We Wash Because We Know
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Exodus 12:1-14a • 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 • John 13:1-17; 31b-35
I don’t mind washing someone else’s feet. I wouldn’t want to do it all day long, and there are some feet I’d rather not touch, but, in a highly symbolic setting like this one, in which the washing of feet is more of a liturgical gesture than an ablutionary act, it doesn’t bother me to pour water over someone’s feet, rub them tenderly with my hands, and then dry them carefully with a towel. It’s letting one of you wash my feet that’s the problem.
I’m guessing that the discomfort to which Peter gives voice is one that many of us feel: “You will never wash my feet.” There’s something about just sitting there passively, not doing anything to help out, and letting someone we know—a friend, a mentor, a parishioner, a priest—wash that part of our body which we likely do the least to take care of that makes us highly uncomfortable.
In the ancient world, there were servants for that. Or, in a modest home, the host would provide the necessary equipment for you to do it yourself. But the one who welcomed you to their table would never greet you at the door and then take off your sandals and start washing your feet. It’s the reversal of roles that makes us feel the way that Peter did. We can go to the nail salon and give our feet to someone who does it for a living, but, when the person we’re prepared to dine with is also the one who washes our feet, we don’t know what to do. It’s easier when you can throw a tip at it and keep it professional.
But, for Jesus, this was more than a symbolic gesture or a provocative act. It was a deep reflection of his identity and the identity into which he calls each one of us. Washing someone else’s feet and letting them wash ours, too, is about knowing who we are and the one to whom we belong.
Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father…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 the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself…You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand…Do you know what I have done to you?…If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them…By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
This whole passage is about knowing and serving. Jesus knew that he belonged to God, that he had come from God, and that he was going to God, so he got up from the table and tied a towel around his waist and began to wash each of the disciples’ feet. John the evangelist wants us to recognize that it is because Jesus knew who he was that he stooped down to wash the disciples’ feet. But wouldn’t we expect someone who knows that they belong to God the way that Jesus does—someone who knows that he is even God among us—to sit back and wait on others to come and wash his feet?
Instead, Jesus shows us that the more fully one belongs to God the more completely one must empty oneself out in the service of others. Traditionally, we might use the phrase, “Know your place,” to remind someone that we think they belong beneath us—that they shouldn’t stray above their appointed station—but Jesus shows us that true knowledge of our place in the economy of God, as beloved participants in the divine life, compels us to get down on the floor and wash one another’s feet. That isn’t because we are worthless to God but because what it means to be precious in God’s sight is to love others in humble service.
Our God is the one who becomes a servant for the sake of the world. Our God is the one who loves the world by pouring Godself out in a complete and total self-offering. If that is true about our God, then it must become true about us as well. We do not wash each other’s feet because we are the least in the household of God. We do so because Jesus Christ has made us one with God and one with each other. And, as uncomfortable as it makes us, it also means that those who would serve us in Jesus’ name do so not in a socially threatening reversal of roles but as an expression of their own self-understanding as those who belong to God. So we must let them wash our feet, too.
We cannot become our truest selves until we learn that, at our core, we are servants of one another. And we stand in the way of other people becoming their truest, fullest selves when we refuse to allow them to love us back in that same way. These days, even in the fanciest houses, there is no one waiting at the door to wash your feet when you arrive. But this strange act of service, which we offer tonight, is a way to offer ourselves back into the service of God by recommitting ourselves to serving one another in God’s name.
When we wash another’s feet and allow someone else to wash ours, we get a glimpse into the divine nature and see again that together we belong to a loving, serving, self-giving God. This is who we are because this is who God is, and tonight—together—we come to know that more fully.
© 2023 The Rev. Evan D. Garner
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas