Stinky Feet and the Love Commandment
If you were to ask my children who my favorite superhero is they would all answer quickly “Wonder Woman.”
In 2019, our family was watching the Wonder Woman movie for probably the thirtieth time and some quotes really jumped out at me.
So for some context, Wonder Woman feels that she is supposed to kill a villain named Aries who is trying to destroy the world and is the reason for hate and violence.
Now I feel I can spoil this because it’s been out long enough, but at the end of the movie Aries is trying to say that the humans are awful, greedy, violent people who don’t deserve Wonder Woman’s help. He is trying to convince her that the world would be better if she joined him in wiping them out.
And here is Wonder Woman’s response, “It’s not about deserve. It’s about what you believe. And I believe in Love.”
Now, my 5-year-old (at the time) daughters highlighted this quote because Atley then said, “That’s what God believes in, too!” Elyn then piped in, “God believes in you, and God believes in love.”
This week is Holy Week, and on Maundy Thursday each year we remember Jesus’s new commandment: that we love one another.
Love can be a confusing thing, especially in our society. Some reality shows might have us believe that we need to earn love by acting or doing a certain thing. There are many people and probably many of you that can share stories of experiencing places where love felt conditional. You would be loved as long as… You would receive love as long as…
Sometimes love feels like it needs to be a perfect Hallmark card, FaceBook post, or Instagram post. #relationshipgoals. Sometimes it feels like it’s supposed to be a production of the perfect promposal or engagement.
During Holy Week, we are invited to dig into a different kind of love. This love can be hard, uncomfortable, and confusing. Holy Week is about a surprising, turn-your-world-upside-down kind of love.
Maundy (Commandment) Thursday, where we see the new commandment that Jesus gives us: John 13:34-25 “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
This kind of love is not Hallmark card love, reality tv show love, social media picture perfect love. It isn’t romantic love or even friendship love. It isn’t just about being nice. This is AGAPE love. A love that God gives so that we might be formed, shaped, wrapped in grace, and open to one another.
We often hear this command to love and serve one another and think, “sure I can do that – I can serve!” Then we find a place where we feel comfortable to volunteer. That isn’t bad, but when I’m honest, I know I find places that are comfortable, that have guard rails, that make sure I am still in control. Guard rails that make sure we look like we have it all together. Guard rails that make sure that we are the one doing the serving.
When I was working for the Lutheran Diaconal Association with students in formation to be deaconesses and deacons, we would teach about footwashing. Almost every year some students would say, “I’m ok with washing someone’s feet, but I don’t really want my feet washed.” There are often comments like my feet are too weird, too smelly, too dirty, I haven’t gotten a pedicure, etc. I’m happy to serve, but uncomfortable opening myself up to service from someone else.
Now you can find many churches around the world that celebrate Maundy Thursday without footwashing. You can find scholars that will write about how the command isn’t literally to wash feet but just about serving one another. Why? Because footwashing makes people uncomfortable. And we aren’t alone in this discomfort. After all, Peter was like, “NOT MY FEET LORD!” I think he was probably willing to have his feet washed in other places when it was done by a nameless servant or slave, similar to the fact that we are willing to go and pay someone we don’t know to give us a pedicure and wash our feet, but to do it in the midst of our community, potentially by someone we know? Now that is asking too much.
That discomfort and way of loving one another is what I think we are welcomed into through this example. The act of footwashing is a vulnerable position–both for the footwasher and the one who is willing to have their feet washed.
Though being the one offering the service might be more comfortable, in footwashing, people aren’t rushing to sign up, and as a footwasher, you are still vulnerable. To kneel down before someone is a position of reverence but also of submission. A person that is kneeling down before another that is sitting or standing puts the kneeling person in a defenseless position. They have to open themself up to the other. And yes sometimes the one that comes to have their feet washed may be a little smelly, dirty, and stinky (I have no doubt this was the case of the disciples with all that walking in sandals). The footwasher kneels and is open to whatever the one they are tasked to serve brings forth.
This act of mutual vulnerability towards one another is the stance of the servanthood that Jesus invites us into. What might our community look like if this is how we were invited to show up to one another? Brené Brown is a social worker, author, and speaker that researches shame. In her research of shame she realized that the way to combat the shame that weighs us down isn’t more cover-up or accolades, but vulnerability. Brown writes, “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.” One way you can practice that is to risk slipping off that sock and shoe, exposing that stinky foot, and letting your brother or sister in Christ meet in you and your messy self.
Lest you think you aren’t good enough for God’s grace and love–know that in the Gospel of John Jesus is aware that Judas is going to betray him. Despite that, or maybe because of that, Jesus washes even Judas’s feet. Jesus enters the world and throughout Holy Week we see that there is no part of the human experience that God is not willing to engage. God offers us all grace, forgiveness, and love when we feel unclean. God offers this when we feel like we are buried in our own tomb of despair. God offers this when we are on the mountaintop with shouts of Hosanna. On Holy Saturday at Easter Vigil we hear stories from the beginning that God has always been about redemption.
This Holy Week you are invited to celebrate this gift of grace and love not because we deserve it, but because God believes in Love. God believes in You, and God believes in Love. God IS love. And to quote Wonder Woman again, “Only Love can truly save the world.”
In Faith & Service,
Deaconess Kristin Lewis