Recharge Bible Study: Dirty, smelly feet

The whole story

John 13:1-17 and Philippians 2:1-11To read if you have time to take it all in.

The key episode

John 13:1-5Read this if you only have time for the main narrative.

The tale in a nutshell

John 13:14“Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

Have you ever had anyone wash your feet? It’s an unnervingly intimate act, especially when it is performed by someone you know. In hospitals, care homes and beauty salons around the world people are employed to undertake different tasks relating to our bodies, but we understand the transaction, the professional nature of the service, and most of us don’t flinch. We switch off. We are not embarrassed.

But imagine a room of 13 men who are close friends. And one of them, the leader, the glue that holds the group together, gets down on his knees and washes each of the others’ feet: their smelly, dirty, calloused feet. This takes a while because he’s not moving quickly to get it over with and he will not leave anyone out. It is intimate because it is not done out of necessity, but love. Do the men look away when their feet are washed? Do they look at each other? Do they give embarrassed smiles? Is the room silent? Do they feel confused and overwhelmed by what this is all supposed to mean? Do they cry because they feel unworthy, because Jesus is the very last of them who should be doing this?

As I read the story so many years later, I feel some level of embarrassment at the thought that Jesus would engage so physically with the disciples and that perhaps he would with me. The stories of Jesus speak to me more often about ideas and truths; there are sermons on hillsides, debates with religious leaders and strangers touched who need to be healed (I picture myself watching from a distance). And then here he is, on the night before his death, with his hands encircling the dirty feet of his followers. Here he is rubbing dry skin in his wet hands and easing the dust from between their toes.

Peter, typically outspoken, refuses to let Jesus wash his feet: “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” He doesn’t understand. And Jesus, no doubt weighed down by all that lies in wait for him in the next 24 hours, misunderstood once again by his closest friends and followers, doesn’t snap (as I think I would), but tries to explain. “Later you will understand,” he says. Peter persists in his resistance, and Jesus keeps his composure and his focus; he stays kind.

Not just an act

The story is famous, the ritual now iconic. But its significance does not simply lie in this one outrageously lowly, physical act of service. Jesus tells the disiciples that because he has been willing to do this, as their Lord, they must take on the same posture of service towards others. In turn, we must do the same. But there is even more in the story than that. In the very way in which he goes about both of these things, Jesus models humility to his followers. He is focused on them, and what they need to experience; he is purposeful, he is patient; he listens to them, he responds to their confusion. He knows someone in the room is already committed to betraying him, but he still includes him in this communal act of love.

The story resonates on so many more levels than a simple physical act of foot-washing, because of who Jesus is, because of its timing (the last night before his death) and because of how it chimes with the very essence of who God is. Yes, this is the account of a radically humble and lowly act undertaken by Jesus the rabbi. But it is completely in keeping with the eternal nature of God, not just God as a man in Jesus. God the Trinity is eternally in self-giving relationship - the Father gives to the Son, the Son to the Spirit, the Spirit to the Father, continually. At the heart of God is glorifying the other, raising them up, and so Jesus washing his disciples’ feet is simply the extension of how Jesus has given himself in service eternally - and will continue to do so.

Whose feet do we wash?

We were not there to have our feet washed physically by Jesus, but we have this story, and from it we understand that if we call ourselves his followers, we must do what he did. If God would become a man and serve with such wholeheartedness, with such commitment to others, with such love and presence, then no one has an excuse: “Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

So what does that mean? Does it mean that we must always do the most menial jobs we can find? Jesus wasn’t a full-time foot washer. The heart of this act seems to me to be about willingness to lay aside whatever claims we think we have to pre-eminence, to privilege, to rank, in order to serve other people’s needs ahead of our own.

I used to work for someone who was a champion for gender equality in the workplace. He was known in the organisation where we worked for creating more space for female leaders in what was traditionally a male-dominated arena. I remember him saying that we can all pay lip service to the idea of having more women in leadership roles, but the reality is that to make that happen men need to let women do the jobs that they want to do themselves: passivity, and ‘not standing in the way’ won’t change a culture, sacrifice is required.

I think this point is true in a wider sense for Christians. We are called to look for opportunities to lay down our own ambitions, our dignity, our power and our opportunities, in order to serve others. And there isn’t a good way to frame it. It hurts. It has a cost to it. It means, in many ways, that we will lose out. We will not progress as fast up the career ladder, probably. Others might not think our choice of job or role impressive. We may not be thought of as significant. We risk losing face. We might not make it onto the big platform. And we might not be thanked.

If we are genuinely trying to pattern our lives on Jesus then we have to face the truth that the cost he paid was high.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Philippians 2 describes how Jesus lays aside all the privileges of heaven to become a man, and then all the privileges of Earth to go to the cross. It’s not a path we enter upon lightly.

But at the same time, Jesus does not go to the cross a pathetic, downtrodden figure. He does not go to the cross because he has given up being able to accomplish anything or because he thinks he is useless. Not at all. He goes out of choice, convinced by what he has been called to do, sure of who he is and utterly committed to God’s purposes over and above any other agenda. It is not resignation or passivity that drives him to the cross, it is his desire to give his life away to achieve something more wonderful and more glorious. He knows that real life consists not in clinging onto what we have but giving it away to others, with joy. He knows that real life is found on the other side.

Throughout the Bible, God is always looking for humble people to work with, and that’s where it starts - with a willingness to lay aside our own agendas for his, and to give our lives in service of what he chooses rather than what we do. Humility is a posture born out of love and strength, not of weakness and fear. Who has God given you to serve today?