Head to toe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2011\/04\/head-to-toe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Head to toe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. 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Schmidt, Jr. is inaugural holder of the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation and a Senior Scholar at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He is also Vice Rector at Good Shepherd, Brentwood, TN; an Episcopal Priest; spiritual director; retreat facilitator; conference leader; and writer. He is the author of numerous published articles and reviews, as well as several books: A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination and the Church (Syracuse University Press, 1998), The Changing Face of God (Morehouse, 2000), When Suffering Persists (Morehouse, 2001), in Italian translation: Sofferenza, All ricerca di una riposta (Torino: Claudiana, 2004), What God Wants for Your Life \ufeff(Harper, 2005), Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Morehouse, 2005), \ufeffConversations with Scripture: Luke \ufeff(Morehouse, 2009), and The Dave Test (Abingdon, 2013). He and his wife, Natalie (who is also an Episcopal priest), live in Arrington, TN. 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{"id":456,"date":"2011-04-21T19:31:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T19:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/experts.patheos.com\/expert\/frederickwschmidt\/?p=456"},"modified":"2011-04-21T19:31:18","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T19:31:18","slug":"head-to-toe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2011\/04\/head-to-toe\/","title":{"rendered":"Head to toe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples\u2019 feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.\u00a0 (Jn 13:3-4)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Some biblical passages attract more confusing sermons than others.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t the stories\u2019 fault.\u00a0 The ones that do are often among the most powerful and vivid of them.<\/p>\n
And this is definitely one of them.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of reasons\u2026<\/p>\n
Feet are a big part of it.\u00a0 Open-toed shoes with manicured nails, swimming pools, the beach \u2014 feet don\u2019t attract a lot of attention.\u00a0 But talk about taking off shoes in public \u2014 paddle-footing around in church in your bare feet, rather than in dress shoes \u2014 that\u2019s an attention getter.<\/p>\n
So is the business of washing feet.\u00a0 Some people are terribly conscious of the whole process \u2014 one woman I know who is in her eighties had her toenails painted black just for the occasion (and for the satisfaction of shocking the Cathedral\u2019s dean) \u2014 and one group of little girls even announced in anticipation of the event, \u201cYou know, you can get infections that way,\u201d reflecting evidently on conversations among far older adults about the perils of getting a pedicure.<\/p>\n
For us \u2014 not for ancient Jews who tromped around on dusty steets with lightly-clad feet \u2014 foot washing is an unfamiliar, awkward experience.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s where the confusing sermons come from, too \u2014 people run with the symbolism and assume that they know what it\u2019s all about.\u00a0 The result?\u00a0\u00a0 Sermons on service, servant leadership, doing good, submission, and humility.<\/p>\n
Now, these are not bad things in and of themselves.\u00a0 But reading the foot washing passage this way has led to a lot of strange theology \u2014 not the least of which is basically the storyline that says, \u201cThere are lots of good people out there, but Christians are good people, servant leaders, submissive, humble or \u2018all of the above,\u2019 because Jesus set the example for them by washing the disciples\u2019 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Small wonder we have these crazy conversations about whether you really need to be a Christian to be good, and about whether or not there are good people who aren\u2019t Christians.\u00a0 Duh, yes.<\/p>\n
Small wonder, too, that for a lot of Christians the spiritual journey is a strange, disconnected two part story: part one, \u201cget saved\u201d \u2014 part two, \u201cbe good.\u201d<\/p>\n
As good as service, humility and all the rest might be, that just isn\u2019t the point of the story.\u00a0 The key to its meaning lies in the exchange with Peter:<\/p>\n
- He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, \u201cLord, are you going to wash my feet?\u201d Jesus answered, \u201cYou do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.\u201d Peter said to him, \u201cYou will never wash my feet.\u201d Jesus answered, \u201cUnless I wash you, you have no share with me.\u201d\u00a0 (Jn 13:6-8)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
