Yes, your feet too

“Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”” John 13:6-9

The year 1977 offered us a gift from Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack. A ballad, telling the story of growing love that would not relent to a lesser manifestation, “The Closer I Get to You” is a classic in our culture because we can relate to it. Considering the mountains and valleys we have traveled; it does not take long to identify the special people who discovered who we were beneath the surface and did not shy away from knowing more of us. Hathaway and Flack sang it this way, “The closer I get to you, the more you make me see. By giving me all you got, your love has captured me.” Friends, that song is gospel.

There is little difference now than when Jesus approached Peter’s feet. We set boundaries around how much of us can be touched, even by those we claim to love and trust. They can have a bit of our heart, a bit of our minds and a bit of our history, but there are sullied parts of our reality we do not share. Peter said, “You will never wash my feet.” Religiously quarantining what society has taught us is untouchable, we stall love’s entry beyond the sanitized foyer of our lives.

Up until the moment Jesus knelt to wash their feet, the disciples opened themselves to the care, instruction, and controversial kinship of Jesus. They had given themselves over to the power of his love. Jesus appreciated their friendship and faith, such that he wanted to leave no part of their knowledge of him or the love he embodied incomplete, so he lowered himself and engaged their dirt. Make a note; raising the bar does not always look respectable.

Jesus modeled how deep connection can touch what some folk call grimy. Love like the love Jesus employed to disrupt the status quo, that kind of love wants to touch your entire mind, your entire spirit, your entire heart, and yes, your feet too; it wants to touch all of you, that which you understand to be clean and that which you understand to be dirty.

The text does not say Jesus encountered the dirt on their feet with disgust or hesitation. The text does not say Jesus left and told everyone down to the temple how dirty their feet were. The text does not say Jesus compared the degree of dirt on each one’s feet. The text teaches that Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” To those with ears to hear, the love of God is not fragmented. It does not just dwell in the cleaned-up places of our lives. It is consuming. From the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, from Bethlehem to Calvary, Love abounds.