Unwashed Feet

Jesus was a man who always bore the brunt of controversial rituals. His washing of feet (St. John: 13) was one such ritual. Almost all the traditional commentaries interpret this act as the quintessential symbolism of humility and service of Christ emptying himself. I am not at all fascinated by these abstract and fancy interpretations rather I find them offensive. Euphemisms like humbleness, servanthood, servitude and service are the monopoly and the prerogative of the dominant and not of the subalterns. To serve and to be served are choices that can be made only by the powerful; and that is why the church and clerics have romanticized this act, seeming to be very comfortable with this so called gesture of humbleness as it reaffirms their hierarchical positions. Only who has enough can attempt to empty. As far as the subalterns are concerned they have emptied their blood, their voice, their rights, their sweat and even their existence; what more do we want them to empty?

Washing of feet according to the gospel of John culminates the teachings of Christ Jesus before his Passion. Washing the feet of weary travelers was a job delegated to a gentile slave by the host. This job was considered to be so demeaning that not even a Jewish slave was expected to wash feet. The host of a meal would certainly not lower himself to perform this vile task. It was in this context Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. So do you think that it was to epitomize humility? Would Jesus want to culminate his teachings proving humility to be the most important virtue of all? I do not think so because that does not seem to attune with the DNA of Jesus who constantly rebelled against the power structures of his times. He could not end valorizing humility a passive emotion to be the greatest! 

I see this entire act from the vantage point of power decentralization. Jesus’ washing of feet was a strong counter-cultural symbolism aimed to break the concepts and precepts of sacredness and the conventions of a sacrament. Annie Jaubert proposes that Jesus was following the Qumran Calender according to which the Passover meal is three days before Judean Passover. The text says that Jesus got up from the table during supper. For Jews every meal is semi sacramental and Passover meal is definitely sacramental. Nobody was supposed to break a sacrament. But Jesus violated all the conventions and broke the supper by getting up.

It is also intriguing to note the Greek word used by John for robe i.e. himation the plural form, meaning clothes. So Jesus was almost naked during this act. This calls for a re-imagination of the ability of vulnerability, the power of powerlessness and the sacredness of the defiled. It is also with this Supper of Jesus do we associate Eucharist. This means that the most holy Sacrament of Christians today i.e. the Eucharist emerged in the context of the most defiled act. This is what that makes Jesus’ washing of feet a powerful symbolism critiquing the power that demarcates sacred and profane.

Last year our nation witnessed a bizarre. The Indian Christian Women’s Movement, a network organization of over 500 women from different Christian denominations, sent letters to Roman Catholic, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara denominations – urging them to issue directives to all parishes of their respective denominations to include women and girls in the washing of feet ritual on Maundy Thursday. But the response was lukewarm.  It is against this background that the celebration of the ritual of washing of the feet organized by a group called ‘Women’s Lives Matter’, gains significance. ‘Women’s Lives Matter’ An ecumenical feminist group led by Kochurani Abraham, a Catholic Feminist Theologian on April 11, 2017 organized a foot-washing ritual by washing the feet of 12 inmates of Santhwanam which is a home for battered women and children at Kottayam. 

Kochurani Abraham made an intriguing statement,

The move aims to make the excluded community become mediators of grace. So, outside the liturgy and its politics of exclusion, we simply want to celebrate an inclusive gesture which we believe is the politics of the reign of God.

This act is a strong refutation to the priests who claim to be the custodians of the means of grace and also raises serious concerns on the veracity of a clerical order. This was indeed a radical social transformative ritual rattling the power structures of church and clerics and putting them to great ignominy. The clerics should know that they are not defined by the virtue of vestments or offices but by the affirmation of a community. Clerics are not custodians of the means of grace but they are those who share them. The power is not in controlling but in sharing.

This is what exactly happened in Jesus’ washing of feet as well. With this transformative act of Jesus the slaves entrusted with the responsibility to wash feet suddenly became the mediators of grace. So through the washing of feet Jesus transforms an act which was hitherto considered to be so defiled, into a sacred ritual.

This Lent let us try to decentralize power and its vicious protruding tentacles. For this we need to keep our senses alert. We continue to live in an oblivion. Naom Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics, opines, “The general population does not know what is happening and it does not even know that it does not know.”

I conclude with a request to pray for our farmers in their ongoing struggle for justice. I am sure we are all aware of their historic march.

We Christians celebrate the Holy Eucharist so grandly. Have we ever thought where the bread and wine come from? It’s from the farmers – their sweat and blood. So shouldn’t it be their wounded and callous feet which we should wash this lent?

Let us pray

God of the vulnerable, we stand before you with our vulnerabilities. Make them our strength as your Son did. Grant us the audacity to decentralize power by breaking the boundaries of purity and profane. We beseech your grace for our farmers in their struggle for justice after all its the product of  their sweat and blood which we celebrate at the altar.  For Christ’s sake we pray. Amen

Prayers

Dn. Basil Paul