The Washing of Feet

And so, after the long preparation of the Lenten season, we find ourselves here in the Upper Room with Jesus and his disciples, witnessing what has come to be called the Last Supper. The reading that we have just heard from the Gospel of John recounts one of the two stunning actions that Jesus carried out in these moments, the washing of his own disciples’ dirty feet.

It is interesting to note that the Gospel of John does not recount the other action I refer to: that of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. That is left to Matthew, Mark and Luke. And tonight we hear it also in the words of St Paul from the First Letter to the Corinthians. Rather, John, probably writing in his old age, gives prominence to the other great moment that took place in that room, a moment that, for some reason, eclipsed in John’s mind even the institution of the Sacrament of Holy Communion: “Jesus…rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”

Pope Benedict XVI, whose great work on Holy Week I have been considering as I have been preparing these sermons, says of this:

From time immemorial, man has asked the question: How can I be right before God? How can I move towards the divine light? Must I not do something to make myself worthy? Various solutions have been suggested: the Neo-Platonic and Gnostic solution of ridding ourselves of the impurity of the flesh and the material world and ascending towards the divine in a purely spiritual capacity.

The other great solution, which, again, we see throughout all human history with the exception of the modern, secular Western world is the notion of sacrifice, in terms of food, animals, and sometimes even human beings. The idea being that, through these sacrificial offerings, God or the gods might be placated. And, tied to these offerings, systems of cultic purification may render us clean enough to stand before God, in the unblemished divinity of his presence.

As I say, we in the modern West have largely lost this sense of the fearful awesomeness of the transcendent realm. We do not consider it particularly relevant to our lives and imagine that, if there is a God, he should accept us for who we are. But do we not sometimes experience something of this need and of this longing to be made right with God when we attempt something like a serious moral effort?

When I say a serious moral effort, I do not mean simply doing or not doing something that comes naturally to us. I mean trying to do something – or not do something – that we find difficult. This kind of thing is sometimes called a besetting sin. And all of us have at least one, probably many. I know I do. There are many things that come quite naturally to me. I could focus on these things and feel quite good about myself. But what about the things that I find difficult? My example that I would like to share with you is that of being a parent and having small children. Nothing brings out the impatient, selfish, angry and ungenerous side of me like the demands of small children. I resolve on a daily basis to change my behaviour and my attitude. And, yet, even with these sincere resolutions, any change that might occur is almost imperceptible to me. And I am amazed at my inability to make progress.

I cannot escape the confines of the flesh through spiritual or intellectual enlightenment. One misplaced and irritating word or action from one of my children is enough to convince me of this. I cannot offer a sacrifice to God that can take away this deep part of me that is overcome by sin. I cannot reach God through my own effort. I need him to come to me.

And this is why, perhaps, the image of Christ as the washer of feet was so burned into the Apostle John’s imagination. It shows us some incredible about God: not only does man not have to go out from himself in a celestial or philosophical pilgrimage to find God somewhere out there in a transcendent and near-inaccessible realm, but God himself has come to where man lives and become a man too.

The Apostle John writes elsewhere about this: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it…’ (1 John 1:1-2).

We have heard it with our earthly ears, seen it with our eyes, touched it with our hands…the word of life itself, the principle of all life, the word made flesh and living among us. This is the way that we can know God, not through purely intellectual enlightenment, not through cultic cleansing and ritual sacrifice, certainly not through moral effort, but through God coming to us all in Christ.

But there is even more than this. This life, this word of life, has come not only to be heard, seen and touched, but to hear others, to see others, and to touch them. To be, in other words, a servant to all. And the washing of his disciples’ feet, up to this point, was the supreme manifestation of the humility of Jesus Christ, the one who came not to be served but to serve.

“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you…A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

But how?

We have spoken about how we can know God in Christ. But still there remains a problem, which is how we are to interpret his commands and specifically the command to wash one another’s feet and to love each other as he has loved us. Considering the fact that Jesus went to the cross for us this is quite a great demand. Again, we have to wonder whether Christ is simply asking us to make a greater moral effort? Was the purpose of Christ’s ministry simply to raise the moral stakes even higher than, say, the Ten Commandments? Is it just more ethical effort and application that is needed? And is Christ’s behaviour merely an inspirational example for us to follow?

I think not. And here again we see something quite different to the philosophical, ethical, and religious systems of the world. These may be quite sincere in their desire to reach God and to live in a virtuous way, but there is no system that I am aware of that says the same thing that Christianity says at this point.

The key to understanding this can be found in our New Testament text which recounts the institution of the Eucharist. Paul recounts, in what is certainly an early tradition relating to the very words of Jesus himself, the taking, breaking, and blessing of bread and the taking of the cup after supper. At this point, Christ says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” This talk of the New Covenant would have recalled to the minds of his listeners the words of a great Old Testament prophecy from Jeremiah 31,

The Lord had made a covenant once with the houses of Israel and Judah and they had broken it. Just like we all do when we try in our own strength, the people of God could not turn from sin and return the love that he had shown for them. For this reason, a new covenant was promised to them, a covenant that went beyond rules and religious effort. This was a covenant that would bring transformation in the deepest place: the human heart: I will put the law within them and write it on their hearts.

Friends, we see in this moment, in the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the fulfilment and the means of this promise coming to fruition: this is how we will be transformed, this is how our hearts will be renewed, through the taking into ourselves of Jesus Christ himself and of his transformation of us from the inside-out.

“You shall never wash my feet.”

Let us relate these observations to our own lives through considering the actions of Simon Peter. Appalled at the Jesus’ actions, Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” What is going on here?

As he often did, Peter was trying in own way to protect the dignity of his Master. But can we not see in his reaction something of our own unwillingness to come before the Lord in vulnerability and repentance? Even in our own culture, it remains the case that the exposing of one’s bare feet can be somewhat embarrassing and even inappropriate. In this moment, the Lord called his disciples to bear that embarrassment and that vulnerability so that they might cleansed by him. So too with us, the Lord already knows all our sin, our shame, our pain, our suffering, and yet he calls us to bear all of these things into his presence and to allow him to cleanse us and to renew us. Through the actions of Peter, let us ask ourselves, “Am I too proud to allow Christ to wash my feet? Do I fear to make myself vulnerable before him and perhaps others?” And yet this is the very thing we must do if we are to be cleansed, transformed and renewed.

What is on your heart that you fear to bring before him? What pain? What nagging sin? In the ritual action of the Mass this evening, you have an opportunity, quite literally, to respond to this calling, as members of the congregation are invited to have their feet washed by the priest, acting in persona Christi. But, as I undertake this latter action, I myself am aware that I merely represent Christ in this moment. I do not nearly resemble him as I ought. We must all, in the words of Benedict ‘…let ourselves be repeatedly cleansed, “made pure”, by the Lord himself (so that we can) learn to act as he did, in union with him’.

Let us draw near therefore to our great high priest, our teacher, master, Lord and God, and indeed our friend, as he divests himself of his glory to make himself a servant to us. And let us allow this grace to touch our hearts so tenderly that we may be changed in the deepest place, that we may be transformed, that the life of Christ may be manifested in the world – faltering and failing, with many setbacks along the way – through us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.