SHOULD WE TAKE JESUS’ TEACHING ABOUT FOOT-WASHING LITERALLY?

Jesus taught in figurative (parabolic, hyperbolic) language. He taught that if our eye causes us to sin, we should pluck it out, and if our hand causes us to sin, we should cut it off. Fortunately, no one takes this literally, and our resulting blindness would dishonor the faith.

It seems that Jesus’ teaching about foot-washing was also figurative and even culturally relative in some respects. After Peter protested against Jesus washing his feet, He responded:

·       “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” (John 13:7 ESV)

If Jesus had been giving them literal instructions about washing feet, they would have understood. Evidently, Jesus had a more spiritual lesson in mind than literally washing each other’s feet. After Peter again objected to Jesus abasing Himself in this manner, He responded that “foot-washing” was a matter of sharing in Jesus’ inheritance:

·       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.” (John 13:8)

If taken literally, it sounds like Jesus was making foot-washing a condition of salvation, but this couldn’t be:

·       Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 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.” (John 13:9-10)

As usual, Peter misunderstood our Lord, thinking that foot-washing was a matter of sanctifying through cleansing with soap and water. However, elsewhere in the Gospel of John, Jesus had made it clear that cleansing or sanctification was a matter of the Spirit working through the Word. After the miraculous feeding of the multitude, Jesus had likewise taught:

·       “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56)

Are we to take this teaching literally – salvation by eating Jesus? Of course, not! In fact, within this very context, Jesus taught explicitly about the source of salvation and sanctification:

·       For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40)

·       It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6:63)

Even Peter picked up on this after the multitude departed on account of Jesus’ difficult teaching. He asked Peter if he too was going to depart:

·       Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)

Even Peter understood that salvation wasn’t a matter of ingesting Jesus but of believing in His Words. Was salvation, then, a matter of having clean feet? Jesus had declared them clean but on the basis of what – clean feet? If salvation is a matter of cleanliness or clean feet, Judas Iscariot would have also been saved. He too received the foot-washing. Nevertheless, Jesus stated that one of them was not clean (John 13:11, 21). Evidently, salvation doesn’t depend upon clean feet, or Judas too would have been saved (John 17:12).

Then, upon what did cleansing, sanctification, and salvation depend? On the Gospel message:

·       “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” (John 15:3; Ephesians 5:26)

·       “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth…And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (John 17:17, 19)

These teachings seem to exclude the idea that clean feet literally sanctify. What then should Jesus’ Apostles have taken away from this lesson? What other lessons had been comparable? I think that foot-washing should remind us of another lesson that Jesus had taught His disciples – that the greatest had to be least, the servant of all. He even taught this lesson in the context of the foot-washing:

·       “If I then, your 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 just as I have done to you. 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.” (John 13:14-16)

Does this mean that we should literally wash one another’s feet? I don’t think so. However, washing feet had been considered a very humbling act, and, in that culture, it addressed a real need. In the dusty terrain, feet quickly dirtied, even with sandals. It was not enough, therefore, to remove one’s sandals when entering a home. The feet had to be washed to remove the filth.

However, this is no longer our need. Instead, we are required to be servants to one another. If Jesus came as a servant who died for our sins, even when we were His enemies, we too must be servants.

In the flesh, I find this very distasteful. Like Jesus’ Apostles, I’d rather be reigning than serving. The idea of ministering to people’s basic needs is not pleasant to me. I become impatient and irritated. Lord, we need your help!

THE STRENGTH AND CONFIDENCE OF WISDOM

One superlative gift of God is wisdom and understanding. Having this gives us strength and confidence to navigate this life:

·       A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might. (Proverbs 24:5 ESV)

How can it be that the wise also have strength and might? Well, for one thing, the wise trust in the Lord and in His Word, a source of great guidance and certainty, an accurate roadmap, which gives us the clarity to navigate the crooked paths of distorted lives.

For this reason, I enjoyed being a probation officer in the NYC Department of Probation. This is because God’s wisdom taught me how to talk to others in a way that they could understand and benefit. Because I was confident in this wisdom, it was a tool I enjoyed wielding as a skilled artist is able to wield his paint brushes confidently and pleasurably.

I felt at ease as I made use of challenging concepts, like the relationship between law and grace, kindness and firmness. God’s wisdom enabled me to see my probationers through the eyes of God and also the eyes of the law, which God had ordained. It also allowed me to play the role of a stern yet compassionate father, the very thing that my probationers needed. Had I not felt confident in applying these concepts to varied people and situations, I would not have been able to relate to my probationers with the necessary ease and confidence.

However, it wasn’t always this way. As a substitute teacher, I struggled with applying the teachings of Jesus to the classroom. When should I turn the other cheek? When should I forgive? I was confused and probably showed it.

