Foot Washing - Symbolism over Substance
Recently the Adventist Review dealt with the issue of foot washing, that tradition found in the Adventist church and a few others. The Review begins its article
How to End your Fear of Foot Washing by Ed Christiansen by saying:
Ask any deacon. It's a well known fact that on Communion Sabbath perhaps only about half the regular members of most congregations will show up. Some slip away after Sabbath school. Others satisfy a longstanding desire to visit the church in the next town. There's something about Communion Sabbath that breeds colds, flu, bronchitis, and gout.
Why is that? I don't think it's because the day is so boring. I don't think it's because people are against celebrating Communion. Frankly, I think it's because many people think of what we call "the ordinance of humility" as an ordeal of humility: they suffer from fear of foot washing.
We call this the Ordinance of Humility though it is more likely an ordinance in stupidity. Jesus washed dirty feet, He was offering to do a real service to His disciples and asking them to be of real service to each other. In our Ordinance of Humility we wash clean feet and pretend that we are doing a service by washing the feet of people who don’t even have dirty feet. We have elevated the meaning of Jesus’s act to a symbolism and the importance of the act, though often addressed is never addressed practically. We don’t offer to help other church members clean their flower beds or paint their house or work on their car or bicycles. We create an Ordinance of Humility as our official declaration of symbolism over substance.
The article later says:
Because this humility is both hard to attain and hard to retain, the ordinance of humility is a precious opportunity for us to humble ourselves as we ought, and its value is inestimable. As Ellen White writes: "Whenever this ordinance is rightly celebrated, the children of God are brought into a holy relationship, to help and bless each other."2
No! a thousand times no, it is a regular opportunity, that is what Christianity should be about, the willingness to be a friend and a service to others even when it is inconvenient to do so. It is not about playing that this is the way we are in a once a quarter pretend to be humble service inside a church.
As we practice the ordinance of humility it is not only the washing of the feet of others that embarrasses us, but, perhaps more so, having our own feet washed. There's something private about the washing of feet, quite different from the washing of hands. Like certain medical examinations, it can seem an invasion of something that is ours alone.
No, it is not the washing that embarrasses us it is that it is needless and pointless. How many of us would be really embarrassed to clean the wound on someone’s foot say they had a cut and needed it cleaned and disinfected, I am not talking a disgusting wound that might make some weaker stomachs sick. We would not feel that is an embarrassment and if it was our own foot that needed tending we may be embarrassed by our need of help but we would not be embarrassed for having a real need. We are most embarrassed by having no need of something and pretending that the ceremony does anything. That is the reality of why foot washing is so ill attended. Because we make it a stupid ritual, we can serve other people all the time. It is wrong to insert the foot washing into the communion service. The foot washing of the disciples was a practical example of serving others. The rest of the communion, the wine and the bread are totally symbolic it is a shared experience with history and the God of that history.
We have made foot washing as meaningless as
Maundy Thursday and just as traditional. Another sad part of this is that we don’t even ask the people in the church why they avoid this meaningless ritual, instead like the author of the above article the leadership simply assumes they know why. Telling them if the reader could only understand the deep significance of this insignificant activity it would be embraced. With a few anecdotes thrown in to make the event seem meaningful as if relationships were created by foot washing ceremonies.