The lectionary gives us two types of traditional texts for our Maundy Thursday services over the span of the three cycles. One type is before us tonight: the text of the foot washing, the text of Jesus clearly demonstrating the importance of his love for us and our call to love others. The other is what you and I call the “last supper”: how the ritual, the practice, of our meal together, whether the celebration of a Seder reordered and meaning changed, the gift of the sacrament, or remembrance proclaimed came into being.

In talking with many pastors over the years I am safe in saying that the tradition that is honored in most churches is not of the texts we have tonight. Simply put, modern culture has rendered foot washing only as a symbolic activity in our religious lives, rarely done, and has rendered it a cleaning activity seen as private, done in our own bathing routines, out of the sight of others. In fact, many western cultures see public/religious acts of washing as an anathema. For instance, when high school or college students are shown film of practitioners of Hinduism in the Ganges River there are all sorts of nervous giggles or uttered gasps of horror when the narrator talks about the body parts floating by, left over from the fires that consume the deceased, or the other material that comes to the water from millions of people doing their activity of washing both for practical and religious reasons. With western societies seeing water in utilitarian fashion (drinking, cleaning, bathing) and not religious fashion (ritual, baptism, symbolic of spiritual thirst, or practice of hospitality), the meaning of a text such as this one is lost.

We know that in the times of Jesus, the footwear of choice was likely sandals except only for the wealthiest. The arid climate made for dirty feet as a matter of course. It was a time more like when we sent our children out to play and after all day of sweating and engagement with the outdoors they would hit the door and we would swoop them up to the bathroom to be cleaned, not letting their bodies stop at a chair or belly flop on the floor. But in the days of Jesus, there is no swooping up. There is water, in a bowl, where a guest might wash off dirty feet, and another bowl, where hands might be rinsed. A gesture of hospitality and in religious homes, a sign of active spirituality. If one had wealth, a servant might aid in the process.

Foot washing is foreign to us, for we come to our homes with our feet fully covered and rarely are asked to remove our shoes. Even if we go to a home where there seems to be an eagerness toward cleanliness, it really is only a mild inconvenience when we are asked to remove our shoes and leave them on the front rug, unless we weren’t prepared and have holes in our socks or made our choice of attire to include nylons. Even then, the host might be prepared for us with socklets to cover our feet, thus minimizing the potential embarrassment that our modern culture has taught us to feel about shoeless feet.

In Jesus’ day, the well-worn feet, some sandaled, some not, were always dirty, carrying around the travail of the day. In our reading from John, the disciples met, and even though they had all likely taken advantage of the courtesy bowls at the doorway, Jesus made it a point to arise from the table, take a servant’s position, and begin in earnest to wash the disciples’ feet. The objection from Simon Peter was swift. It was not an objection of having his foot washed per se, it was an objection that the one they, the disciples, were following was doing the foot washing. And it was not just a casual foot washing, it was long and detailed, covering every pore of the foot and ankle, and likely part way up the calf where Simon Peter’s robe would have failed to cover. Not a courtesy cleansing, but a cleansing that showed the deep abiding love for another.

We gather tonight... but not to do foot washing. It is out of character for our culture. We will do handwashing. It will be symbolic in nature, not for the purpose of cleaning, but as an experience that mimics the same level of intimacy reflected in Jesus’ actions toward his disciples. For us, in our time, touch of any kind is intimate. We are certainly aware of the damage touching can do when forced upon someone. In a day when we find all sorts of prohibitions against touch, the church in its wisdom still attempts to pass the peace, extend a hand of fellowship, give and receive hugs of greeting or of comfort when requested without judgment or penalty, and with all due respect inquiring if such a touch is okay. But at least we hold to the importance of touch. Just as God touched the earth to create us through the molding of the dirt, and breathed upon it closely enough to give it Spirit, we at least hope to keep alive the importance that our God came to be with us in the form of Christ. Our God allowed us to drink and eat together around a table. Our God allowed us to ask questions face-to-face, to behave like children, to grow into adulthood. Our God allowed us to see, by example, how we are to be to one another. We are not to be a far off caricature of stiffness. We are to be close to one another, so close as to be willing to wash one another’s feet, wash one another’s hands; be to each other as Christ was to his disciples.

In taking care of my mother and my mother-in-law in their last years, it took a great while to get used to having to deal with them as their minds withered. Oh, yes, the habits of reading, or the persistent repetition of an observation or conversation over and over again had its challenges, and the loss of memories to share was sad. But the touch, the holding of the hand, the cleansing of the body for either sanitary reasons or sheer comfort, that was hard. Even though my wife would oversee the bath to guard a measure of dignity, there were times with my mother that required me coming in when my mother could not arise from the tub herself. Despite the best attempts to cover the wet body, there was something oddly and profoundly disquieting about holding her in such a way. The touch was too intimate. Too unknown.

Over the years I have reflected about the earliest memories of my mother holding me on her lap, rocking in a chair, singing “Silver Moon” on a summer’s night. The memories linger of a time when touch was not something to be isolated and infrequent from the daily pleasantries of life. Multiple children, the demands of a household, and a culture that began to push aside touch as important meant the amount of tactile encounters became less frequent. A lifetime later, as she would be almost limp in my arms, wet and slippery, attempting to keep some deep down imbedded sense of modesty to herself, the touch was foreign. It was awkward.

That is how Jesus’ touch must have felt to the disciples. That touch of the same master who put mud and spit together and healed the blind. That touch that healed a woman who had bled for years. That touch that drove out demons. That touch had been for others, and now it was for them. And he said, you can’t follow me if you don’t accept my touch, but more importantly, you aren’t mine unless you touch others’ lives as I have touched yours.

Being a Christian, a follower of Christ, is a dirty and intimate business. The world that awaits us outside these doors... it requires that we get into the nitty, gritty. It means holding the unholdable by culture’s standards. It means loving those we would hate, even embracing those we would hate. It means radically changing the rules of the game, washing their feet when we would be tempted to have them wash ours. It means that we start with ourselves, we start to overcome the uncomfortableness of being in the trenches by simply sharing in an act of washing. We may not tackle a foot washing this year, but when we come up to let our hands be washed... let us let go. Let us pretend it is the Lord doing this thing of loving one another. And let us linger in the touch born of God who knows us well, who is concerned for every breath we take, who is with us from the moment of our first breath until the moment of our last, and beyond. Let us linger with it, not timidly, but unabashedly. Not with embarrassment, or hesitation, but with an openness to feel the presence of God. If we allow ourselves such a moment, push aside all the cultural conventions, perhaps, if for only a moment, we can come close enough to God to sufficiently understand the call to follow, to love each other, to love all, as we have been loved. Amen.