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There are a lot of commentaries about this story that tell us that it is about serving one another, about doing good things for each other and it is true and a nice thing to say and do, but I don’t know that that’s it. In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t just that.
We haven’t gone to look at it in a while, but I want to take us back to just before Christmas to the beginning. The gospel of John starts with a prologue in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and what came into being through the word was life and the life was the light to all people and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not comprehend nor could it extinguish it. The true light that shines on all people was coming into the world. The light was in the world and the world came into being through the light but the world didn’t recognize.
That is the text the basis the focal point like the abstract of an academic paper telling us about everything that is to come. So if it doesn’t point to the reality of light and darkness then I’m not sure it belongs.
It’s about the light and the dark, the Empire of God and the empires of this world, the ways of life and the ways of death.
And sometimes it is incomprehensible.
For Peter it was incomprehensible. Now I’m not sure if he was just the one who opened his mouth and asked the questions or if he was the only one who was named asking questions or if he was just in fact a little dense, but Peter in our stories is the one who is always missing the point. And when? Jesus took off his outer robe and tied a towel around his waist and started washing their feet. He doesn’t get it and I’m not sure I do either.
In the ancient world, foot washing was a common practice of hospitality that you offer when somebody comes into your home. And there are no doubt a lot of reasons for this, people did a lot of walking streets weren’t always clean. Clean no streets were not generally clean, not paved and choose. Didn’t require socks. And while we probably think about Jesus’ last supper as looking like a group of men on a sitcom making sure everybody gets their appropriate screen 1 and no one has their back to the camera as opposed to something that might look a little more normal, like a table with at least three sides. The maybe even four. That’s not what dining in the ancient world looked like. Instead you reclined at table there weren’t chairs. Perhaps there were platforms or small short-legged tables and then you would lay down at the table. And to me the urgency of washing feet is heightened when your stinky feet are going to be close to me.
The host of the meal would welcome you in and then depending on their own resources. Would either offer a bowl and towel for you to wash your own feet or have their servant AKA slave wash your feet for you.
You’ll notice in neither of those situations did the host kneel down and wash the feet of someone who was welcomed for dinner.
It’s an honor/shame society.
“Simply defined, honor and shame refer to the ongoing attribution or loss of esteem by one’s peers, family, social-class, city, and so on. In Roman society this respect was based primarily on such things as wealth, education, rhetorical skill, family pedigree, and political connections. These were the culture’s ‘status-indicators.’ In this context, ‘self-esteem’ would be conceived of as a ridiculous oxymoron, the only esteem one has is bestowed by the self but by the group… In this environment, peer pressure is not negative or something to avoid, but is viewed as appropriate and welcome.”
Michael Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters, 13.
So the host could not and would never stoop to wash feet.
This might be why Peter said no, because he couldn’t have Jesus reduce himself to the position of a slave, he couldn’t let Jesus shame himself.
Jesus is destroying the social structure of the day, that dictated everything. It’s why I don’t think there is a modern equivalent.
Why would Jesus be ok doing this? I wonder if it doesn’t go back to where our author tells us hat God have given everything into Jesus hands, that Jesus had come from God and was returning to God. Everything that Jesus did and said was rooted in his relationship with God that was in the past, the future, and the present. It is everything and defined who he was and is and will always be; it was his identity, reality, truth: That Jesus is beloved, Son of God, worthy, the Word, and eternal. And Jesus was secure in that. So he didn’t have to work to maintain his position in the social structure, he didn’t have to maintain the hierarchy, power or authority. He just is. So he offers hospitality, services friends and betrayers, and moves in love. Even if others would say it is humiliating and foolish, it doesn’t change who he is, who he is in God.
And he says to Peter, Unless I wash you, unless you let me wash you, unless I show you it doesn’t matter the position, the statues, you won’t have a place in this kin-dom, you won’t really be living in the light; not because you are sent away, but because you don’t comprehend what I’m doing, because you are choosing to live in the way of the world.
Jesus made himself humble, right sized, taking up the space that God had given him, what seemed like humiliation to the world was being fully who he was made.
This washing was the first public or written group activity for all the disciples. We have seen them called as individuals or pairs, ask questions; but here, everyone received the same service and the same instructions–
Do this.
This is what it means to live in community.
Our identity is rooted in God, in the Christ who came to live among us, in the Word made flesh. We too are name beloved, worthy, enough. We don’t have to live like we are unworthy of the gifts of God, to live in the light, to live outside of the systems of this world, it is being right sized, not making ourselves small or taking up more space. To serve and be served in the grace of God.
This is what it is to live in community: to make space for each other, to serve and be served, to risk looking foolish, to risk status and position to know that you are secure in God and in this community, to be accountable to each other that we might all live in love and grace and peace and service.