As we prepare to re-enact in our service tonight the washing of the disciples feet, I would like to reflect for a few moments, as our gospel does, on the great themes of love and service and glory, which that action underscores.
The most direct and obvious meaning of the foot-washing is of course the humble act of menial service which it represents. People would normally wash thoroughly before going out to a meal, but their feet would get dirty and dusty as they walked even a short distance, and a thoughtful host would have a slave on hand to wash the guests feet before they settled down to eat. On this occasion there was no slave to do it for them, perhaps because they were meeting in secret with as few witnesses as possible. Water, towel and bowl had evidently been provided, but noone had seen it as their job to wash feet, so it had not been done. When Jesus became aware that there was no servant to wash their feet, he could have reacted in a number of different ways. If he didn’t want to make a fuss and embarrass anyone, he could have found some way to suggest discreetly to someone else that it ought to be done there must have been some servants about the place who could have been asked or he could have said to himself: oh well, never mind, I suppose we can do without that tonight. But he did neither of those things – he just got up and started doing it himself not to put anyone else to shame, but simply because it needed doing. Besides, on his last night, he may have welcomed the opportunity to undertake this gentle personal service for each of his friends in turn. I don’t suppose he planned it, it just happened. But then of course he did take the opportunity to explain that in his radically different upside down sort of kingdom, what he was doing was absolutely normal, an example they should all follow. It did not make him any less their Leader, just as they would be leaders of the Church in the years to come, but they were to be a different kind of leader, one whose role was not to so much to command obedience or to demand service, as to lead by example, observing the needs of his followers, and taking care of them. Following his example, one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is: Have we been waiting for someone else to take on this or that humble chore? None of us is too grand to pick up the towel and wash one another’s feet, or whatever it is that needs doing for our brothers and sisters in the church.
Service and love We may still ask why we should pick up the towel of humble service, why we should make the coffee, or dust the pews, or tidy a neglected corner of the churchyard, or sew the hooks onto the hassocks. Of course these little practical things do need doing, and we should miss them if they were not done, but the reason why we should do them is not simply because they need doing, but because we love one another, and therefore we want to serve one another’s needs in whatever way is required, however humble and menial it may be. Indeed, it is only to the extent that we are willing to do whatever our love for one another may require, that we have any right to exercise leadership. In John’s gospel this foot-washing episode is introduced with words about loving his own, his friends, to the end which doesn’t just mean to the end of his life, but utterly and completely. After he has washed their feet, and told them to follow his example, he takes the message to a deeper level as he gives them his new commandment, that they should love one another, just as he has loved them. Why do we need a new commandment? The Old Testament already commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves. Isn’t that enough? No Jesus asks us to go further than that. He commands us to love one another, not just as we love ourselves, with all our doubts and reservations and uncertainties, but as he has loved us, utterly and completely, to the end. Such love as that is the life-giving source and inspiration of those acts of service that do not look for thanks, still less for praise, and are as comfortable to receive as they are readily given. Such love is a gift of grace for which we all need to pray.
Service, and love and glory. It is when Judas has gone out into the night, into the darkness, to betray him, that Jesus says: Now the Son of Man is glorified. Why at that moment of blackest betrayal should Jesus sense that he is glorified, and that God his Father is glorified in Him? It can only be because Jesus knew that Judas’ betrayal would indeed precipitate his trial and its outcome in crucifixion, death and resurrection. God is Love, and in William Temple’s words: His glory is supremely what most displays his love; the Passion to which the Lord has condemned himself by letting Judas go, is the very focus of the glory of the Son of Man of man as God meant him to be, of the Messiah who came to restore the divine image in Him.’ But it is more glorious even than that, since Jesus’ giving of himself, inspired by his love for his Father and for us, in turn gives glory to God whose own love was shown by giving his only Son for the saving of the world.
Now indeed the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in Him. For us, as indeed for Jesus, the glory is there, even if it is glimpsed only rarely. Meanwhile, in the here and now, our little acts of humble service, symbolised as they are in the washing of feet, are the practical expression of that love for one another which dwells in our hearts by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen