April 5, 2012

Clay Nelson

Maundy Thursday     John 13:1-35

If you knew you were going to die in under a week, wouldn't you prioritize and take care of the really important things? In John's Gospel, that seems to mean for Jesus, taking time to wash his disciples' feet.

It is a ritual that we can’t fully identify with. The closest we come to it is taking our shoes off when we enter someone’s home. But it isn’t quite the same. In Jesus day, feet were really dirty. It wasn’t just dust on their sandaled feet. The streets were full of animal dung and human waste. Washing them was fit work only for a slave. It was such an onerous task that the law said even Jewish slaves could not be required to do it. For Jesus to insist on washing his disciples’ feet was truly shocking, as Peter’s reaction reveals.

I really don’t think it was on Jesus’ bucket list. I think it was a spur of the moment act by Jesus. He is trying to have an intimate dinner party, his last with his friends and they are in denial about what is about to happen to him. When he talks about coming into his kingdom they are squabbling over who will sit on his right hand. Who is the most important? I like to imagine that they are squabbling about who should wash the other’s feet. Jesus has had enough. He gets up, strips down, gets the washbowl and pitcher and tells a parable with his actions. In case they didn’t get it, he tells them, “Enough with being important.” Following him is about having the humility to wash feet. It is about loving one another as he has loved them.

It worked. It gets their attention. Foot washing became a regular feature of the Christian community. Some attached it to the Eucharist, some to baptism. Tonight in many different settings throughout the world it is being re-enacted. In the Greek Orthodox Church tonight, the archbishop is washing the feet of twelve poor people. In Rome tonight, the Pope is washing the feet of twelve of his priests. Historically on this night, the first Queen Elizabeth washed the feet of twelve of her subjects to remind English citizens and herself that the queen was to be a servant of the people

I suspect that Jesus would be disappointed that it didn’t end the bickering. The question for the faithful became was Jesus instituting foot washing like he instituted the Eucharist? Were we to literally for all time wash feet at every opportunity if we wanted to be disciples or were we to distill from the act the principle that his followers are servants who see every one they meet as more important than themselves? At St Matthew’s we are going to go with the principle, but the rite of foot washing done once a year is how we remind ourselves of it.

In my experience offering the rite has not always been easy. Like tonight few come for the service. Some come because it is so intimate. I think most stay away for the same reason. Years ago I used to seek volunteers before the service to have their feet washed. It was like pulling hen’s teeth to get even a few. And the few who came had callouses buffed, nails trimmed, wearing new socks and deodorized shoes. I washed the cleanest feet in town.

Tonight I’m not washing everyone’s feet. We will all have the opportunity to wash feet and just as importantly to have our feet washed. For it is a two way street that we each need to experience.

John’s story is not about watching Jesus put his hands on somebody else's feet. It's about letting Jesus put his hands on our feet. Not all of us want that. One reason maybe is that we're embarrassed about our feet. But it's not as if we are attending a foot model convention. As we get older, we may one day look down at our feet and say to ourselves, "Whose veiny, bulbous, knobby feet are those? And how did they get on the end of my ankles?"

A deeper reason we don't want Jesus handling our feet is because to allow Jesus to touch our feet is to allow him to touch our will. We all have a mind; we all have emotions; and we all have a will — our decision-making power. Our feet are how we put our decisions in motion and get places, do things.

To allow Jesus to cleanse our feet is to remove all that prevents us from using our feet to follow him: To scrub away our insecurities, to wash away our weariness, to buff off our bitterness.