Dirty Feet and All
“A new command I give you: Love one another.” That is the maundy – the commandment – that Jesus gave his disciples in the upper room on that last night together. It seems so simple, so logical, so natural, and yet it is perhaps the hardest commandment to keep. For me, anyway.
It’s easy to like someone, to put up with, to endure, to tolerate, to accept even if just grudgingly. But to love unconditionally, unwaveringly, unhindered, unbridled? Without qualifiers, without conditions, without “yes, but . . .”? That is truly difficult; perhaps even impossible.
My thought process often is, “Yes, I love that person, but I do expect him to shape up and be who I think he should be. I will put up with him until then. My love can carry me through this uncomfortable, difficult transition period until he becomes the person that I find more acceptable.”
But Jesus had no such qualifiers or stipulations. In fact, he gave the commandment and added, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” and he said all of that right after washing his disciples’ feet. This is usually explained as an act of generosity and hospitality, but what I see and hear Jesus saying is, “Love one another – dirty feet and all.” Replace “dirty feet” with whatever it is about someone that keeps you from loving them unconditionally and you get the idea.
For me, the darkness of Maundy Thursday is not the fading of the light in the church, the snuffing of the candles, the exit into the symbolic silence before Easter. Rather, it is the hardness in my heart that keeps me from loving people with dirty feet.