Yes, our focus on making a commitment to serve God with our hands begins with a story about feet.
Our Bible story takes place at a time shortly before Jesus would give up his life for us. Jesus and the disciples were making arrangements to celebrate a special holiday meal together called the Passover. Jesus knew the time was coming when he would be arrested. From that moment on until his death on the cross, he would be separated from his friends, his best friends. He loved them very much, and he wanted to do something that would demonstrate in just a small way how much he loved them - before he demonstrated how much he loved the whole world by giving his life.
And so we read of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Now, in and of itself, footwashing in ancient Middle Eastern culture is not a oddity. In fact, it was a common sign of hospitality, because foot travel was the major form of transportation and foot hygiene was so very important. Traveling those desert footpaths, one’s feet became very dusty and dirty.
When coming together for a celebration or dinner, when one had company over, it was customary to provide a basin of water and a towel for one to wash and dry their feet before lounging at the table.
I suppose, it might be equivalent to the host or hostess taking your coat as you arrive at their home, or even you going to washing your hands before actually sitting down to the table at a dinner party.
It was good, common courtesy for the host to provide the basin and towel, and it was good common courtesy to remove the dirt from your feet before lounging at your host’s table - they didn’t sit in chairs at a table to eat. They sort of laid on cushions at the table close to the floor.
If the host happened to be a little better off than others, they would provide a servant to actually wash the feet of the guests. If the host did not have slaves, then the host would provide the basin of water and a towel for the guests to wash their own feet. Or, the host could do the footwashing with great pomp and circumstance.
I think of a big business executive having a party at their home. There is a big production made of the hospitality extended to lower workers in the company. The hospitality is, I guess you could say, the spotlighted entertainment for the evening. And there is nothing wrong with that, really. Such a host or hostess wants to communicate, “I care about you to the extent that I am willing to go to such lengths to make sure you have a pleasant time in my home.” And the host or hostess goes to great lengths to make sure you feel welcome and are made very comfortable. Nothing wrong with that.
But that’s not what Jesus did. Or maybe I should say, its not the manner in which Jesus did it, and that is really how Jesus made this common form of Middle Eastern hospitality so distinct, and also upset Peter.
Perhaps the disciples expected to wash their own feet. I don’t believe they expected e a servant to be there to wash their feet. The Scripture doesn’t tell us this, but it seems so out of character and context for Jesus, the Disciples, and Jesus’ teachings.
It seems most likely they either expected to wash their own, or they expected Jesus to extend hospitality to them in a more high brow, honorary way. Maybe this is something they expected Jesus to do with pride, being very ceremonial, very prestigious.
But that’s not what Jesus did. Jesus took off his robe, and wrapped a towel around his waist. By doing this, Jesus was dressing himself in a most humble, demeaning way. He was taking the position of a no-account - the lowest of the lows as far as human standards go.
My storyteller’s eye imagines that the quiet but jovial conversation among the disciples must have died down very quickly as Jesus began to wash their feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. I wonder if they exchanged uneasy, questioning glances with one another. One or two of them might have gasped as Jesus began the menial task of washing their filthy feet as a lowly servant.
I imagine them standing or sitting there in shock, awkwardly no one saying anything thing or moving. But then, Jesus comes to Peter, and for the first time, someone speaks up - not to what Jesus is doing, but the manner in which he is doing it.
John tells us it was a way for Jesus to demonstrate in some way the extent to which he loved them. John writes, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extend of his love.”
Jesus was willing to go to any extent to demonstrate how much he loved the disciples and is willing to go to any extent to demonstrate how much he loves you and me. He loves us so much, he wishes to serve us and is willing to do so in the lowest of capacities - he is even willing, as the disciple will soon see, to give up his life in the most humiliating and painful way - both physically and emotionally.
What Jesus did, the service he performed for the disciples by washing their feet, was an example of sacrificial love.
I thought long and hard, looking for modern day examples of this that might help us to understand this kind of love a bit better. Two came to mind that aren’t exactly the same as what we see happening in our Bible story, but they are close. They are two movies.
The first is a Bette Midler film called Stella. It’s not what I would call one of her more popular ones. I don’t recall ever hearing of it before I caught it on the television one Saturday afternoon. Bette, who is in real life a bold and brassy person, plays her typical rough-around-the-edges character, Stella. She lives in an apartment in the New York in some place like the Bronx. She has a one-night-stand with a really rich man that results in a daughter, Jenny. Throughout the movie, we watch Jenny grow up living between these two socioeconomic worlds. Through Jenny’s life we see the desires and hopes that Stella has for Jenny’s life. We see the conflict between Stella’s humble lifestyle and limited ability to provide for Jenny and the wonderful opportunities Jenny’s father can provide for her.
