what we did. Melissa got online and found a replacement, and it was delivered Friday morning.

Now I am a creature of habit. I live by routine, and my routine is I do laundry every Tuesday and Friday. I probably don’t need to do laundry twice a week. It’s just the two of us generating laundry, and it doesn’t amount to that much twice a week, but that’s my routine. I do a load of lights and a load of darks. I hang up a handful of items from the light load, and the rest go in the dryer. I hang up about half of the dark load. It’s not a lot of laundry, but that’s my routine. I was antsy all week thinking about the mountain of dirty clothes I would have by the time the new machine arrived on Friday.

So I was glad to see the delivery guys when they arrived with our purchase first thing Friday morning. They removed the old one and brought in the new model. They just left it sitting in the laundry room because we had declined to pay to have them hook everything up. They left, and I got to work. I moved the new washer into place, plugged it in and connected the water lines to the back of the machine. I stripped off all the packing materials, filled it with the first load, and completed all the settings for it to run through a normal cycle. I even took a picture of it in place and texted it to Melissa. “First load’s in!” I told her.

It started just fine, and I went off to do something else while it worked. After about five minutes I heard it chiming. I went back to the laundry room to check on things, and the new machine was not running. Displayed on the screen of the washer was an error code.

You’ve got to be kidding me! It was a brand new machine! How could there be a problem with it on the first load? What, did we get a lemon or something?

I jumped online to check on the meaning of the error code. “Insufficient water supply” was the answer. Insufficient water supply? What does that mean? How could there be insufficient water supply when I distinctly remember hooking up the hoses and … Oh wait.

Turns out I did hook up the water supply lines. I screwed them in, tightened them and even checked for leaks before starting the machine. I just forgot to actually turn on the water.

So I did that. I turned on the water from both spigots. Checked again for leaks, and cranked up the machine again. And it worked perfectly. And it has been running like a champ ever since.

So I guess I learned something from the experience. First, I probably don’t have a promising career waiting for me in washing machine installation. More important, it really doesn’t matter how careful I prepare for something, if the basic components for operation are not present, things aren’t going to work.

That’s really the inspiration behind our current sermon series, Analog Life, which we began last Sunday. We are exploring together the basic components of church and how what we do here move us toward the transformation that God offers through Christ. We are, you might say, breaking down church to its most basic components.

I hope that you will continue to engage in this series because it cuts to the core of what we do as a church and, ultimately, how we can do it better. If nothing else, it’s a good opportunity for a “system check,” to make sure everything is in place. To ensure that, if nothing else, the water is turned on.

See you Sunday.