AN AFFAIR OF THE FEET

“You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

Peter didn’t understand – he thought the whole thing was about status. Washing feet was the task of a servant for a master, of a slave for an owner. It was a matter of rank, of higher and lower. Jesus was the teacher, the leader whom Peter had been following, the one who was to bring in the Kingdom of God. It would turn everything upside down if suddenly the teacher started washing the disciples’ feet. How could Jesus be the Messiah if he were a servant?

Washing feet was necessary in first century Palestine, in a situation with unpaved roads and people wearing sandals. If you invited people to your home it was a courtesy to offer them water so that they could wash their feet. Maybe you’d have your servants do it, but you wouldn’t wash their feet yourself. It’s not that washing feet is a disagreeable task in itself – we don’t have any problem washing our own feet. But it’s a sign of servitude, a sign that the other person ranks above you. Peter knew that. He understood how things were in the world. And because be understood that, he wouldn’t accept what Jesus was doing.

But Peter didn’t understand. It wasn’t about status. It was about love.

“You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

Love is a word we sometimes use without thinking about it, and a word we often misinterpret. We use the word casually – we love ice cream, or a movie, or some new clothes. And the word “love” often has romantic or sexual connotations. In our society the word is almost synonymous with “sex.” And so we – and especially men – may get embarrassed about it. Talking about love in connection with something like the washing of feet makes us uncomfortable. Because of that, when we’re told to “love one another” we tone it down: Be friendly, be nice to other people. And in doing that we miss the challenging and world-changing character of what Jesus does and says.

Greek has several different words for love. One refers basically to what we call friendship. There’s another word for the kind of love that desires the other – romantic love and sexual attraction. That’s the word eros, the root of our English word “erotic.” That word for love, as it happens, isn’t used in the New Testament. Those kinds of love – friendship, romance - are good and appropriate in their places but they are not what Jesus is showing us tonight. For that there’s a different word, agape.

Agape is the love with which God loves. In fact it’s the love that God is. The familiar verse from the First Letter of John, “God is love,” means that agape is the single best word to describe the true God. And that’s what the Gospel means when it says, “God so loved the world.” This love means a concern, a care, for the well being of the other. God is not just nice to the world, and God doesn’t need the world. But God does want what is best for the world. And therefore “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” This kind of love means precisely giving and serving for the sake of the other.

Washing feet is just that kind of service to the other. So Jesus shows, and says to his disciples, “This is the kind of love you are to have. I am indeed your Lord and Teacher – and I am among you as one who serves. You too are to serve one another.”

This kind of love can certainly be shown in other ways – as much by washing a car as by washing feet. Go to the store for a busy person. Listen to someone else’s problems even though they’re not your own. Maybe correct your friend about something he’s done wrong and keep him out of trouble, even though it’s awkward and it would be easier not to get involved. It may not be nice but it’s love. “Bear one another’s burdens,” St. Paul says, “and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

And while all those other ways of expressing love are good, the washing of feet is an excellent sign. It’s not a common thing for us – we do it just once a year so it feels kind of awkward. (Some churches do it much more frequently which is fine, but it might get routine, the way we sometimes rattle off the Lord’s Prayer without thinking.) We feel kind of funny doing it - as we often do when we go out of our way to help someone. We learn to serve. And we learn to be served, which isn’t always easy.

I remember a pastoral care class in seminary when someone had complimented me for something I’d done. I kind of waved it off – “No big deal.” The professor said to me, “You’re not very good at accepting gifts, are you?” And I thought, “Oh – that’s part of it too?” I was in good company – it was something Peter had to learn as well.

Caring for one another is the kind of love that is meant here. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “That you love one another.” That’s why we call this “Maundy Thursday” – the Thursday of that “mandate,” Jesus’ new commandment.

“You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

We can promote that kind of love as a virtue that we should practice. The church has even called it a “theological virtue.” And to the extent that we do it, we may consider ourselves virtuous and good people. And we still have not really understood. This is not just a story about a good teacher giving an example for his disciples.

Here the older translations are more accurate. Before washing the disciples’ feet Jesus “laid aside his garments” – and you just might catch the connection with an earlier chapter of the Gospel when Jesus says, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Tonight he gives us a foretaste of the ultimate form of love he will show tomorrow when he takes a bullet for the human race, when on the cross he bears the sin and desolation that threaten us. And it is because of that that there is a real possibility for us to love one another.

Now do you understand? I certainly don’t in more than a fragmentary way. “Later you will understand,” he says. Later, when he stands among these same disciples, says “Peace be with you” and shows them his hands and his side. Later, as we believe his invitation and begin to live into it.