This evening I have been invited to join St Stephen’s Church in Sparsholt for their Maundy Thursday Service of Holy Communion. it is a service which often includes the ritual of foot-washing, remembering how Jesus washed his disciple’s feet. I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to feet and often offer to wash hands instead (which has felt particularly pertinent during this season of Covid). This evening, though, I am going to lead us through a foot washing meditation instead. Perhaps you would like to join in?

Sit comfortably, take a long, slow, breath in, and allow it to gently fall out. Breathe, in, breathe out. Where has today taken you? What have you seen, experienced? Where have you walked? What have you walked through, trodden in.

Wiggle your toes, safely wrapped in tights or socks and encased in shoes to keep the rain out. When did you last wash your feet? Did you bathe them before bed last night or shower this morning? Are they still freshly powdered, or beginning to feel the wear and tear of the day? Are your feet still damp from the quick soap and flannel scrub before coming out this evening just in case you would be asked to bear all, and your feet would be chosen for tonight’s ritual? Did you cut your nails, apply a dab of colour to your nails?

How do your feet feel? Wiggle your toes.

Breathe in, breathe out.

But breathe in the Middle Eastern desert air. Feel the sand in the atmosphere, in everything. Feel the sand between your toes, but not the sand of the beach, the sand that dusts every surface, that needs to be shaken off your clothes, off your sandals.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Imagine your feet in leather sandals, no cushioning, just a simple thong to tie the soul to your foot. Imagine walking through hot crowded streets. It is Jerusalem, it is festival time. There is no space to walk in a straight line, you are jostled from side to side, and often your toes are trod on, and sometimes you are aware of trading on other’s toes too. Your feet are tired and sore, and hot and dusty.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The Festival is Passover, the key pilgrimage of the year, and you are in Jerusalem, right at the epi-centre. Jews have travelled far to make their Passover Sacrifice at the Temple. Traders have brought lambs to be purchased by guests to the Holy City to be slaughtered, you can hear their petrified cries and smell the blood as it drips down from the temple. The Romans have dug sewage channels through the centre of the streets to wash away the waste, but there is too much. You try to avoid the effluence, but you are jostled again and again, and find yourself stepping into the sewage, its waste clinging to the dust of your feet. You try to avoid the filth but have to give up. Your feet will be washed before dinner, and then you can rest with fellow pilgrims, sharing stories, catching up with family. Clean feet massaged by a friend, easing away the aches of the day.

Breathe in, breathe out.

You gather in the home of your hosts, but no water is forthcoming, no servant, or young child kneels beside you to perform the cleansing ritual you had looked forward to. Instead, Jesus removes his robe, takes a towel and kneels, Jesus moves to take hold of a foot, a foot encased in sand and blood and urine and animal faeces; a foot that is unclean on so many levels, a foot that stinks. Without thinking you withdraw your foot, ‘No’ you cry. You had yearned for this moment of cleansing, but not like this. You would rather wash them yourself if there is no-one else available, you would rather they stay caked in the detritus of the day: caked in the jostling, the standing in queues, the bruised toes crushed by fellow pilgrims. You would rather your feet remain slathered in the effluence of Jerusalem at its peek, than Jesus would stoop so low as to wash your feet. No.

Breathe in, breathe out.

How do your feet feel now?

Breathe in, breathe out.

Peter speaks for you, but Jesus responds: if you do not let Jesus remove the dirt of the day from your feet, then you cannot remain his travelling companion. Peter desperate to remain a member of Jesus’ gang, asks to be washed from head to toe – he is ‘all in’. But Jesus laughs, ‘only your feet’. It is only the dust from today that needs to be cleaned away before being clean enough to lunge together around the feast. It is only the dirt of this day that needs to cleansed away, the dirt of the crowds pilgrims who cried Hosanna, pilgrims who will cry crucify. It is only the blood and the mess of the slaughtered animals, the sacrificial lambs that need to be cleansed away. Peter rests at ease, and you too, allow Jesus to take your feet, one at a time, ad gently pour cool refreshing water over them. You feel the caked dust and mess soften and melt away, the stench replaced by sweetly fragranced oils to soothe calloused feet, patted dry with the towel resting on Jesus’ lap. It is as though your feet have been kissed clean.

Wiggle your clean toes.

Breathe in, breathe out.

You have been cleansed from the dust of the day. You have been cleansed from this day.

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