Do You Know Where Your Towel Is?
We have come tonight to remember. Through the forty days of Lent we have been preparing for this holy week as we remember Christ’s life. Still to come are Jesus’ betrayal, capture, crucifixion, and resurrection. But tonight is a special night. Tonight is Maundy Thursday, when we remember the Last Supper and Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Certainly the Last Supper is a powerful symbol for us today as we recall it through the sacrament of communion. In communion, we revisit that incomparable sacrifice that Jesus made for us. We remember not only his suffering but also his glorious resurrection three days later. And through the breaking of the bread and the sharing in the cup, we connect ourselves with all believers past, present and future.
However, our scripture text tonight focuses on Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. In order to better grasp why Jesus does this, let us first look to Luke’s gospel. Luke’s account of this evening provides some helpful background, especially as to why this teaching moment was necessary for Jesus at this time. Therefore, turn with me if you will to Luke Chapter 22, starting with verse 24.
“A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, ‘the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
With this passage from Luke, we can begin to see why Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. In a sense, Jesus has created another parable. He just told his disciples what the kingdom of God looks like; those who wish to lead must learn to serve. And in order to make sure they get it, Jesus gives them a parable as he has done so many times before. Only this time, Jesus himself acts out the parable. So he gets up from the table, while the disciples are still eating dinner, takes off his cloak and ties a towel around his wait. Then he pours water into a basin and begins to wash and dry the disciples’ feet. His posture and dress clearly identify him with the household servants of the day.
As Jesus makes his way around the table, Peter speaks up. “Are you going to wash my feet, Lord?” Peter asks. It feels like one those “duh” moments for Peter. If this scene happened today, we might expect Jesus to fire back some fast sarcastic reply. “No Peter. Not your feet. Just everyone else’s.” But he doesn’t. Instead, can’t you see Jesus offer a little smile to Peter? After all, he knows well those whom he called. “You don’t understand now Peter. But you will. One day.”
Peter reacts intensely to Jesus, with maybe even a touch of anger. “Not my feet, Jesus, never mine.” Why does Peter so strongly oppose this idea? Remember who the Jews of that time expected the Messiah would be. They expected someone in the tradition of David, a king who would save the people by overthrowing their oppressors. In fact, other passages allude to the possibility that Peter was a Zealot, a group of Jews willing to use violent methods, sometimes extreme, in order to end Roman rule. How could he let the Messiah put himself in the servant’s place?
What Peter doesn’t see is the new kind of king that Jesus is. Rather than acting as a military leader, he embodies the humble servant. In order to follow Jesus, Peter must embrace this radical humility. So Jesus lays it all on the table for Peter. “Peter, if you don’t let me, then you will not have a future with me.”
Now Peter thinks he’s got it. He goofed the first time, but now, he has figured what Jesus wants. And so he blurts out, “Then not just my feet Jesus. Wash my hands and head. Wash all of me!” Peter’s idea makes sense, doesn’t it? If Jesus washing his feet is good, then clearly Jesus washing more will be better? Peter hears Jesus offering him a share of Jesus’ inheritance, of his kingdom. If having his feet washed grants a share in the kingdom, then maybe having the rest of him washed will increase his inheritance. Peter is already envisioning his place as the Messiah’s most trusted advisor.
But again, Jesus stops Peter. “If you have bathed, you are already clean, except for your feet.” From a practical standpoint this seems to make sense. If you have already bathed, then there is no reason to be washed a second time. The disciples are clean. However, to go anywhere the disciples walked wearing only sandals. Thus their feet were probably caked in dirt and would need to be cleaned.
But if we treat this story as another a parable, then what does it mean for Jesus to wash their feet? Furthermore, why is it that Jesus washes only their feet? And what does this expression of humble servanthood mean for us?
I’d like to tell you a story. Kathryn Tucker Windham is a wise old Southern woman and a storyteller down in Selma, Alabama. She has been collecting stories all her life, from her family’s front porch and her days in a newspaper office to her ghost story collections and other Southern tales. And while this story may not be widely known as her Jeffrey tales, it is one of my favorites.
Kathryn was working on a story on the people of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. She stayed there for a year listening to their stories and became close with many of the residents. One of them was Willie Quill Pettway, the first African-American deputy sheriff in Wilcox County. Kathryn describes Willie Quill a delightful man. He was an ambitious, dignified, a proud man. A pillar of the community. He was proud of the office he had attained and had reason to be.
As Kathryn was preparing to leave Gee’s Bend, Willie asked her, “I never did tell you about my shoes, did I?” “No, she said, you haven’t.” “Well, I never had a pair of shoes until I was twelve years old. Let me tell you about it.” So they leaned up against the car and he told her this story.
Growing up in Gee’s Bend, his family was so poor they could never afford shoes for him. He went barefoot in summer and winter. He just loved it in the spring, summer, and fall. But in the winter, his feet got so cold.
