Excerpted from 2023 Lenten Guide: A Season of Renewal, a Lenten Guide for Lectionary Year A from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “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, slaves 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.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Just after Christmas last year, I took a spill in a parking lot resulting in a broken arm and sprained ankle, and found myself unable to take care of my most basic needs. My friends stepped in and took care of me—you could say they ‘washed my feet.’ They did things for me that they probably would have preferred not to do. I struggled with the loss of independence and vulnerability of needing help. But I was never once made to feel like a burden. On the contrary, I have never felt more loved and cared for in my life.
I was around 12 years old the first time I heard about the concept of foot washing. I recoiled in my purple upholstered pew in the Sanctuary of Lane Street Church of God in Kannapolis, NC, and became even more horrified when the preacher ‘threatened’ to make us wash each other’s feet during a future service. I told my mom later that day that I never wanted to go to church again.
Fast forward 25 years and the concept still gives me pause (to put it nicely). The John passage suggests that the prevailing attitude at the time was that being the foot washer is the raw end of the deal. I have a slightly different view…it’s an intimate act that requires humility of both parties involved.
Though borne of unfortunate circumstances and decidedly uncomfortable, the act of ‘foot washing’ deepened my relationship with my friends and helped me understand that being in need can be one of the best places to understand your own value. Each of us are worthy of having our feet washed and each of us are worthy of doing the washing. Not only are we worthy of these things, but we must do them in order to understand what it means to love and be loved.
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