These questions had forced me to consider what it must have been like for my fellow probation officers. Did they believe that “love conquers all” and how did this understanding affect the way they performed their job? Did they simple indulge their probationers, thinking that this was best for them? What would they do once they found that this strategy failed to work with many? Consequently, many POs struggled with burnout.

Others believe that we are just the product of our nurture and nature, our upbringing and our genes. Some take it a step further and believe that we don’t have freewill, that we are not responsible moral agents, and that we couldn’t have acted better than we did? How would these beliefs affect their job performance? Would they equip their probationers to identify and resist their criminal impulses? Would they have been able to stand against the manipulations of their probationers?

If the ideal father needs to be both firm and nurturing, what beliefs would he need to exercise these roles? I found that the Bible had equipped with the precise understanding to navigate successfully.

CAN THE CHURCH SURVIVE POPE FRANCIS?

According to La Civilta Catolica, on Sept. 5 in Mozambique, Pope Francis informed a group of Jesuits:

·       "Once a Jesuit, a great Jesuit, told me to be careful in giving absolution, because the most serious sins are those that are more angelical: pride, arrogance, dominion...And the least serious are those that are less angelical, such as greed and lust."

·       "We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies. The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.”

Does the Church require a “profound conversion in this area?” I don’t think so. For one thing, the Bible has consistently denounced sexual sin above many others. It finds a permanent place among the Ten Commandments – “Do not commit adultery” (6^th Commandment) and “Do not covet your neighbors wife” (10^th Commandment). Many sexual sins are even called an “abomination” and had deserved death:

·       “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:10-16 ESV)

The New Testament also teaches the seriousness of sexual sin:

·       For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:26-28)

·       Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality… (1 Corinthians 6:9)

·       Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:15-18)

All sin is a sin against God Himself, but it seems that sexual sin carries an extra cost: “the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”

Francis claims that the Church is preoccupied with sexual sin to the exclusion of other sins. Is the Church preoccupied with teaching against sexual sin? Hardly! This is the very set of sins that many now refuse to teach against.

If teaching against sexual sin causes the Church to ignore other sins, then the Church has a problem. However, the Church is fully able to teach against all sins. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made to teach more strenuously against those sins that have become popular and are capturing the Church, like the sin of pornography.

Francis also pits the sins of arrogance and pride against sexual sins, claiming that the former are more serious. However, unrepented sins cannot be so easier teased apart. Here’s how – to refuse to repent of sexual sin is also arrogance and pride. It is to tell God, “I know what is best for me. I do not need to submit to Your every command. Consequently, we find that arrogance and pride have metastasized to embrace various sins. In God’s mind, they are all closely and inseparably associated:

·       “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.” (Isaiah 13:11)

·       For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God… (Timothy 3:2-4)

Pride and arrogance are associated with the entire list of unrepented sins. Therefore, when the Church teaches against pride and arrogance, it is also preaching against all the sins that are associated with them. And when we teach against sexual sin, we are also teaching against the pride and arrogance that enables the proud to rise up against both the teachings of the conscience and those of God.

SUFFERING AND SOARING – MAKING SENSE OF GOD’S PLAN

Sometimes, our Lord promises that we will have to suffer (2 Corinthians 4:7-11), and sometimes He promises great blessings:

·       And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19 ESV)

Well, which is it? What are we to expect from our Lord? Both! They go together. He first humbles us with suffering so that He can then exalt us with His blessings and deliverance:

·       “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12)

He empties us of our pride and sense of entitlement by humbling us through suffering so that when He blesses us, we will not be inclined to think that we are more entitled than others:

·       You [God] brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. (Psalm 66:11-12)

Suffering precedes abundance. We want to be in a place of abundance, but if He doesn’t first empty our cup so that we can receive it, it will cause pride. Paul had demonstrated how affliction precedes glorification as we die to self-trust and increasingly awake to God-trust:

·       So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Paul learned had to learn to depend upon God by despairing of any hope in his own sufficiency from personal experience (2 Corinthians 1:8-9; 3:5). However, he needed repeated doses of frightful, painful, and humbling experiences (chapter 11). However, even his many beatings and rejections were not enough to humble Paul. God had given him so much knowledge that, if He didn’t afflict Paul further, it would have gone to his head:

·       So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

I’m sure that Paul’s “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” remained highly painful. They had to be (Hebrews 12:11). Without the pain, there can be no gain, no growth in depending on Jesus. However, Paul’s travails brought fruit:

·       …for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. (Philippians 4:11-12)

“The secret of facing plenty?” What’s the problem with facing plenty? Doesn’t our Lord want to give us everything? Yes, but even good things can be corrupting if we haven’t learned how to receive them. Our cup must first be emptied before it can be filled. Emptied of what? Self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, and self-righteousness! But how? In order to experience God’s deliverance, we first have to be in a position where we have no other choice but to cry out for it. Often, this means waiting.

CONCLUSION: Psalm 34:18-19 “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”