Awkward Feet

John 13

Hokey-Pokey Humiliation

<Video of the Preachers-In-Training doing the Hokey-Pokey>

I could give you some more context… but I won’t. Because that’s just funnier. That is a group of people humiliating themselves for you good. That’s for you and for Jesus.

There is a group of people willing to humble themselves. Humiliate themselves.

Sometimes I lie awake worrying at night: what if the hokey pokey is really what it’s all about?

It isn’t often as an adult that you get to just be ridiculous. Unless you’re Jono. But what stops us from doing the hokey pokey whenever we are feeling the need for a smile? It’d be strange, right? Awkward? There’s all these social rules and expectations about proper behavior. You start doing the hokey pokey in the middle of Olive Garden and people stop and stare and you might be escorted out.

I wonder how many conversations (it is a lot) I haven’t had because it would be too awkward.

How many nice things I have thought of doing for someone… but it’d be too weird. Too strange.

How many conversations that just stayed surfacy because it might be uncomfortable to “go there”?

Today I want to make a solemn commitment to embrace the awkwardness.

Jesus’ Teaching

Recall that in John 13, Jesus has turned his attention to his disciples and is now teaching them what their identity is going to be. He is going somewhere they cannot follow, and people won’t be able to literally see them walking around behind him anymore, so they need a new identity. And this is how everyone will recognize them as his disciples:

John 13:34-35

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This is our identity. This is who we are as Christ-followers. As disciples. It is so clearly defined. If we are disciples of Jesus, we will be famous for the way that we love each other.

Of course, the immediate next question is how do we do that? What kind of love is this? Well Jesus has already patterned the kind of love he is talking about. He has already demonstrated exactly what he means.

The Content of Love – Foot Washing

John 13:1-17

13 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Setting again the context, that Jesus is loving his disciples ultimately, and turning his attention to them in these last days of ministry. There is a good deal of confusion about when exactly these events take place because it says it is “before the Feast of the Passover” and that might mean this whole scenario takes place maybe a day before the events we read in the Synoptic Gospels as the “Last Supper”. The Passover meal with the disciples. However, most likely these words “before the Feast of the Passover” refers just to the foot-washing about to occur, which takes place before the meal.

2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

What kind of things are these? What kind of love is this?

There is so much going on here culturally that it is very easy for us to miss exactly what Jesus is teaching. We don’t wash each other’s feet. This is not normal. The whole thing comes across as very formal and ritualistic, but kind of in a holy way. Almost like a baptism ceremony, a beautiful act of love.

… not so much.

Scandalous Awkward Foot-washing

Picture everyone lying down, propped up on left elbow.

Jesus stands up and strips off his outer robe. What is Jesus wearing under his robe? Probably not much, like a loincloth. So the Revered Master Teacher stands up and strips to his tighty whiteys… awkward. He grabs a towel and wraps it around him, and now he has dressed himself as a lowly servant. Picture the CEO standing up from the company dinner, stripping off his entire suit, down to the boxers, and putting on a bus-boy apron.

Then he starts walking around the table. With a basin, possibly two. Pouring water over their feet and then drying them with his towel. Now feet washing is a whole cultural thing that is completely alien to us. But it was fairly normal to them.

It isn’t the nastiest thing possible… it is a helpful thing.

It isn’t absolutely necessary, they were already at table… but it is a nice thing. It is for their good. It is a simple and generous kindness. Pour a bit of water over their dusty feet, walking in sandals all day. He isn’t washing with his tongue, it isn’t a foot-massage, just a rinse, and a pat with the towel.

It is an ordinary occurrence, it is a very simple act of kindness, of hospitality.

However, in an honor-based society, what made it absolutely ludicrous, scandalous, is the association of foot-washing as an act that someone lower would perform to someone higher. Usually even Jewish servants would not wash the feet of their masters, they would save that for non-Jewish servants or slaves. Lowest of the lows. It was demeaning, it was an act of humiliation.

Now it may be that the disciples would have been willing to wash Jesus’ feet as a profound act of humility, an elevation of their Master. Good luck convincing them to wash one another’s feet. It would be chaos of who should be so subjugated, so humiliated before the other, indeed the very kind of argument for precedence that Luke tells us was happening in the Upper Room. And so, in the absence of a lowly enough servant, everyone just left their feet dusty and nasty. Given the animals everywhere, guaranteed most of them had stepped in poop that day.

