Overview:

Holy Thursday

A Reflection for Holy Thursday

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“What I am doing, you do not understand now,
but you will understand later.”
Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” (Jn 13:6-8)

Find today’s readings here.

During the Last Supper, as recorded in John’s Gospel, Jesus takes off, or “lays aside” his outer robe, ties a towel around himself, pours water into a basin, washes the disciples’ feet and wipes them with the towel.

In Jesus’ day, foot-washing was seen as a mark of hospitality, but also a menial task often performed by servants to welcome a dignitary hosted by the enslaved person’s master. To the disciples, it would have been an unmistakable demonstration of humility, something an inferior would do for the superior.

Jesus’ gesture offers the disciples and us a symbol of service and self-gift, prefiguring the total act of service and self-gift that comes with his death. Jesus lays everything down for others in service to God—his outer garment and then his inner garment: his body.

The disciples of course are shocked: Their master is acting like a servant. It was also the opposite of the custom of Jewish students of the day.

When he approaches Peter to wash his feet, Peter is confused. “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” he asks. Jesus says that while Peter may not understand what he is doing now, it will become clear later. Still, Peter protests: “You will never wash my feet!” That response has always seemed to me very sad; knowing that Jesus may die, Peter is consumed with sorrow, maybe thinking: Lord, how much will you abase yourself?

Perhaps it’s even more radical than that. Sandra Schneiders, a New Testament scholar, suggests another meaning. She believes that the foot-washing is more about the mutual service of friendship, a mutual sharing of gifts that implies no sort of domination.

The message is not so much that the master has become the servant, but that all are on the same level. In the foot-washing, Jesus challenges his disciples to see that all are equal friends in the reign of God; nobody is above or below anyone else.

Schneiders objects to the usual emphasis on “humble service” in the foot-washing because of the power dynamics this interpretation may suggest. There is no domination by anyone, but rather an invitation to equality. This may help to explain Peter’s strong reaction: He sees that this requires, as Schneiders says, “a radical reinterpretation of his own life-world, a genuine conversion of some kind which he was not prepared to undergo.” It’s an invitation to what another scholar calls a “community of equals.”

Imagine what our world would be like if we thought of ourselves as a community of equals. We would see eye to eye with people who seem different from us, or who seem, falsely, above us or below us. Maybe that would include migrants and refugees. Maybe that would be people who are poor, or from a different ethnic group. Maybe hedge fund managers or billionaires. Maybe L.G.B.T.Q. people. Maybe Republicans or Democrats. A community of equals.

Whenever I hear this reading proclaimed, I always think how different our church would be if, in addition to our weekly celebrations of the Eucharist we celebrated the foot-washing. It may sound crazy, and it would be complicated to arrange every Sunday—all those basins of water and towels and shoes and socks! But imagine the symbolism if every Sunday the presider got down on his hands and knees to scrub the feet of parishioners. What a reminder it would be to all of us—priests included—that this is what Christ asked us to do in addition to the celebration of the Eucharist.

Seen every Sunday, the washing of the feet might help us see how power is more intimately linked to service and how the Body of Christ is, in the end, one of radical equality.

The Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author, editor at large at America and founder of Outreach.