Stepping in the Light...beautiful feet

It is a tender and oddly embarrassing act of devotion... washing someone’s feet. When we visit H.O., Michael always tends to his dad’s feet. First he soaks them in a warm bath of soothing oils, rubbing away the dead skin and massaging those old feet. After he trims his nails, he rubs a healing lotion on his dad's feet and legs. A son’s ritual of loving care for his father’s body becomes a sacrament, a reminder of our need to be cared for and our responsibility to care for others.
My parents belonged to a church that practiced foot washing. That church had three sacraments... baptism by immersion, the Lord’s Supper (Communion), and foot washing, the three acts that Jesus held up as examples for us to follow in community worship. Our UCC church tried foot washing for Lent. It was an uncomfortable experience for many of us, so uncomfortable that the minister had to offer the option of hand washing. I was struck by our feelings of pride that prevented us from allowing another to see, touch and wash our feet. We are not used to being that vulnerable with each other in church. This is not the kind of pride that says “I am better than you,” but the kind of pride that says “I can stand on my own two feet without your help.” Or, it is the kind of pride that passes for humility by saying “My feet are so ugly and lowly that I wouldn’t want anyone to see or touch them.”
It is a messy, sloppy, wet and splashy kind of sacrament. There are no beautiful baptismal robes, only towels. Naked feet in all their knobby, callused practical glory, some with painted toenails and some nails thickened and split, old and young feet with funny shaped toes, narrow heels, flat feet and feet with high arches, feet that dance and walk and stumble and run and skip, feet that give us support and balance as we live our upright lives. It is a laugh out loud at the beautiful ugliness of all our feet sacrament, a ritual that is filled with joyful appreciation for our utilitarian feet, a time to see how we are all alike and different. Humbled by our bare feet, sitting while someone we may not know very well washes and dries our feet, washing the feet of someone else, is a powerful reminder of our need for one another and our dependence upon God.
Two of my favorite Gospel stories have feet in a starring role. Luke tells about Jesus being at a dinner party at Simon the Pharisee’s house. The word got out that Jesus was in town at the local hot shot preacher’s house having dinner. A city woman, identified by Luke as a sinner, sneaked in and began to cry over Jesus’s feet, drying them with her unbound hair, pouring an expensive ointment on his feet, an intimate act of exposure in an unfriendly setting. Simon makes fun of Jesus by saying if he were truly a prophet, he would have known who she was and thrown her out. Jesus turns the tables on him by pointing out his lack of hospitality when the visit began. Then to add insult to injury, Jesus forgives her sins, which were many, because she loved much.
Unlike the previous story which is told in all four gospels with differing details and characters, John is the only gospel to tell the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet on the night of the Last Supper. Peter, the over the top full of himself doesn’t know when to quit disciple, isn’t sure he wants Jesus to wash his feet. It doesn’t seem fitting. His teacher in the lowly role of servant was not the image he had of a messiah. He tells Jesus he will never let him wash his feet. Jesus puts him in his rightful place by saying, “If you do not let me wash your feet, you will not be a part of me.” Peter responds with gusto requesting Jesus wash his hands and head, too. Jesus then gives instruction to follow his example using the washing of feet as a symbol of the equality between himself and them, between servants and masters, and between himself (the one who was sent) and the One who sent him. When we bare our feet, our knobby strange looking feet, and let another brother or sister in Christ wash and dry them, we stand stripped naked of all pretensions and armor that separates us from the Love of God available in the People of God. We are equals, servants not masters, family not business acquaintances, beautiful feet that walk in the Light side by side on our journey home with God.
An old hymn from my childhood says, “How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, Stepping in the Light, Stepping in the Light; How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, led in paths of light.” All our feet walking in the steps of our Savior, corns, calluses, strange looking toes and all, made beautiful by our willingness to open our hearts to each other in paths of light. All the pedicures in the world, Lord, can’t help my feet be pretty. I pray for the humility that comes with foot washing and the joy that comes walking in your steps. Keep my feet firmly planted on your holy ground as I try to love others and myself, funny feet and ugly feet and young and old feet alike. You must have laughed out loud, God, when you made feet for us... ticklish and strong, oddly shaped and perfectly functional. Thank you for reminding me of my beautiful peculiarities by giving me such good feet. Amen.