Tonight, my church has a foot washing service as part of their Maundy Thursday service. This will be the first time I've ever taken part in a foot washing service. At least, I'm pretty sure it is.
A foot washing service seems like the kind of thing we should have done in the groovy 70's, in our youth groups, if nothing else. But I'm pretty sure we never did such a thing. A Seder meal would have been as far as the churches of my youth would have gone. Foot washing? Where we touch each other? Not likely.
It seems like the kind of thing we should have done in college. We communed each other--you'd have thought we would have come up with the idea of a foot washing component. But I'm sure we didn't do it in my Lutheran Student Movement days in the mid 1980's.
So, foot washing. I'm open, although I must admit I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about my shoes, trying to determine which ones leave my feet in the best shape for them to be handled by a church member.
I also must remember to take some tissues. I've spent the last several weeks feeling close to tears at various points in various services, so I'd be surprised if I don't get weepy at some point as we move through the end of Holy Week to Easter.
If you live in the South Florida area, or if you're down here for Spring Break, I'd invite you to worship with us. Go to this blog and look for the information on the left margin to see all of your options.
but bestows favor on the humble
1 year ago
2 comments:
What is the purpose of the foot washing part of the service its not really a sacrament of grace like Communion and Baptism, is it like a lesson in humility and serving others ? our Lutheran church here in ocala has done that in the past and most people did not understand the idea or like it.
You're right--it's not a sacrament. But it is a way of forcefully making us imagine what Christ did for his disciples, in washing their feet. And, it's a compelling lesson in serving others and in what it means to love each other, all wrapped up in one service: we tell stories in our liturgies and readings, we wash each other's feet, we eat a meal together (real, in some churches, symbolic in the Eucharist).
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