I invite you to dwell for a few moments on that conversation we just heard between Jesus and Peter. We heard Peter objecting, in the strongest way possible, to Jesus washing his feet. In reply Jesus tells Peter that unless he, Jesus, washes him, very serious consequences will follow for Peter, consequences of life or death. So Peter replies, “Don’t stop then with my feet, wash me all over” “Oh Peter”, says Jesus, you have missed the point. You haven’t the remotest idea what I have been doing.
In Jesus’ time, When a guest arrived at a house after having walked in sandals along the dusty roads he would be invited to wash his feet – and pointed in the direction of the water. To wash another’s feet was considered to be such a menial, even degrading, service that a Jew who had slaves would not ask his slave to do it. However it was not unknown for disciples to wash the feet of their master out of love and respect.
So when Jesus interrupted the meal and began washing the feet of his disciples, Peter was appalled. “You are not ever going to wash my feet. What appalled Peter was not that people shouldn’t wash each other’s feet, but that Jesus should wash his feet.
Why was Peter so appalled.? Perhaps Peter’s worldly wisdom had trained him to be very suspicious about gestures of service. Service often presupposes a condition of inequality between 2 people and the giving of a service can reinforce that sense of inequality. The Jew who would not allow his slave to wash his guests’ feet would probably have had no problem letting a foreign slave do so, if he had one.
Or maybe Peter’s suspicion of service was more subtle than that. Sometimes we do things that on the surface appear to be meeting other’s needs but in reality are meeting our own needs – a more subtle form of domination, under the guise of service, but domination nevertheless.
However, there is another model of service that is altogether more pure and altruistic, and that is the service that takes place between friends, and which is genuinely all about the other’s happiness. Where there is true friendship my happiness is not the goal of the service I offer but its by-product. There are no debts to be repaid for favours, nothing expected in return, no exploitation.
Jesus took a model of service then, the footwashing, which was so readily associated with inequality, power games and domination. By washing the feet of his disciples Jesus was acknowledging, ‘Yes, I am superior to you in that I am your teacher and Lord – there is no point in denying that, but I choose to relate to you as a friend’. By washing his disciples’ feet Jesus was overcoming by love the inequality that existed between them. His taking off of his garments before the washing is a symbol of what his whole life was about – taking off his divine glory and the power that gave him, and becoming an utterly human friend in an utterly human way. By washing his disciples’ feet Jesus showed that no form of service is too menial among friends who truly love one another.
Peter of course was appalled. He was the leader of the disciples, and what Jesus did challenged his view of the world and how the world ticked. Peter wanted to be number one. He believed in authority as an exercise of domination over others. He would probably have believed that there was one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the poor and weak. Peter was basically corrupt, no more or no less than most of us. Its very difficult not to be tainted by some form of corruption – hence many of the Fathers interpreted the washing of the feet to mean that even after the bath of baptism we have to put our feet on the ground, so we need to continue washing off corruption throughout life.
“If I do not wash you”, says Jesus to Peter”, you can have no part in me.” In other words you can have no share in the eternal life I came to offer, unless you allow me to cleanse you of your corruption, which corrupts even acts of service and goodness. This is not a physical washing, so you don’t have to be washed all over, but a washing of the mind, heart and soul.
So by washing his disciples’ feet Jesus was telling us that in Jesus God is among us as a friend. The way to salvation for all of us is to learn to be a community of friends around Jesus, our God become a friend. And Jesus will go on to say, “I am the vine, my Father is the gardener, and you are the branches. Cut off from me you can do nothing.
“You should wash each others’ feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you’ These words are addressed to us, today. They tell us that our God revealed himself as one who delights to do even the most menial tasks for others, not out of some need to appear humble, or to exercise some subtle form of domination, but out of friendship and love. The footwashing calls us to be living examples to one another of the love of Christ who washed his disciples feet out of friendship. The Jesus of John’s gospel does not tell us to love our enemies, he tells us to love one another first. Because love is not an abstract thing, it has to start and be grounded somewhere.
In this humble gesture Jesus challenges us, as he challenged Peter, not to allow our culture and our worldly wisdom to prevent us understanding the true meaning of Christian discipleship. We do not turn up here as individuals, seeking our own personal enlightenment but unaffected by others around us. We come because Christ calls us to be friends, to cultivate our friendship, to grow in friendship, and to offer mutual service to one another in such a way that while the differences and inequalities between us are not cancelled out, they become irrelevant in the radically new context of love, Christ’s parting gift to us.
Such a calling is not easy for us, no more than it was for Peter, because the corruption of the world has a tendency to wrap itself around us comfortably like an old shoe. Like Peter we have a tendency to think that if we are good according to the lights of our corrupt way of thinking, and if we don’t do something terribly wrong our out of character, that we have no need for the grace of God, no need to be washed by Jesus. And Peter did not come to faith and understanding at the last Supper. Despite his protestation that he was ok, that he would give his life for Jesus, he went on to deny his Master and ran away when the going got rough.
Which only goes to make Jesus’ gesture even more wondrous, and awesome. Jesus knew what Peter would do, yet he still washed his feet. Let us just for a moment imagine ourselves with Peter, having our feet washed by Jesus, and then imagine Jesus washing the feet of the person beside you, or the feet of someone you don’t get on with, or don’t value, or don’t even know. Then imagine yourself going to them and washing their feet. You now possess the eternal life Jesus came to give you.
