Read Mark, chapters 14 & 15
“Palms & Passion”
Pastor Ben
There are a lot of things Jesus instructs his followers to “go and do” that I get pretty excited about. For example, I love participating in the sacraments of baptism and holy communion. I love the use of the material elements of water, bread, and wine. They seem so earthly and yet God transforms them in to powerful channels of grace, forgiveness, redemption and connection. But foot washing…that is a hard one for me to get excited about.
First off, I am pretty self-conscious about my own feet. Let’s just say I will never be asked to be a foot model. But second, feet in general just are just…well…how to say it…kind of gross! At least that has been my experience of feet. My feet tend to smell bad, look funny, are extremely ticklish, and are that part of me that I just prefer to keep to myself. So participating in foot washing services challenge me and force me to get beyond my inhibitions but the times I have actually done it are times I have never forgotten.
One summer at camp, I got crossed up with a fellow camper. I don’t remember now all of the details of the conflict but by day two of the two weeks together we were not speaking to one another. Our counselors paired us at the pool, for sailing, and for canoeing but that only seemed to drive us further apart. He couldn’t hold the tiller steady and I couldn’t seem to paddle right! As the week progressed things only got worse. It was shaping up to be the worst camp experience ever. Until…
One night my group’s support staff took on responsibility for leading our vesper service. They blindfolded us and led us across camp to the chapel. As we entered in they took off our blindfolds. The chapel was dark expect for the candles sporadically placed around a circle of chairs. They set us down and began to read our text for today. As one was reading the other staff member began to bring out tubs of water and towels. He sat them in the center of the room. When he finished he began to model for us how to wash one another’s feet.
I was immediately repulsed and convinced I would have nothing to do with it. After all camp is a pretty dirty kind of place. People wear sandals all day, step in who knows what, it is 100 plus degrees, feet get wet, then dry, then wet again…well you get the idea.
But suddenly and unexpectedly, I looked up and there was the person in my group that I was most at odds with standing right in front of me. Before I could say, “No”, he knelt down and began to wash my feet. It was a gesture of love and reconciliation that I have obviously never forgotten. It said more than any words either of us could have ever expressed. In no small part, that foot-washing experience, turned out to play a key role in making that one of the best weeks I ever had at camp.
Jesus was on to something with the whole call to wash one another’s feet. No, it is not easy. It is awkward, uncomfortable, and challenging to social convention. No where else in life and or society to we find a call to kneel down and wash another’s feet. Yet it remains one the most incredible and powerful means of communicating God’s grace, peace, love, and reconciliation.
So maybe we should stop running from it and start running towards it. Maybe we should embrace the call to do as Christ did and begin again the practice of washing one another’ feet. Who knows what it could lead to? Could it bring about world peace? Maybe…maybe not…but it sure is hard to hate someone whose feet you have washed or who has washed your feet. I say let’s give it a try and see what happens…it can’t hurt…it just might tickle a little!
God, break through our inhibitions and remind us of the call to be in servant relationship with you, the world, and one another. Just as you have washed us so now may we go to wash the world. Amen.
