Last Night: Messy People

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. (John 13:14-15)

When's the last time you washed someone's feet?

I'm sure there are some parents of kids reading this who frequently engaged in the ritual of foot washing. But I don't think that's what Jesus is telling us we need to be doing.

He did more than just washing some dirty feet. He humbled himself to do a dirty job for a group of people who, by nearly anyone's estimation, were "beneath" him. He was their Lord, their Master, and their Footwasher. This was a distasteful and uncomfortable task, one normally done by a servant.

He also washed the feet of everyone there, both his closest friends and the ones who would soon deny and betray him. As is so often true, it turned out the friends and the betrayers were the same people.

I've found this to be true: You'll never know the true depths of fellowship with Christ until you humble yourself to be involved in down and dirty service in ways and in places that make you feel a bit uncomfortable.

The prison did that for me. I often find myself out of my comfort zone at the prison and I'm seldom fully in control of what's going to happen next. This is so true that we've actually adapted our approach over the years to be as unstructured as possible, while still having a plan. When the people you're serving have a built-in tendency to derail the plain, why not go off-road from the get-go?

When we try to recruit for help we get responses like, "That sounds pretty scary." You bet it is. It's scary and unnerving to be trying to provide counsel to people who have experienced things that are way out of my range of experience. Nowhere in my life have I been so uncertain of what out-of-left-field question one of them is going to ask next.

But it's great because these ladies challenge us to be real, to dig deeper than pat answers. They've taught me how to be authentic in my faith.

That sort of education doesn't happen in a classroom and it's not learned from a sermon. It happens when you become messily involved in the messy lives of messy people.