Serving in Christ's Name

Today is Last Meal Day in Holy Week, and Foot-washing Day. During his last supper with the disciples Jesus washed their feet as a call to service. I like the photo above because it depicts real people, probably dirty-toed people judging from the pant legs, having their feet washed. That's why they did it in the first century. After a day on the road, this was an act of hospitality.

One year a woman who had dropped her daughter at dance class noticed the sign on our church for a Maundy Thursday service. She had 90 minutes to put in before the class ended, so she came to the service, a stranger. When I invited the pre-chosen "washees" to come forward she didn't realize what had been arranged. She decided to have her feet washed and sat in front of me. Of course I did. There was a rightness in the unpredictability of what happened.

Earlier in the twentieth century a small Baptist denomination in the Deep South included a foot-washing service four times a year, like a sacrament. Each person was given a metal basin and a towel and invited to wash the feet of another. I wonder if it would help us remember Jesus' call to service more, or if we would allow it to become yet another ritual.