Feet First

The scripture referred to is John 13:1-17, 31b-35.

If you knew that this was your last night, what would you do? Cry? Go out and get drunk? Call up an old love? Go to church? Eat all your favorite foods? Or would you gather your friends together and have a party? That last option is what Jesus did. The Last Supper was a farewell party of sorts. And what would you do at the party? Sit around and let your friends tell you what a great person you were? Or would you clean everyone's shoes?

The task of cleaning people's feet was the job of a slave. The roads of Jesus' day were dusty when dry, muddy when wet. Animals relieved themselves as they walked the streets. And there were no such things as sewers or garbage pickup. A pair of sandals didn't protect you from what you walked through. So in a rich household there was a jar of water by the door and a slave to wash people's feet before they entered. Poor people washed their own feet, of course. In today's gospel, we read how Jesus stripped off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the muck off of his disciples' feet. Why?

In Luke's account, the disciples have been arguing about which of them is the greatest. This was not the first time they did this. Perhaps this is Jesus' response, a demonstration of how the values of the kingdom of God are different from those of the world. The leader of all is the servant of all. This is Jesus' last chance to impress upon his disciples the unusual way in which the kingdom works before he goes to the cross.

So he acts as a slave. But this isn't just an act. When Peter protests that Jesus will never wash his feet, Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Letting Jesus wash his feet wasn't optional; it was mandatory. It's part of being Christian.

And think about this: normally a person's feet were washed before entering a rich man's domain. What other washing do we undergo as an entrance rite? Baptism. Perhaps Jesus is deliberately drawing a parallel between the two. We think of baptisms as something we do so God will forgive our sins. But really it is a cleansing God does to us so that we can enter his kingdom. If we want to be part of his kingdom, we must reveal to God the most disgusting and dirty parts of ourselves and let him go to work on them. It's like showing the doctor an ugly sore or a misshapen mole or a discolored toenail. The Divine Physician will not work on what we hide from him—or hide from ourselves. He wants our consent. For every part of us to be cleansed, they must be offered.

I hesitate to use this example but here goes. There was a “reality” series called Extreme Makeover. In order to get the plastic surgery and everything else the series offered, people had to be brutally frank about their defects. They not only had to reveal these things to the doctors and physical trainers and other experts, but to millions of viewers as well. In return, they were transformed. And the final results could be amazing. I once caught the end of an episode of The Swan and the women barely resembled what they looked like before. What made me hesitate to use this as an example is that all of the changes were external and it was obvious that these women had extremely poor self-esteem. One woman, who ended up looking a bit like Sarah Michelle Geller, still had problems despite the therapy she had been given. This reminds me of studies that show that after a few months lottery winners end up no happier (or sadder) than they were before they hit the jackpot. We've all heard of actresses and supermodels who deep down cannot see the beauty in themselves that others see, and who loathe themselves so much that they self-destruct. This kind of beauty is truly only skin-deep.

What is missing is the spiritual dimension. While therapy is important, ultimately all it can do is push you towards accepting yourself. But the problem may be deeper. A study found that depressed people actually saw themselves fairly accurately, much more so than happy people. Clinical, as opposed to situational, depression is a mood disorder and it can exist without the depressed person having a delusional assessment of him- or herself. One part of the The Swan that haunted me was that one of the contestants saw herself as “just so average.” And she was right. She was neither grotesque nor ravishing. She was on the pleasant side of average. But for her, being normal was not enough. She had to be extraordinary. And I wondered how long it would take her to find flaws in her new face and physique.

But the other extreme is not the solution. Studies have shown that bullies, far from having low self-esteem problems, are usually pretty satisfied with themselves. They don't see any of their personal flaws. So while acceptance might be a step towards having better mental health, it is not the final step. Ultimately we must find a way to accept ourselves without being either smug or blind to our faults. This comes from accepting God's love.

God loves us in spite of our faults. He deems us worth dying for. So we could not be more precious to him. And because he is God, his assessment of us is accurate. Our self-worth does not depend on our own faulty perceptions of ourselves nor on those of others. We are lovable because God says we are. In fact, God in Christ demonstrates how much he loves us through his self-sacrifice.

As Paul reminds us in Romans 5:7-8, it is rare for someone to die for a good man but Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. God doesn't expect us to get all fixed up before coming to him. We can come as we are. We needn't, so to speak, clean up the house before the cleaning lady arrives.

As Anne Lamott says, God loves us as we are but he loves us too much to leave us that way. He wants to make us better. That same woman who felt that to be average was to be lacking in some way revealed where this feeling came from. When she was in elementary school, her father told her teacher not to expect too much from her. That cut her to the quick. Studies show that children, students and even adults tend to live up or down to the expectations we have of them. High expectations are actually good for a person's self-esteem, provided those expectations aren't ridiculous.

God has high expectations. He created us in his image. He gives us talents and abilities. He gives us roles and principles to live up to. And any progress we make pleases him. But he expects us to keep progressing. When we fail, he forgives us and helps us start over. God does not give up on us and he expects us not to give up either.

Jesus also expects us to be like him. We call this Maundy Thursday because Jesus mandates or commands that we love one another as he loves us. Jesus knew that he was going back to the Father soon. He knew that eventually the disciples must carry on his mission. So he promises them and us the Holy Spirit who empowered him, because now we are to take on the role of acting out God's love on earth. We are to proclaim the good news of God's love with our lips and with our lives.

We leave this life feet first, so to speak, on a stretcher or a gurney. We enter the new life feet first as well—by stepping out in faith. It all comes down to trust—trusting Jesus enough to stop hiding our dirty feet, trusting him to clean us up so that we can enter the domain of the forgiven, trusting him enough to strip down for service, trusting him enough to open ourselves to rejection and to getting kicked in the teeth and to getting our hands dirty while helping others. We do it because he'd do the same for us. Indeed, he already has.

This sermon was originally preached on 4-8-04. It has been updated and revised.