Foot washing

‘I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. I am telling you the truth: no slaves are greater than their master, and no messengers are greater than the one who sent them. Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice!’   (verses 14-17)

Read John 13: 1-17

Happiness in washing other people’s feet? Try telling that to people around you. If you want to be happy, says society, get out and have a good time by suiting yourself.

Yet Jesus says how happy we’ll be if we put into practice his example to us of washing feet – of humble, self-denying service to others.

I guess we Christians would readily recognise the holding of a responsible position within the church or community as coming under the heading of service. And so it does.

But since foot washing is pretty menial stuff, maybe we need to recognise, more than we do, that the small acts of kindness carried out in our daily lives also constitute service. Being the first to get up and wash the dishes, or stopping what we’re doing long enough to really listen to someone, might be just the sort of foot washing Jesus wants us to do a bit more of day by day.

Holy Spirit, make me a foot washer day by day. Amen.

by Grace Simpson, in ‘New Strength for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 1998)

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