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, or disciples for their teachers.
Perhaps Jesus was inspired to wash the apostles’ feet at his Last Supper with them because he had been so touched by what was done for him at Bethany. There at home with his dear friends six days before Passover, Mary of Bethany took a liter of costly perfumed oil and anointed Jesus' feet most tenderly and then dried them with her hair. Was this something that inspired his own most loving action on this night before he died? I like to think so.
Jesus has called his disciples his friends, and when he washes their feet he overcomes the inequality that exists between them. He does what love always does. It defers, it gladly lowers itself. Peter cannot bear the thought of his teacher washing his feet. I imagine it was something his wife had done for him many times. And doubtless, he like the others is embarrassed by the intimacy of it, embarrassed by the intimacy, the touch, the loving condescension, and the unaffected tenderness, the unmanageability of the love that is so available. It’s disorienting. We know it is a parable, a parallel to what he will do on the cross the next afternoon.
Meditation by one of our monks.
