John 13:1-17, 31-34
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. 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 also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him,[a] God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 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 that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
For the last seven weeks, Katelyn and I have gawked over Clive: from his chubby little cheeks, his ever moving hands, his blue (hopefully turning brown) eyes, to the slow growing hair on his head. But there is nothing we have gawked at more than his feet. Not a day goes by when both of us, likely multiple times throughout the day, gleefully squeal, “look at those piggies”! And if you’ve ever spent time around a newborn, I think this is normal behavior. Or maybe we’re just crazy because we really think his little feet are so cute and small and soft! Nearly every night, we wash those feet, taking them gently in our hands, cleaning them with soap, drying them off, and rubbing them with lotion.
It’s one thing to wash or touch a baby’s feet, but as adults, that becomes a little more awkward. There's not quite the excitement or joy around adult feet as there is for a newborn. When I wear birkenstocks, no one comes up to me gleefully squealing “look at those piggies!” And for good reasons! Both parties would be embarrassed, I presume. And my feet aren’t like Clive’s; they aren’t soft or small, and I couldn’t tell you the last time lotion touched them, if ever. As adults, our feet become hard, calloused, and cracked; they might be discolored by disease; gnarled from years of ill-fitting footwear; and surely they’re smelly at the end of the day. From heel to toe, we feel there is much to be embarrassed about. So, unless you get a pedicure often, we keep our little piggies hidden, covered, and under no circumstances, perhaps other than tonight, do we let people touch them.
Why then, may we wonder, does Jesus wash the feet of his disciples and even worse tell us to wash one another’s feet?!
If you think feet are filthy now, they were likely worse in the time of Jesus: walking, nearly everywhere, in sandals on sandy roads and rocky ground. Feet were the dirtiest, dusty part of one’s body. As a sign of hospitality, a host would leave water near the door for guests to wash their feet off. Often a slave would do it. On a more rare occasion, a student would wash the feet of their teacher. But on Jesus’ last night with his disciples, he flips the script, humbles, or more like humiliates, himself and washes the dirty, dusty, smelly feet of each disciple.
But what does this act mean, both for the disciples and for us? What makes it so important? Is Jesus simply calling us to wash feet because they're dirty and smelly? Or is there something more going on here?
Peter, both horrified that Jesus would take the position of a slave and likely embarrassed that Jesus would see and touch his feet, replied how I imagine many of you did when you heard this was a foot washing service, “you’ll never wash my feet”. Yet, when Jesus says “if I don’t do this, you won’t be a part of what I’m doing,” Peter takes the washing with astounding literalism asking Jesus to wash his whole body. Yet it’s not about the feet or the washing.… It’s about love and what Jesus is about to do for the disciples and for us on the cross.
In washing their feet, Jesus is saying to everyone, (to you) give me the dirtiest, dustiest part of yourself and I’ll make it clean. Reveal the part of you that's broken and bruised, hurting and aching and I’ll heal you. Show me the part of yourself that you keep covered, that you don’t want anyone else to see and I promise I will still love you.
We all have that part of us, that memory, that trauma, that hidden secret, that we don’t want others to know or see or embrace. But that’s the part that Jesus wants to hold, to bear, to cleanse. And that’s exactly what Jesus does on the cross. He willingly takes from us all our sin, our shame, our guilt, and we are made entirely clean.
And because we have been washed, because we have seen and felt the example of Christ and his love, we can be foot washers, too. By this, Jesus isn’t calling us to be pedicurists in a literal sense, nor to be killed on a cross, of course. Rather, he is inviting us to love and be loved, which looks and feels a whole lot like washing feet: because it means dealing with the dirt in other’s lives and in your own. It means holding the brokenness and burdens of your neighbor while they carry yours, too. It means revealing the hard, calloused, and cracked parts of your life that you would rather remain covered. And doing all of this for a person or people whom you can’t stand or who may have even hurt you. Notice Judas was at the table that night and his feet got washed, too.
So tonight you are invited to get your feet washed, not because they need bathed (though they may), but so that we remember and experience, if ever so slightly, the humbly, cleansing love of Christ shown on the cross. Will it be awkward or embarrassing; it might. Will it be intimate, most likely. But so is loving your neighbor. Which is exactly what we disciples are called to do. Amen.
