The Gospel of John – Jesus Washes Their Feet

John 13: 1-17; Sunday, January, 24, 2021

As the cross is the sign of submission, so the towel is the sign of service. When Jesus gathered His disciples for the Last Supper they were having trouble over who was the greatest. This was no new issue for them. “And an argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.” Whenever there is trouble over who is the greatest there is trouble over who is the least. That is the crux of the matter for us, isn’t it? Most of us know we will never be the greatest; just don’t let us be the least.

Gathered at the Passover feast the disciples were keenly aware that someone needed to wash the other’s feet. The problem was that the only people who washed feet were the least. So there they sat, feet caked with dirt. It was such a sore point that they were not even going to talk about it. No one wanted to be considered the least. Then Jesus took a towel and basin and so redefined greatness.

Having lived out servanthood before them He called them to the way to service: “If I then, you Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel, than His word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service we are banished to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.

In the Discipline of service there is also great liberty. Service enables us to say “no!” to the world’s games of promotion and authority. It abolishes our need (and desire) for a “pecking order.” If true service is to be understood and practiced it must be distinguished clearly from “self-righteous service.”

Self-righteous service comes through human effort. It extends immense amounts of energy calculating and scheming how to render the service. Sociological charts and surveys may be devised so we can “help those people.” True service comes from a relationship with the divine Other deep inside.

Self-righteous service is impressed with the “big deal. True service finds it most impossible to distinguish the small from the large service.

Self-righteous service requires external rewards. It needs to know that people see and appreciate the effort. It seeks human applause—with proper religious modesty of course. True service rests contented in hiddenness.

Self-righteous service is highly concerned about results. It eagerly waits to see if the person served will reciprocate in kind. It becomes bitter when the results fall below expectations. True service is free of the need to calculate results. It delights only in the service. It can serve enemies as freely as friends.

Self-righteous service picks and chooses whom to serve. True service is indiscriminate in its ministry. It has heard the command of Jesus to be the “servant of all.”

Self-righteous service is affected by moods and whims. True service ministers simply and faithfully because there is a need. Self-righteous service is temporary. True service is a life-style. It acts from ingrained patterns. It springs spontaneously to meet human need.

Self-righteous service is without sensitivity. True service can withhold the service as freely as perform it. It can listen with tenderness and patience before acting. It can serve by waiting in silence.

Self-righteous service fractures community. True service, on the other hand, builds community. It quietly and unpretentiously goes about caring for the needs of others. More than any other single way the grace of humility is worked into our lives through the Discipline of service. Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it.

Nothing disciplines the desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. It will devise subtle, religious acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh we crucify our pride and arrogance.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p. 110-114 (1978)

In service we engage our goods and strength in the active promotion of the good of others and the causes of God in our world. Here we recall an important distinction. Not every act that may be done as a discipline need be done as a discipline. I will often be able to serve another simply as an act of love and righteousness, without regard to how it may enhance my abilities to follow Christ.

Paradoxically perhaps, service is the high road to freedom from bondage to other people.

But I believe the disciple of service is even more important for Christians who find themselves in positions of influence, power, and leadership. To live as a servant while fulfilling socially important roles is one of the greatest challenges any disciple ever faces. It is made the harder because the church does not give special training to persons engaged in these roles and foolishly follows the world by regarding such people as “having it made,” possibly even considering them qualified to speak as authorities in the spiritual life because of their success in the world.

Some of the most important things Jesus had to say concerned the manner in which leaders were to live.

Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciples, p. 182f (1988)