So Jesus sees … not even a need, a nice to have. It would be nice for us to have rinsed off feet for this meal. And the only thing preventing it is his position, his power, his prestige, his pride. And Jesus strips all of that off, even as he does his robe.

And this is absolutely embarrassing for everyone. Simon-Peter argues with him, understand that it was embarrassing for Peter to let Jesus wash his feet. It is humiliating, not only the awkwardness of it, but Peter is following Jesus, so Peter’s honor and position and prestige and pride is entirely dependent on that Jesus has… and now Jesus is throwing that away. The respected Rabbi has lowered himself, embarrassed himself really, if word gets out this is a joke, and that embarrasses everyone.

We don’t really have an equivalent for this. But we do have a great word for when someone presses or subverts the standard social boundaries. Awkward. It is awkward.

Awkward is the feeling we get when something crosses social boundaries and expectations.

What Jesus does in incredibly awkward. It subverts the social norms, it crosses the agreed upon social boundaries. Like someone standing up and doing a handstand on the table in a restaurant. All of a sudden everyone is staring, something strange is happening, something unusual, something embarrassing, something awkward.

But this is his act of love. Jesus is willing to humiliate himself for the good of his disciples. He is willing to cross right into absolute awkwardness in order that they might gain in even a small way. Clean feet.

And it isn’t just something he did that we maybe should emulate. Jesus turns immediately around and says “what I just did? You have to do this.”

15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

It says this. I will humiliate myself for your good. I will humiliate myself for your good. I will be awkward, if it’s for your good. I will abandon my dignity, abandon my power, my prestige, a bit of respect… if it’s something I can do for you.

You must humiliate yourselves for one another’s good.

Sorry, It’s Too Awkward

That is an act of love. My humiliation for your good.

There is never an act of service that I am too “good for”. Never an act of love that I am too proud to do.

This is the principle of love Jesus teaches us, applied to the way we love one another. We are to be on the lookout for acts of kindness, acts of love, acts of hospitality, anything for one another’s good.

And then, we just do it. Constantly. Habitually. And we absolutely refuse to let our pride stand in the way. Our position. Our place.

Can you imagine a group of people constantly loving each other in these ways?

Now this is a loving church. And I see people regularly jumping in and doing acts of service and acts of love all over the place. I went and got a mop at youth group to mop up a spill and by the time I filled the bucket, eight people were on hands and knees cleaning it up. Counselors, kids, it didn’t matter.

What if we took that and multiplied it all over the place. Spilling beyond these four walls. And I am willing to work hard. You know what the biggest barrier is for me? Awkward.

I can’t go talk to those people… it’s too awkward. I don’t want to go to lunch with them, it’s too awkward. I don’t want to press, I don’t want to ask how they’re doing, I don’t want to call mid-week to encourage them, to pray with them, to ask them to pray for me… It’s all too awkward.

Jesus’ example of foot-washing teaches us this. Among us, among his disciples, if we call ourselves his disciples, awkwardness never gets to stand in the way of love again. Is it awkward? Yes. But the only question we ask, when it comes to one another, is “is it for their good?”

We are a loving church. But we can take a next step in our love for one another. We can be famous for the way we love one another. We can take a step into the awkward.

Awkward Habits

So I want this to be a habit for us, so I will give us a cue, a behavior, and some code words to make it easier.

I pray that God opens our eyes to opportunities to serve one another. And when you see such an opportunity and you hear these words in your head “No, it’d be too awkward.” That’s your cue. Too awkward? No, that can’t be, because as a disciple of Jesus that doesn’t apply when it comes to another disciple of Jesus. So when you hear in your mind “too awkward” a little bell should go off. This is that thing.

And then you decide now, that as a disciple of Jesus who is going to be famous for loving int his way, you decide now that you are going to do the thing. Ask the question. Go and talk to them. Invite to lunch. Wash the feet. Clean the car, clean the toilet, whatever it is.

And you can use these words. Code words here at Next Step Church. You say: “Let me be awkward.”

“Let me be awkward… are you doing anything for lunch?”

“Let me be awkward… do you need help buying groceries this week?”

“Let me be awkward… can I clean your toilet? It ummm… needs it.”

“Let me be awkward… can I do the Hokey-Pokey just to put a smile on your face?”

“Let me be awkward… how can I help?”

Church, “let me be awkward” I love you guys. That is still slightly awkward for me to say but let me be awkward. I love you guys and I feel loved by this church. This is a loving church. And let’s take a next step in becoming a more loving church, a more preferable loving future. Let’s be famous for the way that we love one another.