Over the years Norman mentored me as a writer and – when he was a pastor in Newton Centre, Massachusetts – he mentored my spouse Martha in the Baptist practice of adult baptism by immersion. As a result, Martha can dunk six-foot-tall people backwards beneath the waters of a pool and bring them back to the surface, drenched but unscathed. It’s a form of Baptist miracle working.
When he was editor, Norman would share potential magazine covers with the staff to get our reactions. One prospective cover was a photograph of a young woman’s bare foot; the reclining woman faded into the background but her foot, holding a small flower between her toes, filled the frame in sharp focus.
The staff was unanimous: we thought the image was beautiful, innocent, and perfect for a spring cover.
Indeed, most of our readers thought so, too.
But one reader was disturbed. He sent Norman a letter typed in all caps:
“THIS IS PORNOGRAPHY! CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION!”
That caught all of us by surprise. This, after all, was the seventies when naked feet were common. No one thought of feet as unnatural or enticing.
We set the angry letter aside and made mental notes to ourselves to be more careful in the future. If nothing else, it was a reminder that not everyone is comfortable with bare feet.
Not so with Jesus, of course. He showed his comfort when he removed his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, grabbed his apostle’s feet and began washing them.
And when he was finished he said,
“So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you should also do as I have done to you.” (John 18:14-15)
That’s pretty clear: We should be doing this, too. It’s as clear as his instructions following his last meal with his disciples:
“Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘this is body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:14-21)
Two rituals Jesus told us to perform: wash one another’s feet and eat and drink the bread and wine. And yet two thousand years later, it’s the Eucharist that is commonly reenacted in Christian worship, and foot washing is rare.
Be that as it may, in the 1990’s, when I was on the New York staff of the World Council of Churches, I felt the frustration of my colleagues whenever we tried to have joint worship services with Orthodox Christians. The patriarchs and priests said they were prevented by thousands of years of practice and tradition from joining non-Orthodox in Holy Eucharist. That was supremely frustrating to my colleagues who believed the whole purpose of the Council was to unite all Christians at the same communion table.
After years of disappointment, the World Council staff person for Faith and Order asked a random Patriarch if the Orthodox had any objection to washing “one another’s feet” as prescribed by Jesus in John’s gospel.
“Of course not,” the Patriarch said. “It is the Gospel.”
This assurance was greeted with mild rejoicing because it seemed we had at last been able to cross the divide between East and West.
The next time the Central Committee gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, a special worship service was on the docket: a ritual of foot washing in which Protestants and Orthodox could join together in mutual expressions of Christ’s love.
It did not go well.
We were divided into groups of four that were gathered around a small basin of water. As the scripture was read – the same scripture we read this morning – we stared awkwardly at one another. In my group there were two women, one a pastor from the U.S. and the other a professor from Norway; a 70-year-old Russian Orthodox priest; and me.
As a member of the staff I tried to show leadership by removing my shoes. Hesitating only briefly, the two women slipped out of their flats. The priest frowned and knitted his thick eyebrows together in a scowl.
“I do not undress in public,” he said.
The professor from Norway spoke up. “Would it be better if we two women washed each other’s feet,” she said soothingly. “And you and Philip washed each other’s feet?”
The priest scowled and may have been frowning beneath his tangled gray beard. But he leaned over and pulled at his shoe strings.
With a grunt he kicked off his shoes, revealing faded black socks that had large holes caused by long pointed toe nails. It occurred to me that these might be the only socks he owned.
“Wash,” he said, thrusting a foot between my knees. When it was my turn to get my feet washed, he shook his head and walked away in silence.
So. Foot washing is not for everyone.
This may be particularly true in the age of good-touch, bad-touch, when children are cautioned about circles that should not be invaded, about who has a right to touch you and who does not. We are all aware of many anecdotes about politicians and celebrities who touched when they should not and invaded circles they should have avoided. We have all become naturally cautious about approaching one another. Garrison Keillor was probably right when he said if a Lutheran has to stand closer than two feet from you his chest hurts.
Aversion to foot washing was also intensified during the months of pandemic when we were cautioned to avoid shaking hands and to stand six-feet apart. That, if you’re still. Worried about it, is one of the reasons we won’t be asking you to remove your shoes this morning.
But whether we actually perform the ritual, we still hear the words of Jesus with blinding clarity.
Craig R. Koester, New Testament professor at Luther seminary, puts it like this:
Jesus unexpected action to wash his disciple’s feet “is simple, yet its significance is revolutionary. Using the most ordinary means, Jesus conveys the most extraordinary love and commands his disciples to do the same.”
Foot washing is an act of subservience usually relegated to slaves or lowly servants, and Jesus is assuming the role of a slave to show his love.
“The jaw-dropping act of love that Jesus performs by washing feet can all too quickly become a moral platitude,” Koester writes. “Yet one has to wonder whether it was really necessary for Jesus to take the part of a slave at the last supper, and then to suffer the kind of execution that the Romans used for slaves and rebels, if he was simply out to encourage a little more civic-mindedness.”
The point Jesus is making, of course, is this:
“For I have set an example, that you also should do as I have done to you . . .
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
That is the main lesson here: Love. Extraordinary love. Jaw-dropping love. When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he showed how far we should be willing to go to express unconditional love.
And whenever we remember that, we are remembering the reason Jesus came to us in the fullness of history:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believed in him will never perish but have life eternal.
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