Foot
washing makes most people uncomfortable. It’s an intimate act and it’s done in
public. That, of course, means it cuts across at least two of the remaining
boundaries we have in our society.
Foot
washing makes me uncomfortable as well. It might make you uneasy for some of
the same reasons. I have ugly feet. I have scars. I have bunions. One toe was
broken and looks odd. I gaze enviously at photographs of bare footed women on
beaches, not because of their bathing suits but because of their beautiful
feet. I wonder how they’ve managed it. Heredity? Exercise? Better surgery?
Botox for the feet? Daily foot massage?
Now
you probably know more about me than my mother did. It was uncomfortable to
say, and may have been uncomfortable for you to hear. Just like foot washing
itself.
We’re
in very good company, though. Peter didn’t want Jesus to wash his feet. He
protested vehemently. Jesus’ reply was, “Unless I wash you, you have no share
in me.” That is a sobering thought. It is especially sobering because we are
the hands and feet of Jesus now, and if we do not serve one another, how can we
expect Jesus to be present among us?
Unless
we accept that intimacy with Jesus, that great love he offers us, we are empty
shells. We go about doing intimate things perhaps, but we are detached from
those things rather than demonstrating the love Jesus commanded us to do on
this same night.
“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 teacher and Lord, have washed your
feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example,
that you should do as I have done to you.”
First
Jesus gave us himself as an example of what serving others looks like and how
intimate it is. That it is an act of love that engages the heart as well as the
hands and feet.
Then
Jesus gave us the new commandment that he had just illustrated: to love one
another as he loves us. And not just those of us here, but those who have betrayed
us, hurt us, loved us only a little or a lot, made us unhappy, made us angry,
or anything else hard to love.
At the end of this
service tonight we will strip away all the things we use to beatify the church.
You will not see them again until the Easter Vigil. As we strip away the things
we use for worship, imagine that you are having all your fears and all your
dirt stripped away. Listen. Watch. Can you hear Jesus? Can you see him? He is
standing here among us, holding his basin and wearing his towel. He is waiting
to wipe away our dirt, and fear, hate, and jealousy, and offer us intimacy and
love. Let him in. Let him in. AMEN.
The Rev
Nicolette Papanek
©2018
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