Tonight we remember Jesus’ last supper with his disciples.
We’ll remember communion – that’s an important part. Matthew, Mark, and Luke – our three-of-a-kind gospels – they tell us how Jesus took the cup, and gave thanks, and told his disciples, “This is my blood poured out for you as a new covenant.” They remember how he took the bread, and gave thanks, and broke it: “This is my body, given for you.”
John tells us about that same last supper, too, but with a different emphasis. John doesn’t put the bread and the cup at the center of the story. For John, it’s a towel and a basin.
You’ve heard the story read: at the last supper, Jesus takes that towel and basin and uses them to wash the disciples’ feet. We don’t have to know anything about the historical context to understand Peter’s reaction: feet are personal and kind of gross. I get a little uncomfortable getting a pedicure, from a person I am paying to perform that service. Here we’re talking about Jesus Christ the Messiah – can you imagine? Jesus kneeling down and cradling your maybe-smelly feet? Touching the toenails that you meant to clip last week, but haven’t? Who wouldn’t react like Peter did!
But it gets even more uncomfortable once you know the context. The primary mode of transportation in the first century was walking – walking on dusty, unpaved roads in sandals. People would arrive for a meal with dirty feet. This was especially problematic given that dinner tables in the Ancient Near East weren’t a high-top deal with chairs all around – they were low to the ground. Folks would recline around the table on pillows, putting feet in close proximity to food. Dusty, dirty feet.
For those reasons, it was customary for people to wash their feet before a meal kind of like we wash our hands. Or, better said, it was customary for people to have their feet washed. In a home with a servant, this was a servant’s job. In a home without a servant, the job then fell to the person of lowest status. Only makes sense, right? Who would want the job of washing everyone’s feet?
Now rewind the story. Start at the beginning. The disciples are arriving at the last supper. There’s a towel and basin ready. There may be a servant standing by, waiting to wash feet. If not, an awkward moment starts brewing: which one of us is the lowest man ranking? Thaddeus, you do it. No – make Bartholemew. Hey, let Peter do it, he’s always volunteering for things!
But then: before a servant can step in, before a disciple steps up – it’s Jesus.
Jesus takes off his outer robe. Jesus picks up the towel. Jesus starts moving around the room, setting the basin in front of each of his disciples.
Then he gets to Peter, who says, “You will never wash my feet.”
Do you see why? Do you see all the reasons why Peter would reject this? It’s not just that Peter doesn’t want someone touching his feet, or that Peter doesn’t want Jesus to touch his feet, it’s that and the fact that Jesus has stepped in to take servant’s role. Jesus has been about an out-of-order, first-shall-be-last, last-shall-be-first kingdom all along – but this is too far; this is too much. It’s an act of servanthood so undeserved it’s uncomfortable, so uncomfortable it feels like – like holy fire.
I know, because I’ve had my feet washed more times than I can count.
Some of you know that I have a long history with Wilderness Trail, the backpacking ministry started by Rob and Sarah Blackburn (and a man named L.B. Izzi, who is lesser known to Central UMC). I went on my first week-long backpacking experience with Wilderness Trail in 1992; I’ve hiked with Wilderness Trail almost every summer since then. Every one of those backpacking trips ends with a footwashing. Which means I’ve had my feet washed… I literally don’t know how many times.
Having done it that many times you might think, “Oh, Mary’s used to it now. She doesn’t feel all that awkward about having her feet washed.”
You’d be wrong. It is still so awkward, so uncomfortable – even now, 30 years later. Every time is like the first time.
That first time I had my feet washed, I was fourteen years old and going to Wilderness Trail with my youth group. I wasn’t much interested in backpacking but all the older kids in my youth group talked obsessively about Wilderness Trail, so I had to go. I bought some cute hiking outfits. I imagined my days spent roaming the hills like Julie Andrews and my nights spent singing around the campfire like the von Trapps. That’s what backpacking is like, right?
Yeah – wrong. It turned out to be an especially brutal reality on that particular week because the weather was really rough – it rained almost the entire week (and at one point, hailed). Halfway into the first day I wanted to quit. My cute outfits stank. The hills were alive with the sound of my crying. I was dead last into camp in the evening and dead last out of camp in the morning. I was worthless.
Back at home I was worth something, and I knew it. I was an over-performer, a teacher’s pet, the obedient child. I knew how to win over the adults. On trail I had become the underperformer. I was pushing the gracious limits of our adult counselors’ patience – but there was nothing I could do about it. I was so overwhelmed, so out of my comfort zone, all I could do was to let them help me trudge along.
On the last day of the trip we got picked up and returned to the Wilderness Trail property. We got showers and a cheeseburger. It’s amazing what a shower and a cheeseburger can do for morale! I felt good, really good, in a way I couldn’t quite explain. I thought, “I’m glad I did that, but I’ll never do it again.”
Not long after that… it happened.
We had our last meal together. Our leaders gathered us around a campfire. They were preparing something, off in the dark, that I couldn’t quite see. Then they read us John 13 which, as you’ll hear in a minute, includes the line, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
What is happening?
They started pulling us aside, one at a time. As my fellow hikers came back to the group many of them were crying – the good kind of crying, but still. What is happening? And then it was my turn.
My leaders sat me down in front of a plastic tub of water.
The leaders who had been so patient with me patiently took off my shoes, one at a time.
The leaders who had held my hand all week lovingly held my dirty feet.
The leaders who had seen me at my worst looked me in the eyes and told me they saw in me… the best. The very best God could do.
It was the most uncomfortable thing I had ever experienced. I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. I wanted to object, to reject this thing they were doing for me.
At the same time I knew, what they were doing was also mending some kind of hole in my heart. It felt like holy fire but in the way that medicine sometimes burns at first… and then there’s relief that comes afterward.
I would not be the same without that moment. Not because of how great those leaders were – but because of what they were letting God do through them. Through them, through the decision to sit down in that chair and let them do this thing that felt very out-of-order, I was able to sit and receive God’s very out-of-order love for me.
This – this – is why Jesus insists to Peter, “If you don’t let me do this, you have no part in me.” Because this – this – is what it feels like when you sit down and receive God’s undeserved grace. That the God of the universe would take human form and come to us? That Jesus Christ would die for us? We don’t deserve it; I don’t deserve it!
We just have to sit… and receive it, as the completely unmerited gift that it is.
When we do, it will be so uncomfortable. It will feel like holy fire – at first.
And then… relief. Our broken hearts mended by receiving what we cannot do for ourselves.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke – they don’t talk about this. Why not? I think (this is just Mary talking, just a theory), I think maybe they chose not to remember. Like – oh, we don’t know what to do with that, no need to talk about the time Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. But John – and the ones who would tell and retell his version of the story – John’s gospel said, “Wait – if y’all aren’t going to talk about the footwashing, I am! Because we have to get used to this feeling, this uncomfortable feeling of accepting what we do not deserve.”
Thanks to John, we do. Tonight we remember the last supper. We remember bread broken and cup lifted. And: We remember a basin and a towel.
Amen.
Prone to Wander 
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