At one point Stella stages a scene upon Jenny’s return from a visit with her father, that ends with Stella’s rejection of her daughter. She kicks Jenny out, and sends her to live with her father. She tells Jenny she is a nuisance and doesn’t want her more. Stella has trashed the apartment, acted as if she had had a wild party the night before, and Jenny even finds one of her mother’s friends she can’t stand staggering out of the bedroom.
It works.
Jenny runs out and goes to live with her Dad, who can give her so much more.
I hate to give away the ending, but Stella watches through the window from a rainy street as her daughter gets married. It broke her heart to do what she had done to her daughter. I guess you could say she ‘left’ her in a way, just as Jesus knows he will soon be leaving his disciples. It had to be very difficult and hurt very deeply for Stella to do what she did for and to Jenny, but she loved her very much and her actions were actions of sacrificial love.
The second film is an older one. Its kind of a classic, I guess. Its Love Story. Its a story of a well-to-do preppie college student who marries his college sweetheart who doesn’t come from a well-to-do family. The preppie, Oliver I believe his name is, is estranged from his extremely rich father. Oliver won’t have anything to do with him. He won’t take anything from him. Oliver, if I am remembering it correctly, puts himself through law school. I believe Oliver’s father threatens to disinherit him if he marries this girl from college. He and his wife, whose name also happens to be Jenny, begin a new life together. As Oliver gets a job with a law firm, they begin to plan to have a family together. Only Jenny can’t have children. They discover the reason is because Jenny is very sick, and is dying of cancer.
As Jenny’s disease progresses, Oliver is desperate to do anything that will help Jenny live, and then to do anything just to keep her comfortable as she dies. Oliver feels he must do the one thing he doesn’t want to do. For Jenny’s sake, he must humble himself and go to his father, asking for help to take care of Jenny. He makes a humble, personal sacrifice, humbling himself before his father, for the needs of the one he loves so very much, Jenny
I remember the scene where Oliver asks his father for money to take care of Jenny’s medical bills. He won’t say what the money is for. I remember how awkward the two men appeared together. I imagine the same awkwardness among the disciples as Jesus humbled himself among them.
These are two examples of sacrificial love and service where two people were willing to humble themselves, to give up their pride and a whole lot more - what had been most important to them - for the one they love. They are examples of sacrificial love, but they don’t come close to what Jesus was signifying when washing the feet of the disciples.
Do you know a story of sacrificial love and service ? Can you recall a time when someone humbled themselves, helped someone out in the manner and way in which Jesus served this disciples?
Most often, I think we serve in self righteousness. We help one another and others in a way that makes us feel good and proud of who we are and what we are doing - and there’s nothing wrong with that. But Jesus was signifying that there was nothing - no act so low, no extreme he wouldn’t go to, no means he wouldn’t use - to demonstrate just how much he loves us, wants the best for us, wouldn’t do for us, even give his life on the cross.
This, my friends, is service unmatched, unparalleled.
Now perhaps you say, “Not often does it arise for us to give our lives in the way in which Jesus gave his life for us. It just doesn’t come up in our country for us to place our claims of who we are as Christians on the line of life and death.”
And I would say to you, “It is much more difficult for us to humble ourselves as footwashers more often than it is for us to take our proclamation of faith to the cross.”
Why? Because claiming the Christian faith is a public act that often has prestige and recognition attached to it, but acting it out in service is often a private one which is seldom ever noticed, can often be humiliating, even criticized at times.
After washing their feet, Jesus puts on his clothes and returns to his place at the table. Then he says this to the disciples:
"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, servants 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.”
Jesus extends an invitation to us. He calls us to live out the love we share with and in him. He invites us to go a step further than to claim and proclaim, “Jesus loves me.”
He invites us to join him in that love. He has set us an example to follow - a lowly, humble, example that was misunderstood by his disciples, and unknown and unrecognized by anyone else. What would happen, what would it be like for you and I to follow this example? What would it be like for you and I to go through life, serving at ‘footwashers’ so to speak. What would it be like for us to embrace every opportunity of Christian service with the thought in our mind, the feeling in our heart, and the action in our hands - “I am washing the feet of others as Jesus has washed mine.”?
To Peter’s protest, Jesus said to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
To you and I, Jesus says, “Let me come into your life. Let me change your life. Let me see your dirt and filth and take it away. Don’t be embarrassed by it. I know it seems awkward, but don’t let it be. Let me do this. Let me just get the dirt out of the way.”
Peter responds, “Lord, not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well!”
“Wash all of me, Peter is saying.
Jesus responds, “A person who has had a bath, needs only to wash his or her feet; the whole body is clean. And you are clean.”
Jesus says to you and I, “You know who I am. You come here, you hear my teachings, you are learning by listening, its time for you to learn by doing. Your head knows what I say, its time for your heart to know what that feels like.
For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
These are the words of Christ Jesus.
In his name, amen.
