Wipe Y’er Feet

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"Wipe y'er feet!" It is a command which anyone who has been a child or had a child knows well. Why? Well, because there is a lot of stuff in the world that we step in every day. It is not really a part of us but we have this sense that it could be if we track it into our homes and live with it. Those of us who are avid Chaco wearers might understand this better than most. After a long hard day in your sandals - with your feet doing what feet do best - you just need to wash your feet before you do anything else. Our feet are the things which constantly come in contact with the world, picking up everything we step in. You have to wipe y'er feet.

Jesus told his disciples that they should shake the dust off their feet when they left a town or village which rejected the good news concerning the Kingdom of God. It was a way of saying that they did not want to carry anything from such a place with them into the Kingdom of God.

 For me, this is reminiscent of the Israelites flight from Egypt. They were told not to bring any of the leaven of that place and that life with them into the promised land. This is why they ate unleavened bread at the Passover meal. Leaven was seen to be a contamination which could follow them from that old life into the new one they were beginning.

Of course, we know the story. They brought a lot of things out of Egypt which they should have left behind. I won't go into them here but if you would like to see the short list go check out Deuteronomy.

Leaven is and was a powerful thing. Did you know that it was only relatively recently that humanity discovered what leaven, yeast, actually was? In biblical times it was a mystical thing. The Egyptians thought it was a gift of the gods. They didn't realize that tiny creatures were falling into their dough at night and making it rise.

 Ancient people did know, however, that you could take a piece of yesterday's dough and leaven a whole batch of today's. This is why Moses was so careful to have the people remove any leavening from their homes before they left Egypt. Even today, a devout Jewish woman will thoroughly clean and dust her home - removing even the smallest crumb - lest the old leaven follow them forward.

When Jesus tells his disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees he is building on this imagery. He is not, however, talking about bread. If you remember, the disciples already made that mistake. He is speaking of the ideas or "ways" of the Pharisees. It was their way of seeing the world and thus, their way of living in it that Jesus was so adamant to leave behind.

When he warns his disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees he is concerned that they will track it into the Kingdom. Bringing forward what you are trying to leave behind is a horrible shame.

And, you know, this is a concern that Jesus voices over and over again in his preaching ministry. To carry the old ways forward was, as he says, tantamount to setting your hand to the plow and looking back at where you have been instead of where you are going. A person like that, he says, is not fit for the Kingdom.

There was nothing to do but make sure their feet were clean.
Kneeling at the feet of Peter, he tells him that unless he washes his feet he will not be able to enter the Kingdom. Peter, of course, does not know when to leave well enough alone. Afraid that he will be left out of the kingdom, he requests that Jesus wash all of him - head to toe.

Jesus responds with a statement which had always been a little puzzling to me. He tells Peter that someone who has bathed is already clean but only needs to wash their feet. Peter had seen the truth. He had been washed in the words and teachings of Jesus as the travelled together. We also know that Peter had gotten Jesus' identity right, calling him messiah when all others thought he was just more of the same old thing.

The new leaven was taking hold in Peter's life and the lives of the other disciples. It was now, as they prepared to enter into the first days of the kingdom, that they needed to wipe their feet. If Jesus had been concerned that they would carry the dust of an unrepentant village with them, how much more concerned must he have been about the dust of a world which would kill messiah? The very things which would lead to this event, selfishness, hatred, fear, faithlessness – these were the very things he did not want them tracking into his household he called the kingdom.

We all have things which we would be better off leaving behind, dusty feet as it were. It is that destructive leaven which we are called to leave behind for it only takes a little of yesterday's leaven to infect all today's bread. As you step forward from this point into the Kingdom, make sure you wipe y'er feet.