Smelly stinky

John 13:12-17

         So, what do you think is the worst part of your body? It is a bit amusing that what you might consider the worst, smelly, dirty part, is a focal point or a fetish of another. I'm not talking gay community here, no one is immune.  Food fetishes were around as long as, say, the oldest profession. 

         Foot fetishes aside, I don't think there is anyone who deems feet the cleanest most desirable part of the body. Stinky, smelly, subject to fungus and horrible abuses all the time. From the locker room to high heals, feet take a beating. It was also so back in the day, you now, in Jesus' time. 

         There were no Merrell hiking shoes, hiking boots, exotic sneakers or Doc Martens. Sandals were the order of the day and the roads were dusty, dirty and smelly.  You can see why it was a custom to wash your feet, perhaps even more than your hands, when arriving at your destination.

         As feet were so dirty you can imagine there was no greater submission of service than to wash the feet of someone else. This might be especially true for a man in a male dominated society. Yet in today's passage Jesus does just that. It is memorialized every Holy Thursday in many a Christian congregation. Usually the volunteers to have their feet washed are scant because we have this very low opinion of feet. But Jesus did it as a sign of service and subservience.  The new Pope of the Roman church broke  shattered tradition when he washed the feet of the unworthy and non-traditional choices. What hope! What service!

          I started this by asking what is the worst part of the body?  Can we conceive of taking care of someone else in such a way that we might have to, or offer to serve them, by taking care of 'that part'?  If you were called to, would you change your parents' diapers if they were old and so in need?  We like to think of service and even putting ourselves second or last as a nice thing to do. We seldom think we may be called upon to do something that seems  really subservient, maybe even something that seems demeaning. Yet, we elevate Mother Theresa for doing all that and more.

           Jesus took on all the social and cultural mores by lowering himself to wash the feet of his disciples, his friends. How can we offer to serve? Can we lower ourselves to elevate someone else? Just some thoughts about stinky, smelly body parts. 

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.