This foot-washing text comes around only once every three years, and as timing would have it, I’ve missed removing my footwear in the sanctuary during worship any place I’ve been. My entire life.
This is certainly a night of firsts for me. Here I am, talking with you, my bare toes well over the edge of my comfort zone.
Bare toes – a picture that reminds me of growing up. My family didn’t wear shoes in our house. As much as my mom wanted shoes to be taken up to our bedrooms, there were shoes on the porch. In the living room. In the hallway from the garage. With five boys, two girls and two parents, that’s a lot of shoes, even if it was just the pair we were wearing that day.
And you could tell how close to our family our guests were by what they did with their shoes. Close friends and family kicked off their shoes when they arrived. Guests never did. As girlfriends and boyfriends became part of the family, they, too, started taking off their shoes.
So I knew been away from home for too many years before the last trip home. I realized it on the second day. I got up, put on my clothes and shoes and had breakfast. Went outside, came back inside. Finally, my mom frowned at me:
“Gail, why don’t you take off your shoes and stay a while?”
It was as if I was wearing a winter coat or a hat indoors. I wasn’t really home yet. I was still acting like an outsider.
And tonight, it’s the last night for Jesus with his disciples. Jesus grabbed a towel and a basin, and before the disciples sat down to eat, one by one, Jesus removed their sandals and began washing their feet. Calloused feet and dusty toes touched by the Master’s hands as he rinsed and dried them.
I can only imagine Peter at the end of that line, watching Jesus silently working. Discomfort welling up inside Peter as he watched the man he recognized as the Messiah doing this. And then Jesus knelt before him…
“NO. You will NEVER wash my feet!”
Ever been in Peter’s sandals? Holding back? Like me at my parents’ home – setting myself apart from my community.
I’ve been there. Right here in this place. For the first couple of years here at Emmanuel, I resisted being part of this family. Oh, I could read the lessons every six months. Come to a few Communication Ministry meetings. I was a regular in worship. But I kept my distance and didn’t get to know anyone.
I didn’t need that. I could manage on my own – thank you very much.
Then came those moments when I couldn’t – Unbearable grief. A job transition. – And people in this community reached out to me with basins and towels. Basins of introductions and Bible study invitations, and hugs and words of encouragement wrapping me like soft towels.
I needed my feet washed. And several of you knelt down before me and gently demonstrated Christ’s love. I learned how to allow my feet to be washed, and then learned how to wash other people’s feet.
Foot-washing. We don’t do it to re-enact a Gospel story. We do it to remind ourselves that if we hold ourselves in isolation, refusing to serve and be served, we keep ourselves from the community Jesus intended us to be. Loving each other who are in the world. Loving them to the end.
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