Foot washing revisited

As a child growing up in post-World War II New York City, specifically in the East Bronx, I learned a whole lot about the individual rituals of Judaism.  My neighborhood was on the cusp between an ethnic Irish and ethnic Ashkenazi   Jewish neighborhood.  The families who lived in the five floor walkup pre-war apartment building I lived in were Irish –American or Jewish American – and that was it.

From an early age I understood that the Sabbath was on Friday night and Saturdays for some folks in the building and on Sunday morning for the rest of us. I knew that Shabbos meant that families had a meal together and good stuff like challah and brisket were often part of the meal.  My father was a Shabbos Goy for two widowed Jewish women on our floor.  Esther Shapario’s family had immigrated from Russia in the 1920’s and Anna Bruns was a recent immigrant from Belgium after the war. Mrs.  Bruns had a numbered tattoo on her arm that indicted she had been in a concentration camp during the war.   Children were told not to ask her about it, but grown-ups spoke about it I hushed tones. My father’s reward for turning lights on and off and checking on the tea kettle was several quarts of extremely good chicken soup that we would happily devour.

I also knew that then men wore long black coats, big beaver hats, and had prayer shawl tassels that hung from under their shirts.  I also understood that they needed at least ten men who had been bar-mitzvahed in order to have prayer time.  This meant that sometimes the younger boys were sent out of the local synagogue to rustle up a few good men.

There were rituals for so many things including ritual washing of both hands and feet.

In the Gospel lesson for Maundy Thursday, we hear the yearly story about Jesus’ washing the feet of the apostles.  In ancient Israel most folks either wore sandals or went shoeless.  This meant that when someone entered your home, they were tracking in lots of dust, dirt and dung from the local village or farm.  It was customary for the host to offer his guests the ability to wash their hands and to have their feet washed.  The host would not be washing the feet of the guest, his servant would do it.  If there were no servants, the wife or daughter would be assigned this task. Men of honor or status would not stoop so low as to wash another’s feet.  In this telling, Jesus turns the tables on his followers, whom, by the way, were playing the “Who is the most important” game, wondering which of them was the top banana…after Jesus of course. 

Jesus silently takes a bowl, pitcher and wraps a towel around himself and begins this menial task to the shock of his followers.  He then instructs them to follow his example and do likewise…to become servants to all.  We will replicated this act of Christ in this community, a replication, I dare say, that is a comfortable re-creation of this act of humanity on the part of Christ. We know each other reasonably well, are comfortable with each other and since we all knew ahead of time that we’d be called upon to do this, I think I can safely say…most have made sure their chosen foot for this ablution, is relatively clean.

So, I want you to think about this scenario: washing the feet of people you do not know.  Just as we have done our own version of “Ashes to Go”, there are several congregations around the nation who have embraced foot washing as a ministry on the streets.

Earlier this month, a group of people from a Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia, gathered together a collection of latex gloves, nail clippers, and antibacterial soap and opened the church doors to a cadre of street people who were, at first, a bit skeptical about allowing complete strangers to wash, rinse and towel dry their feet and then give them each  a new clean pair of socks to wear.

Last year Samuel Wells, a chaplain at Duke University integrated foot washing into the liturgy and washed the feet of students, the housekeeping staff and colleagues.

Black and white Christians have washed one another's feet as a sign of racial reconciliation at religious conferences in various American cities including Memphis and Birmingham. Last year the spokesman for the Presbyterian Church in Canada spoke about the practice of incorporating foot-washing in marriage ceremonies.

As part of their Maundy Thursday practice, British monarchs have washed the feet of selected peasants as part of a ritual that dates back to the 13^th century.  Curiously, by the 17^th century the royal leader either had the feet of the peasant pre-washed or just had an underling do it.  This practice is no longer in vogue.  Queen Elizabeth II does not have anyone removing their shoes and socks in her presence, at least not on Maundy Thursday.

But is this sudden interest in reviving a religious ritual in so intimate and familiar a style does raise some interesting questions for modern Christians. Can this ritual be used as a symbol of reconciliation?  Two years ago a group of Hutus and    Tutsis, enemies during the war in Rwanda washed each other’s feet in as a symbol of reconciliation. Can it be a symbol of humility? In 1998 a senator from Kansas washed the feet of one retiring from his office.  He claims this was a symbol of “servant leadership.”

But what do recipients of foot washing feel about this practice?  In a recent article in the Washington Post, a woman who routinely gets her feet washed by the group in Richmond has said, “At first it was weird. Because you have corns and bunions, you know, and you don’t want anybody handling your feet.  When they put your feet into that hot water, whew! It sure feels like heaven.”

And just maybe, that is what it is meant to remind us of…heaven… a fore taste of what is to come in a little space and time.