One winter, his father got a little job working for the county at 50 cents a day, 3 days a week, about 2 miles from home. At noon, Willie’s mother would send him with his daddy’s dinner. (Remember, in the old Southern tradition, your three meals of the day are breakfast, dinner, and supper.)
Willie Quill said one cold morning when he was taking dinner to his dad, the ground was cracked and broken with ice in all the puddles. And his feet were so cold; he was cold all over. Down near the crossroads he passed a little country store, in a small one-room building. It was owned by a white woman named Mrs. Williams.
Mrs. Williams saw him passing by that morning. She walked out on the porch and told him to come over. So he walked over to see what she wanted. She asked, “Where are your shoes?” “I don’t have any shoes,” he replied. “Well come in the store,” she told him.
So he went in the store and sat down on a little bench there. Mrs. Williams brought over one of those little metal things and measured his foot. She walked down a row of shelves, looking them over. She took a box and set it down on a table. Then she walked to the back of the store where she lived. Mrs. Williams came back in a few minutes with a basin of hot water, soap, and a towel. She sat down on the floor there and she washed his feet.
Willie said oh it hurt so bad when he put his feet down in that warm water, as the water got in the cracks in his feet. But she washed his feet good. And then she dried them on the towel, reached behind her and got a jar of Vaseline. She rubbed his feet all in those cracks and it felt so good. Then she stood up and got a pair of socks to put on him. He’d never had a pair of socks in his whole life. She brought that box over and it had a pair of brown shoes in it. She put those shoes on him and they just fit. And as soon as she tied the knot, he jumped up and went running home as fast as he could to show his mom.
But when he got home he wasn’t able to say anything. He just pointed at the shoes and his momma said, “Willie Quill, where’d you get them shoes?” “Mrs. Williams gave them to me.” “Did you thank her?” [shakes head] No, ma’am. “Well you go back and thank her.” So he ran all the way back there to thank her for those shoes, the first shoes he’d ever had.
Kathryn says Willie looked down at those shiny, deputy sheriff shoes he was wearing and brushed a little dust off on his pants leg. Then he turned to her and he said, “You know that’s been a long time ago. I never have quit thanking her. Mrs. Williams is in a nursing home over in Camden. Hadn’t known anything, or anybody for a long time. But I go there every day, and I stand by her bed.
“Mrs. Williams, it’s Willie Quill and I’ve come to thank you for my shoes.”
Did you notice that Mrs. Williams didn’t wash all of him? Just his feet. Why? Because she recognized that was his need. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet because he was preparing them to be sent into the world. They already had the necessary tools, lessons, and knowledge. But Jesus knew that after he was gone, the disciples would have to be ready to go out into the world. And so to prepare them, Jesus attended to their feet, their mode of transportation, to meet their need.
Likewise, Willie Quill needed a pair of shoes. And Mrs. Williams saw a need that she could fill. She didn’t focus on every need, just one her gifts could address. She didn’t wash his hands or his head, just his feet. So should we all take off our shoes and wash each other’s feet on a regular basis? Is that what Jesus expects? Perhaps.
But washing someone else’s feet also means attending to the needs of people in our community and supplying what help we can. This can be as simple as offering words of encouragement and support or pointing out gifts we seen in others. For Willie Quill it meant spending time with someone who had no one else. Sometimes, if we just open our eyes, we see that our own gifts and blessings are poised to intersect with someone’s need. Our gifts in tutoring or home construction may be the “shoes” that some barefoot boy in winter needs.
God calls us to serve the needs of our neighbors. But before we can serve them in a manner that honors not only God but also our neighbor, we must learn to hear God’s call. Hearing the call requires that we first recognize that the call to service does not come from us. We have to follow God’s call, however difficult, and not the call we might wish God had given us.
That was Peter’s failure in the text. He wanted to dictate what the work of Christ looks like. When Peter tells Jesus not to wash his feet, Peter attempts to tell Jesus, the Son of God, how he is supposed to act. Then, when Peter asks Jesus to wash all of him, Peter tries to control Christ’s methods. Jesus shows Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, that they lack the fundamental humility necessary to follow God.
We know as a church that we are supposed to serve. But we have to make sure that our service is one born of humility and love. Before we can serve faithfully we first have to take off our cloak, prepare the water, and tie a towel around our waist. We have to kneel in order to reach the feet of another. In order to offer of ourselves, we enact a humble posture, ignoring social status or conventions. For if Jesus lived among us as one who serves, then his example is the one we follow.
Humility drives this new commandment that Jesus instates. Love one another in a manner that does not preference the servant but instead expresses genuine love for our neighbor. This servant ministry proclaims our faith, for Jesus says it is through our love—not our mission statements, budgets, or attendance roles—that we will be known as his disciples.
Jesus knew where his towel was. So did Mrs. Williams and Willie Quill. Do you?
