Many summers ago I fractured a bone in my right foot.  It wasn’t serious – just one of those nuisance set-backs.  But just to be on the safe side I heeded the radiologist’s request that I follow up with an orthopedic surgeon.  At the time we just happened to have a newly minted orthopedic surgeon in town, fresh out of his residency.  I was waiting in the exam room when Dr. Williamson knocked.  He came in, introduced himself, asked how I was… he ceremoniously removed the film of my right foot from my chart and clipped it onto the lightbox…backwards.

Then the doctor pulled his exam stool up to my feet and proceeded to pick up my left foot in both of his hands.  He looked at it carefully for a few seconds and asked, “So, how long ago did you have surgery?”  I said, “What surgery?”  He said, “Well, I’m looking at a surgical incision scar.”  I said, “Well, then I think maybe you’re looking at the wrong foot.  I’m here because I have a fracture in my right foot and the radiologist asked me to have you take a look.”  He gently put down my left foot, stood up and said, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

A minute or so later the doctor again knocked on the exam room door.  He came in, went over to the light box and reversed the X-Ray film so that it depicted my right foot.  He sat down on the exam stool, smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Williamson.  Let’s start again.”  And we laughed.  It was his way of saying, “Please give me another shot – please accept me as I really am, I’m really not that anxious new kid on the block who was here a few minutes ago.

It’s no wonder the disciples have yet to fully grasp who Jesus is.  He has worn so many hats – prophet, social activist, teacher, preacher, role model, healer, miracle-worker, theologian, Son of God, even Messiah.  Likewise, they don’t fully understand what it means to be his disciples.  And they are about to become apostles (those who are sent out), and (guess what) they will be going out on their own.  There isn’t much time left, and Jesus needs the disciples to “get it,” once and for all.  So, much as he simplifies the commandments from ten to two, Jesus gathers up and packages his very complicated nature into the single role of servant. 

It was the custom for a host to offer guests access to a footbath – a gesture of both hospitality and practicality for those who had traveled, walking all or part of the way on dusty roads.  If the host was wealthy enough to have servants, a servant might bathe the guests’ feet upon arrival.  But the host didn’t do the bathing, so when Jesus combines the roles of host and servant, the disciples are unnerved.  Also a little strange, this foot-washing doesn’t happen upon their arrival, but in the midst of the meal they are sharing.  So it’s not about hospitality or cleanliness.  Once again, Jesus breaks the rules of social convention as he bends a familiar custom to illuminate the unthinkable: Son of God as servant. 

In these last few hours they will share, what’s the last thing (and lasting thing) Jesus can give them?  A share of himself, for sure, but what will they do with it?   

      
If Jesus gives the disciples a share of himself – a share in his intimate relationship with God, and they do nothing with it beyond themselves, there will be eleven more souls in the everlasting kingdom.  But what of the rest of fallen humankind?  Jesus needs this band of fishermen and their friends to bond and become evangelizers – the teachers who would recruit and teach others to recruit and teach others, all in the face of scary resistance.

The events that are about to unfold will send the disciples scattering in every direction, overcome by fear, and loss, and more fear.  What will bring them back together?  What will be the Super Glue that holds them in community and gives them the courage and commitment to take up the mantle when the teacher is gone?  So, Jesus leaves them with this unforgettable image that touches them on every level:  words to remember, intimate physical touch, gesture of love, and model of servant-hood.

There is an intimacy about touching another person’s feet, and having our feet touched; it’s an intimacy that is hard to describe.  For one thing, feet can be extremely sensitive to touch.  And it’s not something we do with a stranger.  Think about it; except for an immediate family member or a doctor, or a massage therapist or pedicurist, who touches our feet?  And those are all serving relationships.

Awhile back I was sitting with a dear, sweet woman in the hospital who was struggling with complications of her disease – she was in pain as she sat up in a chair.  She wanted to talk, but her breathing was so labored she was only able to get out one or two words at a time.  I hadn’t noticed how swollen her legs and feet were from fluid retention until a hospital volunteer came in to give the patient a warm water foot massage.  At first the patient resisted, but the volunteer quietly filled the basin, refusing to take “no” for an answer.  She sat down on the hard linoleum floor for probably 20 minutes, and she gently (lovingly) massaged the warm water over the patient’s feet.  A couple of amazing things happened.  There was an immediate and almost visible bond between the patient and the volunteer.  They had never met before, but were suddenly telling one another very personal stories.  And within the first few minutes of the message the patient was breathing normally and was able to speak without discomfort.  The patient died last Sunday.  But that image of foot washing and the power of it all will live in my memory forever.

Father Thomas Keating says “[Foot-washing] bonds the people who are doing it with everybody else who is doing [it], and indeed with everyone else in the human family.  It creates community.”  Keating says, “As we sit in silence [holding someone’s feet] we realize our oneness with others, not only with those with whom we pray, but with everyone on earth – past, present, and to come.  What is deepest in them, their oneness with the divine presence, resonates with what is deepest in us.  [And] their joys, their trials, and their openness to God are part of us.”

The foot-washing, like the servant-hood it symbolizes, is about bonding in community – unbreakable bonds – It’s about invitation and acceptance of the invitation.  There is a certain vulnerability in taking off our shoes and socks, and having another member of this community wash our feet.  And that’s the whole point.  We can’t receive the gift Jesus offers unless we allow ourselves to become vulnerable.  We can’t enter fully into this community or into any other meaningful relationship unless we are willing to let down our guard and let the other in.   And we have to be willing to be loved just as we are, without the camouflage, without the clothes, just as we are right down to our naked feet.

In the best-selling book, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes of her personal struggle to find herself and to define her relationship with God.  She says, “To know God you need only to renounce one thing – your sense of division from God.”   Let’s remember that one for next year – what a great thing to give up for Lent – our sense of division from God.

The election to salvation, the invitation Jesus offers does not come with guaranteed acceptance.  All of the disciples are invited.  All but one accept.  Judas has other plans.  The gift of salvation Jesus offers is in the relationship – not the cleansing.  The ritual cleansing has already happened in baptism.  As Jesus is in relationship with God, the disciples are in relationship with him, and so it goes that all who accept the gift, in every generation, share in that divine relationship. 

The invitation Jesus offers his disciples, and you and me, has no expiration date within our lifetimes.  It’s okay if we get it wrong the first or even the seventy-first time.  We can fail to accept the offer, we can fall down into the dark places of our humanity, we can get off on the wrong foot and retreat back out into the hallway, knock again on the exam room door, re-introduce ourselves, and start again.  Jesus calls us everyday for as many days as it takes.  He calls us to give ourselves over – to follow the example of becoming vulnerable – to accept being loved just as we are, feet and all, and to love in return.  “If you know these things,” he promises, “you are blessed if you do them.”  We know these things. Lord, please help us to do them.