My Franciscan Third Order book Lentscapes, https://www.spiritoffrancis.com/lent/ uses the clarity and light of Antartica to reflect on the honesty and the exposure of Holy Week.
By contrast, my Werburgh walk today, over the hills near Macclesfield, was misty and dank – weather Macclesfield does particularly well. And the fog meant I could not see clearly at all.
But perhaps that’s not an inappropriate landscape or weatherscape for the Tuesday of Holy Week either – or for the muddle and confusion of so much of human existence, for that sense of seeking what we can’t quite see, struggling to understand what we can’t quite grasp, for the sense of not knowing and not understanding that often characterises the spiritual path.
And I found myself musing about ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ on my walk today, inspired in part by my breakfast reading of Ian Mobsby’s blog, Contemplative Christian. For the Monday of Holy Week Ian wrote about the generous outpouring of divine love represented by Mary, washing Jesus’ feet and annointing him for his death in John 12.1-11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2012%3A1-11&version=NIV
https://postsecularcontemplative.substack.com/p/monday-of-holy-week-radical-reconnection
The nature of that divine love is echoed by Jesus’ washing of his disciple’s feet in John 13 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2013&version=NIV
This is not a love that guards against vulnerability, that seeks to hold onto status or even dignity. This is a Love, this is a God, who kneels at the feet of people who will betray and lie and seek to engage in violence. And who offers Love to them.
Because Jesus washes Judas’ feet, the person who will betray him to his death; Jesus washes Peter’s feet – the one who will run away and lie to save his own life; Jesus washes the feet of the friends who will abandon him. Perhaps there are other disciples there too, those the artists don’t include – perhaps Mary is there, with her sister, Martha. Perhaps Jesus’ mother is there. Perhaps he washes their feet too – the mists of time have obscured their presence if that was so.
But the point, for me, is that what we are doesn’t matter to whether God kneels before us or not – nor to an extent what we do. Nor does it matter which group we are a part of or NOT a part of – whether we are part of the ‘in group’ or the ‘out group’. God kneels and offers to wash our feet, pours love into a bowl and, if we consent, holds each foot tenderly and soothes away the dust and dirt of our lives, then dries each toe gently and puts our foot back down again.
And it can be hard to recieve, that kind of love. Peter, initially, resists – no Lord, you can’t possibly wash MY feet. And it’s hard to accept, too, that each human person, no matter what they have done or will do, is also offered the same Love, has God kneeling before them offering care, offering kindness.
Just this week I read a post by a (male) priest who was incensed that Sarah Mullalley, our new Archbishop of Canterbury, met with other women on the eve of her installation. He saw, in this gathering of women, evidence of witchcraft and feminism, both clearly meant as insults.
Quite apart from the ignorance this displays, of both witchcraft in it’s modern form and of feminism, I was struck by the fear in that post, the sense of impotent rage screaming about power taken away, status diminished. And yet God kneels in front of that fearful man and offers to wash his feet. And God asks me, as a follower of Jesus, the Christ, to do the same.
And that IS the challenge of Holy Week. To love as Christ loved, not condemning or cursing or hitting back in anger. But kneeling before my Judas, my Peter. And offering to wash their feet. That, for me, is what is exposed in my own soul by the clear light of God’s generous, transparent and universal love. My own reluctance to kneel before those who pour contempt on women, who would take away our hard won rights, and who belittle and mock out of their own fear, their own insecurities, their own littleness of spirit.
I fear such people. And God calls me to walk into and beyond the fear, whether I can see the way clear ahead -or whether the dank mist of Macclesfield obscures the view.
And God also calls me to let my feet be washed by Love that holds my fear – and those of such male priests – in gentle hands. For eternity.
Jennifer Fox Eades: Alexander Technique Teacher 