Reflections on Foot Washing

My church follows the practice of foot washing before taking communion four times per year. I remember pondering the mystery of it all as a child. In Malaysia many of us wore rubber slippers, and our feet really did get dirty there, although not on the day we went to church. Even if we knew it was foot washing day, people would make sure they came to church with their feet already clean so as not to put off the person who would be washing our feet as their act of humility.

Our practice was that you were not to participate in communion until you had been baptized, and you were not to be baptized until you were "of age" to understand what you were doing. So that meant many years for me (up to the age of fourteen, in my case) of sitting on our wood-slat pews and watching how it was done by the adults. First there was the "ordinance of humility," which meant that you left to wash feet with someone of your same sex. Then there were the tiny glass cups with grape juice handed out, to be drunk in synchronization with everyone else after the awaited quotation from Jesus was recited. And finally there was the eating of the cracker bread made without yeast. It usually looked pretty yummy to my childish eyes.

Curiously, I don't recall where exactly the foot washing took place, but it was likely in one of the children's rooms of the church. I pondered why men and women had to be separated for the foot washing in those days, but never asked nor heard the question asked. It seems that the older generation thought it was not okay for a man to wash a woman's feet. Frankly, I think it would have been okay with them if it were the other way around.As a visual learner all my life, I remember looking at the feet. There were many brown feet with thick whitish calluses from going barefoot, feet exposed to the elements. I pondered the cracks in these calluses compared to my young feet, wondering if I would ever get those cracks around my heels when I got older. (I do.) There were women's feet misshapen by years of wearing pointy-toed shoes with heels, the bunions sticking out and their toes still pointing even without the shoes on. There were feet with thick toenails that, in my opinion, needed clipping because long toenails are just gross. The first time I ever saw feet with polish on the toenails during the foot washing ceremony, I was surprised. It seemed wrong.

To me at that age, everyone was old. One old lady would go get a white-painted tin basin with a tiny bit of water in it and a snowy white little towel, and would come back and grunt her way down into a kneeling position, taking her partner's bare, callused, cracked, pointy, long-toenailed foot tenderly in one hand, using the other cupped hand to ladle water over the foot. No soap to make it clean. Usually the task was done so quickly, you almost wondered if the foot had gotten properly wet.

I was fascinated the first time I saw a woman in hose sit down to have her feet washed. I had wondered what she was going to do, but her partner calmly put the hose-clad foot into the water, ladled and sprinkled the water on it almost up to her ankle, and then dried it off. The hose was still moist, but that didn't seem to bother anyone. The women valued staying modest, and moist hose dried quickly.

Each person had a fresh basin of water for the washing of her feet; I'm sure it's a luxury Jesus and his disciples didn't have. After the feet were washed, the water was emptied into a tin pail, the damp towel used to wipe out the basin. The towel went in one pile, and the basin on the stack of used basins to wait for the next communion service three months later. All the women sat around then, singing hymns until everyone was done. Sometimes you'd see a couple of women pray together after they partnered for foot washing. It seemed a very sacred thing.

But it also seemed very odd. No matter how old I get, no matter how many times I've participated in the foot washing service, it seems counter to the human comfort zone. This is not because I have a difficult time humbling myself. The concept of service--if not always its outworking--is ingrained into my missionary kid DNA. And yet, my spirit does not want to do foot washing.

Perhaps some of this reluctance is because, while it was a typical service of hospitality in the time of Jesus, we don't wash feet at any other time in our culture. Touching people's feet is a very odd thing to do. But even further than that, I think the reluctance comes from this: those bare, callused, cracked, pointy, long-toenailed feet in our hands remind us of the humanity and mortality of the flesh-and-blood person sitting in front of us, and I--at least--want to look away. It seems too personal, almost to painful to face. I have been raised, whether anyone intended this or not, on ideals and perfection and health and life everlasting. Facing the calluses, the cracks, the bunions, the bent bones and the sharp thickened toenails of someone's feet intuitively reminds me of the calluses, the cracks, the bunions, the bent bones and the too-sharp toenails of life.

It is from this that I want to turn away. It is the admission of this that I instinctively try to avoid. And that is precisely why I know I need to participate. I need to be like Jesus in giving that personal touch, in that reminder of service to a flesh-and-blood fellow human being. I also need to be jolted out of a comfy Christianity; I sense that in its purest, godliest form, Christianity is not comfy. And finally, I need to participate in touching unfamiliar feet, pondering the aging and imperfections as a reminder of the botched-up, transitory nature of life and our desperate need for a Savior.

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. John 13:14,15