Feet

4/1/10- Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 * Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 * 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad/Good Shepherd
March 14, 2010

Every one of our readings refer to the Passover feast mandated by the writings in Exodus, or the Last Supper, which in all but John’s Gospel, is described as a Passover feast. The passage begins “Before the Passover festival” and places the last supper on the day before the feast, probably so that Jesus would be seen as the sacrificial lamb, sacrificed on the day of the Passover. The other three gospels place the last supper during this feast. The very first place we see the words of institution, “This is my body, this is my blood” are not in any of the gospels, but in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian’s. Paul wrote only 50 years after the life of Christ, and John’s gospel, by contrast is the newest of the gospels. “I received from the Lord what I also handed over to you” says Paul. And then, the words of institution, “The Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed took bread…”

It is fascinating that the words of institution do not appear in John at all, but the foot washing does, and this is the only Gospel to tell that story. Really the emphasis is on love, and the only sacrifice demonstrated at this point, is the sacrifice of Jesus dignity, in washing feet of his disciples. The washing of feet was strictly the work of a slave, never to be attempted by an ordinary citizen, let alone a teacher. I think it is hard to appreciate what kind of taboo Jesus was breaking. We get a glimpse of what it must have been like for the disciples by awkward, even a little embarrassing to have one’s feet washed by even a peer, but it is no where near the outrageous act today as it would have been then.

Several years ago I was a chaplain at San Francisco General Hospital. SF General is a county hospital and they have to take everybody. So a great number of the patients there were the homeless, the alcoholic, the drug addicted, the desperate. This was quite an experience for an uninitiated middle class white girl from Sliver Spring Maryland. Although I did not grow up in an affluent household, I never saw things like I saw at SF General. Their slogan was “SF General. As real as it gets.”

For a time I was assigned to the ward for the ambulatory disabled. In other words, people who had something wrong with their feet. One homeless man had been afraid to ever take off his shoes for fear that they would be stolen. So infections and eventually necrosis of his feet had ensued. Another man had decided to have a few beers before he climbed up on his roof to repair a hole. Both feet were shattered by the fall. And I will never forget the sight of steel shackles on the slender ankles of a young African American woman who had been taken from her prison cell to be treated at the hospital. But the most profound foot-related story did not happen to me. It happened to my mentor Reverend Bob.

Reverend Bob had seen it all. But still he was unsettled enough by one experience that he felt compelled to tell this story to those of us he was supervising.
He was acting as chaplain to a Pacific Islander patriarch of a large family. The man had been hovering near death for weeks, and his family came to my teacher with a very unusual request. In their Pacific Islander tradition, unless the Shaman attending a man’s death kissed both the feet of that man, the man’s soul could not be released to go and live with the ancestors. They figured that my teacher, Rev. Bob, a Baptist preacher, was about as close as they were going to get to a traditional shaman, so they asked him to kiss the feet of this dying old man.

In the work of a chaplain, one has to establish certain boundaries, and Rev. Bob decided that this was a boundary he did not want to cross. So he said to the family that he would not kiss the feet of this old man, but that there was a similar gesture in his tradition that he would do. He would wash the old man’s feet. The family was disappointed, but they decided to work with what they had.

And so, ceremoniously, with the whole family watching, Rev. Bob brought a basin of water, girded himself with a towel and began to wash the old man’s feet. And then he said, something came over him, and he, seemingly propelled by a power beyond himself, bent over and kissed both of the old man’s feet, to the amazement and delight of his weeping family.

Almost immediately the old man breathed his last breath, and the family
came and embraced Rev. Bob in one great cloud of love. He said he never got over it. Rev. Bob got glorified without even having to die. He proved himself a true disciple of Christ. He proved that love goes beyond fear, prejudice and tradition. And anyone would know that he was a Christian by his love.

Amen.