Footprints

A survey carried out by podiatrists in 2009 found that 50% of women are embarrassed by their feet. I am one of them! Living in our climate that isn’t a problem for the majority of the year when they can be hidden in shoes and boots. But then the summer comes – with sandals and flip flops everywhere – and people like me long for the winter to return!

I would have struggled in first century Jerusalem: you couldn’t hide your feet and it was almost impossible to avoid getting them dirty. It was a dry and dusty environment. The roads were dust roads and people shared them with horses, cattle, camels, dogs and donkeys, so as well as dirt there would have been manure to avoid too. If it rained the road would turn into mud.

The people of that time wore sandals – not covered shoes – so after walking around the streets all day their sandals and feet would be covered in dust, mud, dirt or worse.

You can imagine then that the job of “foot washer” would not have been the most desirable one. And that’s before we even start thinking about having to deal with corns, foot odour, verruca, and toenail fungus!

So for his disciples, the sight of Jesus rolling his sleeves up and washing their feet was a shocking one: That the person they called Teacher and Lord should stoop so low and take on such a dirty job. Why would the Son of God, the Messiah, do something that even a paid servant wouldn’t enjoy?

When I read the Gospel reading a line stood out to me:

“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…” and washed his disciples’ feet.

Jesus knew who He was, what He had, where He had come from and where He was going. Secure in who He was and what His purpose was, He was able to serve others.

Do we truly know who we are? Do we know what we have been given, where we have come from and where we are going?

As humans we can often forget. God knows this, which is why he created the Passover celebration for the Israelites. It was something He told them to commemorate every year so they would remember how He had saved them from slavery in Egypt. How he had spared everyone who covered their doorframe with lamb’s blood from His judgement. This celebration is why thousands of years after the rescue from Egypt, practising Jews still remember that the event happened and continue to observe the Passover every year.

Jesus wants us to remember who we are and where we have come from. He wants us to remember His Passion and the Cross. He wants us to remember that we have been forgiven, that we have been rescued from our past and the future that we deserved; and that we are going to be with the Father.

And that is why Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper ‘Do this… in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’ The communion reminds us of His death and when we take part in it we are announcing publicly that we believe that He died for us and was resurrected and is coming back for us. As we eat it together we are announcing that we are united together, born again into God’s family.

Do we truly know who we are? Are we secure in the truth of who God says we are? New creations. God’s adopted children. Joint heirs with Jesus, His only begotten Son.

Jesus died so that we can have eternal life. Not just in some distant future.

That abundant life, life in all its fullness, begins the moment we receive Jesus. The moment we realise that what He did on the cross was for us. Our eternity began at that point. We are living in eternity today. Born again. Our sins forgiven. Our past behind us.

When we know this truth of who we are: forgiven children of God, born into a large family of faith, when we know this it frees us to serve. To roll up our sleeves and serve our brothers and sisters.

We know who we are so we have nothing to prove, no airs or graces to put on. No achievements or titles to brag about. Whether Vicar or Church Warden, Bishop or Flower Arranger, Organist or Treasurer, Cleaner or Reader, we are all equal sons and daughters of God.

We are called to serve each other in humility. Just as Jesus knelt down and washed His disciples dirty feet. We know who we are.

We know that sometimes walking along The Way through life our feet can get dirty, we can step into messes, fall into ditches of temptation, stumble over obstacles we face, step on other people’s toes and cause offence, be stepped on ourselves. We can track muddy footprints across clean floors, “dish the dirt” or spread a rumour about another member of our family. Or say something negative that pushes a struggling person even more deeply into the mud.

Jesus says: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

When our brothers and sisters have dirty feet we need to have the humility and the love for them that will cause us to roll up our sleeves and wash their feet. Serving them and helping them to get cleaned up and back on track so they can continue their walk.

When we are secure in who we are we can do this instead of turning our noses up judgementally or avoiding people, or talking to others about how dirty that other person’s feet are.

When we know who we are we remember that all too easily our own feet can get dirty. Let’s not be like Peter who told Jesus that “you will never wash my feet”. Let’s realise that our brothers and sisters within this church and across the global Church are there to be loved by us and to love us, to wash our feet and serve us as we do the same for them.

In a world that is increasingly unloving, unforgiving, increasingly dismissive of the weak and the needy, of those who need help to stand on their own two feet. In a world that is increasingly angry and hostile towards its neighbour. What kind of impact would it make on the people around us if every member of our church – if every member of the global Church – really took Jesus’ new commandment to heart?

A church who washes each others feet. A people who wipe away the dirt rather than dish the dirt. Who go out of their way to forgive those who offend, to welcome those who fall down, to love those who feel unwanted.

Jesus says that this will be a powerful witness to who He is and what He has done.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”