The Thing About Washing Feet...

 

Two weeks ago, my pastor, Ryan Snow, gave a great sermon (Listen here) about how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet in John 13. The basic idea is that aside from spending time with God, the most important thing we can do is love the people God has placed in our lives the same way that he has loved us. He cites the story from the day before Jesus was arrested where Jesus, in spite of being God in flesh, in authority over all people, stooped down to wash his disciples’ dirty feet as an act of love.

It got me thinking why people, including me, don’t often “wash people’s feet” or love people the way we should.  I love that God used this metaphorical image to show us what loving people should look like. Jesus could have sewn blankets for his friends, or performed a one act play for their enjoyment, or asked people if they wanted more bread. No, he chose a very humbling act meant for the lowliest servant dealing with one of the grossest, stinkiest parts of the body.  Feet, on their own are gross. However, back in those days, it was even worse. People wore sandals and most people walked everywhere they went on dirt roads. Because their feet would get so dirty, they would have servants wash their feet before they entered into someone’s home. Which brings me to the first thing about washing feet, or loving people how Jesus loves us.

The Thing Is…It is Dirty

Let’s be honest; washing feet is a gross job. My children love to run barefoot in my backyard in the summer and they seem to forget that we have dogs who have to go to the bathroom out there. A couple times a summer, one of them comes hopping to the door on one leg with a disgusted look on their face and they say “I stepped in it.” I have to steel up my stomach and carry them to the sink or hose and scrub their feet, which means using my clean hands to rub the poop off on their skin until their skin is clean again. Afterwards I scour my hands with soap and hot water because I feel dirty. When we clean someone else, we often get dirt splashed on us.

When we love someone, often times it “dirties” our lives.  It may cause us pain or heartache as we allow compassion and empathy to invade us. Loving someone makes you vulnerable to feeling pain that you otherwise would have avoided. Jesus loved Lazarus so much that when he died, Jesus wept. He may also have been crying because he saw the pain and sadness in Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, and he felt compassion for them. One example of someone who has loved me, even when it is difficult is my best friend, Lindsey. As I lay alone in the emergency room in 2003, miscarrying my first baby, I couldn’t talk to anyone in my sorrow. I did, however, listen to a voicemail that Lindsey left after hearing the news from my husband. She was sobbing so hard she could hardly speak, because she knew the pain I was feeling and she felt it too.

Loving someone may also require sacrificing our money or our free time or our schedules. That same night, my parents and my sister, Kim drove the two and a half hours to see me at the hospital. I never even saw Kim because I had been in surgery and recovery and eventually she had to get back to her young children, but she had sacrificed gas money, sleep, and time with her family just so I would know she cared. This past year, two of my closest friends, Mandy and Nikki, moved far away. I was devastated for many reasons. One reason was because they were the two of the women I could count on to help me out no matter what. If I needed babysitting, a girls’ night, an ear to listen, someone to pray for me, they were there and it didn’t matter what else they had on their plate. Too many times, all the stars have to align just right for us to be willing to love someone, and that is not how God commanded us to love.

 Loving someone may cause us stress because we may begin to worry about the person’s situation, ruining our peace of mind. One of my favorite quotes is “Choosing to have a child is choosing to have your heart walking around outside of your body.” If you like having a carefree, peaceful life, do not have a child because your love for them at times may “dirty” you with fear, worry, doubt, guilt, anger, sadness, compassion, and anguish. As far as I know, this doesn’t go away. I’m turning 34 and I’m still very aware of the trauma I cause my mother. In fact, it has only gotten worse because now she has four grandchildren through me that she must fret over.

Loving children, our own flesh and blood is natural and it is expected. Loving others doesn’t always quite come so naturally.

The Thing Is…You Might Look Weird Doing It

I saw a picture on Pinterest of a young Christian couple on their wedding day. The groom was symbolically washing his bride’s feet. The idea is sweet, but I can’t even imagine what some of those guests were thinking! Sometimes the Holy Spirit leads us to love someone in a way that will look crazy to everyone else. (Listen here to my favorite Beth Moore story to hear about how she loved someone in a really weird way.)

Sometimes when we love someone publicly, we are praised for it. Other times we are mocked or criticized for it. For example, when a public official is caught having an affair and during the news conference, his humiliated wife stands right by his side holding his hand. People are outraged. “How could you still love him after what he has done?!” I felt this during a recent road trip. As I stood in the gas station, I saw through the window as a man walked up my husband and asked him for a handout. As my husband handed him money, I wanted to say “Don’t give him money…you don’t know what he will use it for!” What I may as well have said was “Don’t show him love…you don’t know if he is deserving of it!” Ouch, right?

And that is what it comes down to. Some people are easy to love. In the eyes of our world, they are deserving of our love. This may include the young child with cancer, the recently widowed mother of young children, the parent who has always been there or the neighbor who always waves hello. Some people are not easy to love. They don’t deserve it, we tell ourselves.

Several years ago a friend of mine chose to forgive her husband after he had caused her pain. As she told me, she was almost apologetic, fearing that I would disapprove of her loving him in that way. Isn’t it sad that this is what we must face from our fellow Christians when we choose to love some people? Jesus must have felt this sadness when people criticized him for spending time with the prostitutes, lepers, and tax collectors. But these were the people in the gospel that were most receptive to Christ’s love.

The Thing Is…Sometimes People Don’t Want to Get their Feet Washed

Sometimes we don’t want to accept the love that someone is offering us. Some people would rather starve to death rather than accept a handout. Some feel unworthy of love because of their past. Some people do not trust your motives. Some people don’t want to accept love because they fear it will change them or their circumstances. This is the case oftentimes with victims of sex trafficking. Someone lovingly wants to help rescue them from their captors but they don’t want to be rescued because they don’t know there is something better for them.

The Thing Is…We Need to Love Without Selfish Motives

We must love with a pure motive. Jesus did not wash his friends’ feet because he didn’t want them to stain his favorite rug.  Have you ever caught yourself doing an act of love for someone simply because it would make your life easier? When I was 19 years old, there was a person who was deeply depressed and lonely who kept reaching out to me. I would hang out with this person, not because I cared for him, but I was afraid he would hurt himself if I didn’t and I didn’t want the guilt that would follow. Interestingly enough, that motive caused a lot of guilt in my heart. I showed love to him, but purely for self-centered reasons. Have you ever tried to counsel someone because you had been listening to their problem for so long that you were sick of hearing it? Have you ever helped someone because you knew that person or others would think better of you for it? Have you done a favor for someone in hopes that they would return it someday? Or worse, have you loved someone abundantly in order to keep them indebted to you?

The Thing Is…Sometimes We Just Don’t Want to Love

Perhaps you are always the giver and servant and the favor is never returned. Perhaps in your marriage you have loved and forgiven, loved and forgiven more times than you can count and you are tired of it. Perhaps you don’t like the person God has placed right in front of you. This is all very familiar to me. I  am one of the most easily discouraged people in relationships. About once a month I start daydreaming about moving to the middle of nowhere where I can live in peace without the call to love people who don’t love me back. And then God tells me to act like a big girl and get back to following his command. As a disciple of Christ, we are to be obedient to his commands even when we don’t feel like it.

Perhaps God is not calling you to actually wash someone’s feet in the literal sense, but who does he want you to love just as Christ loved his disciples that day, just as Christ loves you now? What “thing” has been holding you back from loving those around you?