Since we as Cistercians
celebrate today Mary, Martha and Lazarus-
Hosts of the Lord, our Gospel took us to Bethany. After Lazarus has been
raised by Jesus there is a dinner in the house of his dear friends and Mary
washes Jesus’ feet. This often reminds us of another scene in John’s Gospel- Jesus
washing the feet of his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. We know that foot washing was something a Gentile slave
could be required to do, but never a Jewish slave. Foot-washing was typically
something wives did for their husbands, children for their parents, and
disciples for their teachers. There is undoubtedly a level of intimacy is
involved in these last scenarios. And in Jesus' case, there is an obvious
reversal of roles.* Jesus calls his disciples his friends. And by washing their feet he overcomes
in this act of loving intimacy the inequality that exists between them. And so
he establishes an intimacy with them that signals their access to everything he
had received from his Father, even the glory that is his as Beloved Son.*
We like to imagine
that Jesus was inspired to wash their feet because he had been so touched by
what was done for him at Bethany
six days before Passover, when Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil and anointed his feet most
tenderly and dried them with her hair. Was this something that inspired his own
most loving action on this night before he died? Perhaps. In any event Peter cannot bear the thought of his teacher doing this. We can
imagine that probably it was something his wife had done for him many times.
And doubtless he like the others is embarrassed by the intimacy of
it, the touch, the loving condescension, and the unaffected tenderness, the
unmanageability of the love that is so available. It’s disorienting. We see now
it is a parable, a parallel to what he would do for us on the cross the next
afternoon.