In 1970 I was ministering to students and other young adults at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London. It was the era of the Beatles, Eastern transcendental meditation and a psychedelic culture. John Stott gave the Bible Readings at the international missions conference at Urbana, Illinois to 12,300 students. We had been trying to reach beyond the walls of the institutional church and to alter the image of Christianity in the eyes of many sceptics and seekers. In my research to catalog his theology I came across this unexpected application of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.
We have now seen the principle which Jesus has taught by example (in the footwashing) and by contrast (with the treachery of Judas) and by statement (in the words of the new commandment).
We have also considered the dead and unimaginative literalism of those who have sought to obey this commandments by an actual, though ceremonial washing of some peoples’ feet sometimes.
Are there not better ways of obeying this command to love? Are there not many lowly, menial, foot-washing jobs waiting to be done which we commonly shirk? It was not beneath the dignity of Jesus to put on a slave’s apron, get down on his knees and dirty his hands in the service of others. Is it beneath ours? His ministry was not only spiritual; it was social and practical as well. He did not only preach; he served. Think of some of the needy people we tend to neglect.
Is Christ calling us to some hidden backroom job “serving tables,” when we would rather be in the limelight of publicity. Is he calling us to time with somebody who is lonely or emotionally unstable or mentally sick, when we would rather relax with our friends? Or to give ourselves in genuine friendship – not superficial but sacrificial – to someone hooked on drugs, and stand by him faithfully during the painful period of withdrawal? Is he calling us to work with penitence and without paternalism in a rundown city inner city area or ghetto? Are we meant to offer our lives in Christ’s service in a developing country abroad – as a doctor, nurse, teacher, agriculturalist or social worker – when it would be more lucrative and more respectable to pursue our profession at home? Or should we stay at home and get involved with people in the secular community – perhaps with hippies, whom Ted Schroder (one of my colleagues in London) has described as “the largest unreached tribe in the world today.” He has added, “We don’t learn their language, we don’t study their culture, and we don’t live among them.”
It is in such ways as these that we are follow the example of Jesus our Teacher and Lord today, washing people’s feet, sacrificing ourselves to serve them. As he girded himself with a towel, we are, (in Peter’s expressive phrase) to clothe ourselves with humility (1 Pet.5:5). I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that is there is no humble service in our lives, nothing comparable to Christ’s washing of the apostles’ feet, we can hardly qualify as the disciples of Jesus. For a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord.
(John Stott, CHRIST THE LIBERATOR: THE UPPER ROOM DISCOURSE, The Foot-washing Lord and Savior (John 13), p.25f.)
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