Rector’s Note: The uncomfortable command to have your feet washed-4.2.26

We are asked to do a number of difficult things during Lent and Holy Week. Fasting can be uncomfortable. Lenten practices can be hard to remember or do consistently. The stories themselves are painful and challenging.

But I think that for most people, the most difficult practice of Holy Week is the foot washing that happens during tonight’s Maundy Thursday service.  On this night, we tell the story of the last supper and the institution of the Eucharist. It’s the last time we’ll celebrate this meal until Easter.

Tucked within this story is the practice that we call the mandatum, which has its origins in the directive that Jesus gives a very uncomfortable St Peter: “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.” (John 13:15)  The name of tonight’s feast, Maundy Thursday, also comes from the word, which means command. Jesus washes his followers’ feet to illustrate his larger agenda: “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.” (John 13: 34-35).

Peter’s discomfort with the practice arose from his commitment to the hierarchy he was part of: masters were not supposed to do such humble and dirty work for those beneath them.  The feet of sandal-clad first-century people were notoriously dirty, and washing the feet of a dinner guest was the work of servants or slaves. Peter, who often struggled with Jesus’ behavior, didn’t like being served by his master. It’s unclear what he thought about washing the feet of his fellow disciples.

These days, I don’t think that’s the problem we have with foot washing. I think it’s quite the opposite, actually. We don’t have a problem serving one another, caring for one another, even lovingly tending to one another’s feet. It’s our feet we don’t want washed. We don’t want people to see them, or smell them or handle them, even though none of us are wearing sandals or going barefoot in early April.

I think most people don’t want to have their feet washed because feet are a locus for shame. We live in a culture that is highly soaped and perfumed, where we change clothes and launder them as often as possible. It’s very hard to let our full humanity show -- especially in church. And our feet are not our loveliest features – so close to the earth, so prone to disfigurement and bunion and callous.

Hidden in Jesus’ mandatum to love each other is another command that he has given elsewhere – love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus is also saying, “love yourself as I have loved you.”  Which is to receive your neighbor’s offer to love and care for you, just as you expect them to receive your love and care.  It’s my experience that for very committed people of faith, it’s very hard to do the former, even as we rush to do the latter.

So this evening, let Jesus tend to you in the form of your neighbor. If not with the washing of the feet, then in other ways. Do not turn away the offer of help, of care, of appreciation just because there are others who need it more. Let yourself be loved as Jesus loves you, and love your neighbor in that way as well.

It is essential to the command to love one another. And that is an essential component of Easter joy.