On Sunday I will offer the final sermon in this year's Lenten series, "For Tough Cleaning Problems - Do Not Dilute": Solutions for Smelly Feet. The sermon will focus on the lesson of Jesus washing the disciples feet before the Last Supper, drawing on John 13. Is this an isolated incident, or can we learn something from Jesus' action?
Interestingly, this story comes soon after another story about feet, this one in John 12. Here Mary, the sister of Lazurus who featured prominently in our discussion of "Jesus wept," anoints Jesus' feet with a pound of very expensive perfume and wipes the feet with her hair. Like many of the recurring images in the Gospel of John, I do not think the similarity between these stories is accidental.
So we will consider the lessons of foot anointing and foot washing, expensive perfume and water, Mary and Jesus. One disciple grumbling about the flagrant waste of money and one disciple grumbling about Jesus' flagrant disregard of his social standing.
Jesus says to Peter, "Unless I wash you, you have no share in me." What does this mean for Peter? What does this mean for us?
I cannot possibly explore all of the issues in these two texts: the Gospel of John, more than even the rest of the Bible, is too rich to allow this in any single sermon. But I do hope to explore what these two stories meant then, and how they relate to us. Are our feet dirty these days? Do we need Jesus the Christ to wash them? Are our feet meant to be anointed these days? Who is our long-haired and extravagant Mary?
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