Humility

When I served in the Peace Corps in Russia, I attended a small Pentecostal house church. We worshiped in the home of Baba Flossia, whose living room was our sanctuary. On Sundays when we celebrated communion, the whole church would start this ceremony by washing one another’s feet, women on the women’s side and men on the men’s side. In the winter, it took quite some doing to get off all of the layers of tights and socks that we wore, but the ritual of kneeling before someone else and reverently bathing her feet was humbling and more meaningful than I can say.

This congregation also had the tradition of allowing anyone to share a message or a thought with the rest of the people during worship. I recall one Sunday when a former prisoner stood to share a message. He hadn’t been an active Christian when he was first incarcerated, but his cellmate believed in Jesus. One night, the man’s cellmate had been talking about the change that Jesus had made in his life, and he declared “I’m going to wash your feet!” The men telling this story shared how he laughed at such a foolish idea. But as the cellmate kept insisting, he came to realize that this wasn’t a joke or even a passing fancy. His cellmate was preparing to wash his feet. This act of selflessness, or utter humility, broke his heart. Who was he, a criminal, to have someone kneel before him and wash his feet, bathing them tenderly and treating him with dignity? It was having his feet washed by a fellow prisoner in a Russian jail cell that brought the man to faith in Jesus and to walking the Christian path. He told us this story with tears in his eyes and a catch in his voice, and it helps us all to realize what a powerful ritual foot-washing is.

It’s easy to get squeamish about feet in our culture. Many of us feel uncomfortable allowing someone to touch our feet, allowing someone to be that intimate with us. But the radical intimacy and humility of washing another’s feet is the perfect symbol for the life of service to which Jesus calls us. Respectability was never the criteria that Jesus set for his disciples, or for participation in God’s Kingdom. On Maundy Thursday, Christian tradition challenges us to let go of our desire for respectability and to instead embrace Jesus’ way of selfless service, of kneeling before others and washing their feet. I’m grateful for this annual opportunity to follow Jesus in this radical humility.

-Heather Josselyn Cranson