Washing Feet

John 13: 1 - 5

For the past few years, the passage of scripture where Jesus washes His disciples' feet has been brought to my attention over and over.

For most of my life, I've looked at the foot washing passage as Jesus demonstrating that we are to have a servant's heart - and I still think that is a fair interpretation of that scripture. However, lately, I've been looking at it a little differently. I take care of my mother, who has Alzheimer's. Several times a week, I get down on the floor and wash her feet. If she is in a particularly bad mood, it will put her in a good mood (it's only failed me once). Because of this chore, I've started looking at this section of scripture in a new light.

First of all, when you are washing someone's feet, you are down on the floor and you can't really move very quickly. My mother gets violent sometimes (Alzheimer's is a horrible disease) and while washing & massaging her feet will calm her down - it takes a little while. She's hit me on the top of the head and she's kicked me. So, foot washing can be dangerous. You are making yourself vulnerable. When we serve someone, we are making ourselves vulnerable to them. They may not physically hurt us (although, they may), but they may take advantage of us. They may resent us for being nice - after all, scripture also tells us that we are to treat our enemies with kindness, it's like heaping coals on their heads (okay, so coal heaping isn't supposed to be our motivation for being kind, but it is sometimes a result of it).

Second, washing someone's feet isn't particularly pleasant even when they are happy and appreciative that you are doing it. The floor gets hard pretty fast! It never fails that my face will start itching and I can't scratch it because, well, I have feet all over my hands. I have arthritis and getting up off the floor isn't exactly easy either. In fact, I have this recurring nightmare that Mama and I are going to be found dead in the bathroom - she'll be sitting in the chair we have in there and I'll be laying on the floor because I couldn't get back up and no one found us before we starved to death. I know it's silly, because I know that the people at church would notice that we weren't there and besides, I always have my cell phone in my pocket just in case I really do need help getting up off the floor.

But back to that passage of scripture that talks about Jesus washing the disciples' feet. The first time that I really stopped to consider it was during a sermon given by my minister and friend, Doug. In an almost throw away line in his sermon, Doug mentioned that Jesus washed the feet of Judas, knowing perfectly well that Judas was going to betray Him later that night. That got me thinking....

If Jesus could still treat Judas with love like that, shouldn't we be able to do a better job of being kind to our enemies (and don't say you don't have enemies - if you are a Christian, then you've got them whether you realize it or not). In fact, Jesus would have forgiven Judas, if he had repented. Judas was sorry for what he had done and tried to undo it - but that isn't the same as repenting (that's a subject for another day). Instead of repenting, Judas gave into despair when he couldn't undo the damage he had done and he hung himself. (Ponder that and we'll talk about it next week.)