A few years ago I went on a long walk, a pilgrimage, several hundred miles. It was hard on the feet. Every night the pilgrims gathered to care for our feet, to soak them, to bandage them.
There was this one village where this lady ran a hostel for the pilgrims, she was a nurse. She inspected all the feet of everyone who checked in and would then schedule an appointment for the worst to see her for minor medical care and a strict lesson in foot care.
So every night the pilgrims lined up in the court yard to sit with her and have our feet cared for. Needless to say I required an appointment.
Now on a good day my feet can best be described as gnarly and scaly. Very few feet can be described as attractive. On the foot beauty scale my feet rank kind of low.
She cared for my swollen, ugly feet, for my blisters on top of blisters.
It was embarrassing and humbling and comforting.
She was one of those saints along the way. The pilgrims talked about her for hundreds of miles afterward with reverent thankfulness.
Ultimately this is how people become known as Saints. They do the nitty gritty foot work of the Gospel. Saint Patrick became a saint by sailing and walking back to the people who had kidnapped and enslaved him as a child and sharing Jesus’ love with them.
What is it about feet? There is something embarrassingly intimate about them. They are the work horses that hold us up and carry us about, while at the same time they are ticklish and sensitive and sensual.
John’s Gospel has this thing about feet. Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, is shown to us today as the example of what it means to be a disciple, with her embarrassing and unabashed adoration of Jesus, anointing his feet, wiping his feet with her hair.
If Patrick is the patron saint of the Irish then Mary is the patron saint of podiatrists. But to be serious, she should be considered the patron saint of all who serve with great love and adoration.
Soon after this Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and bids them to do likewise. But today we are given the picture of discipleship and Mary is the contrast to Judas the anti-disciple. Judas is the betrayer, the thief, the deceiver, who is short sighted. Mary is the anointer, the server, the adorer, who sees clearly, who prepares Jesus for his death, who loves every last minute with him.
Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t have this foot thing going on. If John’s Gospel had its way we would wash one another’s feet before we go to the Lord’s Table. The Eucharist, the great thanksgiving, according to John would include not only bread and wine, but water, and towels, a basin and lots of tired worn out bare feet.
But, instead, washing feet dwells on the fringe of our worship, occasional, if ever, for only the few who observe Maundy Thursday, if their Church happens to observe it.
It really is funny if you think about it, how little we think of washing feet.
It’s even simpler than the Eucharist, no bread or wine or plates or cups, no altar or altar rail just water, a basin, a towel, and bare feet.
So we do up big the bread and the wine, but we skirt about or skip the washing of dirty feet.
Why is that?
Bread and wine have a certain attraction to them. But feet, it’s hard to get excited about feet. I don’t think it is really a matter of whether feet are as appealing as bread and wine.
I think it is really about feet being too disturbing, too intimate, too striking, too strange. It is awesome enough to think that we are invited to sit at table with God, and to be served the body and blood, the food and drink of eternal life.
But, then to pull away from the table, to have God kneeling before us, touching us where we are most worn out, most neglected, most sore, most ticklish, most unappealing and gnarly, to have God wash us with his own hands and then to dry our toes and feet with a towel, that is a bit too much.
Then on top of it we are told, mandated to do likewise to each other.
“Lord touch my mortal soul, but not the dirty soles of my feet!”
“That would mean that you really love all of who I am, that would mean I would have to love all of someone else.”
“That means I would have to kneel before someone else, get down on the floor and wash their feet.”
It’s too biological! I like the more spiritual things that are safer and more comfortable. You know the inward and spiritual part, not the outward and visible part, even if Jesus did say so.
Washing feet, the sacrament that almost was, but never quite made it. It is another one of God’s reminders to us that being spiritual is ultimately very physical and tangible, embarrassingly biological and sensual.
Mary invites us to this fragrant, embarrassing and unabashed adoration of Jesus. To live with great love. To see clearly and love the passing moment. To serve. To adore. To love.