  Jesus knows that Peter is on his way spiritually.\u00a0 He has left his fishing business, tromped around the countryside with Jesus, and he\u2019s been on mission trips.\u00a0 But he hasn\u2019t arrived and he\u2019s about to face the biggest set back yet in his journey.\u00a0 He has been cleansed, but he is still picking up road dust.\u00a0 And unless he is willing to let Jesus continue that process of cleansing, then there is no way for him to find intimacy with his Lord and a place in the Kingdom of God.<\/p>\n
  Service in the Kingdom, then, is not a matter of doing good for others for no particular reason \u2014 or doing good for the sake of doing good.\u00a0 Service is about a life of service lived out of a recognition of one\u2019s own deep dependence upon God for forgiveness and cleansing.\u00a0 And it\u2019s about service that points others to the same need for God\u2019s forgiveness and cleansing.<\/p>\n
  Now, inevitably, some will complain, \u201cOh, I see, so we are good to others so that we can get them into the church.\u201d\u00a0 But that\u2019s a matter of getting your shoe on the wrong foot (if you will forgive the pun).<\/p>\n
  The Christian\u2019s availability to others is not about serving them in order to \u201cget them for God.\u201d\u00a0 It is a life so deeply, comprehensively shaped by the journey into God\u2019s Kingdom that no one could ever read your life as anything but a journey into God.<\/p>\n
  Among my cherished friends during my Cathedral days in Washington was a man by the name of John Crause.\u00a0 John was a deeply devoted Christian and a Cathedral volunteer. When I was there he would still come around on Sunday morning for conversation, coffee, and donuts with some of us on the staff.<\/p>\n
  John had a blood disease that finally morphed into Leukemia and claimed his life and I had the great privilege of being there for his funeral.\u00a0 The preacher said: \u201cJohn left strict instructions that there were to be no eulogies.\u201d\u00a0 He told me, \u201cOne man lying in the Cathedral is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
  \u201cBut,\u201d the preacher observed, \u201cto know John was to know his Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
  And that, dear friends, is what washing feet is all about.\u00a0 Many will serve and do good works.\u00a0 Many will be vulnerable, accessible, humble, and giving.<\/p>\n
  But our lives are meant to be inspired and shaped by having \u201ca share\u201d in Jesus \u2014 by a life of intimacy with our Lord and a journey into the Kingdom.\u00a0 The epitaph by which any of us should be remembered are the words, \u201cTo know him \u2014 to know her \u2014 was to know her Lord\u00a0 \u2014 his Lord\u00a0 \u2014 your Lord \u2014 mine.\u201d\u00a0 Beginning to end, from head to toe.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
  Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-perspectives"],"yoast_head":"\nHead to toe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2011\/04\/head-to-toe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Head to toe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. 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Schmidt, Jr. is inaugural holder of the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation and a Senior Scholar at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He is also Vice Rector at Good Shepherd, Brentwood, TN; an Episcopal Priest; spiritual director; retreat facilitator; conference leader; and writer. He is the author of numerous published articles and reviews, as well as several books: A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination and the Church (Syracuse University Press, 1998), The Changing Face of God (Morehouse, 2000), When Suffering Persists (Morehouse, 2001), in Italian translation: Sofferenza, All ricerca di una riposta (Torino: Claudiana, 2004), What God Wants for Your Life \ufeff(Harper, 2005), Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Morehouse, 2005), \ufeffConversations with Scripture: Luke \ufeff(Morehouse, 2009), and The Dave Test (Abingdon, 2013). He and his wife, Natalie (who is also an Episcopal priest), live in Arrington, TN. 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Schmidt, Jr. is inaugural holder of the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation and a Senior Scholar at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He is also Vice Rector at Good Shepherd, Brentwood, TN; an Episcopal Priest; spiritual director; retreat facilitator; conference leader; and writer. He is the author of numerous published articles and reviews, as well as several books: A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination and the Church (Syracuse University Press, 1998), The Changing Face of God (Morehouse, 2000), When Suffering Persists (Morehouse, 2001), in Italian translation: Sofferenza, All ricerca di una riposta (Torino: Claudiana, 2004), What God Wants for Your Life \ufeff(Harper, 2005), Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Morehouse, 2005), \ufeffConversations with Scripture: Luke \ufeff(Morehouse, 2009), and The Dave Test (Abingdon, 2013). He and his wife, Natalie (who is also an Episcopal priest), live in Arrington, TN. 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