Feet Washing

 

Photo by Michel Bakni

 There are rituals in Christianity, and some denominations are prone to have way more of them than others. Probably to excess. The one and only ritual that Jesus himself both instituted and intended his disciples to practice on an ongoing basis is the bread and wine. Now is this ritual about rituals or church buildings or priests or the value of repeated invocations or anything like that? Absolutely not. Jesus had no interest in making all the correct outward observances, clearly. He wasn't even careful about keeping the Sabbath, and that's in the Ten Commandments! You could take Mass every day and still be damned, and you could never take it and be saved, though if you never take it perhaps something isn't quite right, but the fact remains. Outward observance counts for, if not absolutely nothing, very little.

What is communion or Mass or the bread and wine actually all about? The Gospel of John, John 6:1-60 and John 15:1-17, explains it all very clearly for those who have ears to hear.

What is most personal to us if not our own bodies and minds? If you don't own your own body and mind, you don't own anything. As the baby-murderers love to say, "my body my choice," which are essentially sacramental words to them and a perfect inversion of the communion of bread and wine.

Is it a matter of "my body my choice?" Not if you hope to escape the doom of this world, it isn't!

Jesus is saying that if you want him to take you to himself, you must take him inside yourself. It is NOT your body and mind anymore. It is a temple of G-d. That can be a very intimidating thought, but that's how it is. As our former President loves to say, "Deal With It." ;) You don't own yourself anymore, G-d owns you. Your body and mind are the temple of G-d. If it is not, you are not redeemed. And of course there are those who think themselves perfectly content to be destroyed as long as they own themselves in the meantime. Well first, they don't really own themselves. Evil owns them. Secondly, to say that this is a path without a future is an understatement of epic proportions. Yet many are content to take that deal.

If this is the meaning of the sacrament of the bread and wine, understanding the meaning being way way more important than the ritual, what about the foot washing?

The foot washing in John 13 appears entirely in order to make a point, or a couple of them actually. There is no indication that this was intended to be an ongoing institution, or if it were to be an ongoing institution, no indication that the institution itself was at all important. For Jews in the Holy Land in the First Century, foot-washing was a regular if not daily occurrence. It isn't for us (we have much better footwear and most Americans anyway bathe daily.) When someone came home and was going to be in the house for awhile or for the night, they would wash their feet. If they were wealthy, a servant washed them for them, or their wife, or someone in the household of lower status. If sandals are the default footwear, your feet are at a minimum going to get dusty, and maybe gross depending on what you stepped in. Regardless, someone of higher status would not normally wash the feet of someone of lower status.

So Jesus washing the disciples feet was doubly uncomfortable. First of all, he was the Son of G-d washing your feet. You want to forbid it. Secondly, it is a humiliating thing, it hurts your pride. Here is this holy man acting like he is a wife or a slave to you or something. We don't get how offensive this was to them, because we are not status-conscious nor do we regularly wash the feet apart from normal bathing. It was very very offensive.

The first part of the meaning of the foot washing is summed up in the phrase, "Love One Another." If he, your lord and savior, washed your feet, then you should wash each other's feet. There is no place for status or pride. And it is so typically Simon Peter that he is the one who objected. To which Jesus replied, "If I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me."

To which Peter in his typical desire to always be #1, said "then wash my hands and my head too!" ;) In other words, these other plebs, you can wash their feet, but I want the full treatment. ;)

However, this "if I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me" part of it is the sneaky but very important bit.

If you are too proud to let G-d deal with your most spiritually messy business, or any other messy business of yours, you are too proud to be saved. Remember, it's not really your life anymore. You have taken Jesus into yourself and Jesus has taken you into himself. You are dead, and raised with Christ, and your body now is the temple of the only Almighty G-d. If you claim the right to keep Christ out of your business, you have no part with him.

He is going to be cleaning our feet in a spiritual sense all the time, and that's humiliating. I'll tell you what it isn't though. It isn't death. It isn't destruction. It isn't being the tares, or the dead grape branches, thrown into the fire. You have to be humble enough to let G-d take out the trash, and that is freaking humiliating, but you have to do it. You want to say, "you are Almighty G-d, you can't take out the trash, I'll do it." But you can't do it, not really. G-d has to, and G-d has to teach you like you were a baby, because if G-d isn't teaching you and taking out your unsightly garbage, you're not His. Your body is not then His temple and your mind is not His, and Christ's. Pride has no place.

As Isaiah 54:13 states:

"All your children will be taught by the Lord,
    and great will be their peace."

And as Habakkuk 2:14 states:

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge
of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

And this is a present reality as well as a promise. G-d will teach you, if you give yourself to Him. Christ's sacrifice to redeem those who G-d will choose out of the world unites you in life and death to him, and him to you. And he is united to G-d, and the Father to him.

So I would say the foot washing is really second only in importance to Jesus' words in John 6 and 15, to which the sacrament of bread and wine is connected. Not that we need to go around washing each other's feet all the time, again that is the outward action. It is that when you have taken Jesus' flesh and blood (his sacrifice to save those who are his in the world,) this is how you need to take his washing your feet (the thousands of little cleansings and purifications that are needed for you to stay in Christ, and the humility before G-d you need to be cleansed.)

If he is not washing your feet, you have no part with him.