Washing Feet

I was reading John 13 about Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. I was feeling pretty good about what I was leading our faith family do it. We were reaching out to the homeless, the hungry, and hurting. We were sharing Jesus' story (the gospel) with people in very creative ways. But God gave me a wake up call in what really washing people feet meant.

You see when Jesus washed the disciples feet they were dirty, I mean really dirty. They were feet of men who walked dusty and dirty roads wearing at the most sandals. Their dirty feet had dirt and other interesting things on them. The act of washing other people's feet was a very unpleasant thing to do. So as I patted myself on the back for all my faith family was doing God showed me what really washing feet was all about.

Sunday, April 7 we had a lady in our worship, Sylvia, who is homeless. She lives on the street and sleeps behind where my wife works. I spoted her at the beggining of our worship time and instead of rejoicing that God had brought her there I just prayed that God would help just behave. When I offered the invitation at the end of the service who came forward - Sylvia. She came up to me and I thought I'll deal with her quickly and she can go back and sit down. I ask her what she wanted and she said with tears in her eyes she wanted me to pray for her. I ask what she wanted me to pray for and she pointed to her head and then her heart and said they don't work right. As I began to pray she grabbed my arm and held on tight. When I had finsihed she looked at me and said thank you and gave me a hug and held on. I found myself hugging her back. As I hugged this homeless, smelly, dirty, street person God very directly said that now had a small interesting of what it meant to wash someone's feet.

Following Jesus means washing people's feet and feet are dirty.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
                              Joe