Article 13: Foot Washing - to cleanse, humble and serve

The third article in this triad of articles related to practices of the church is Article 13: Foot Washing. Unlike baptism and the Lord's Supper, foot washing is not something that is practiced by many other Christian traditions today, at least not in a very literal way. Yet among those in the Anabaptist traditions, of which Mennonites are one, it has historically been a practice that we have done and many still continue to do today.

In a very literal way, it is the acting out of another part of Jesus' passover meal before his arrest. We read about this in John 13:1-17. Though Jesus was their teacher and the son of God, he humbled himself and modeled servant leadership in the washing of his disciples feet. This was a common practice in those days, but it was incredibly uncommon for a leader to be the one who was doing the washing. In fact is was so counter cultural that Peter refused to have Jesus wash his feet until Jesus helped him to see how central this is to who Jesus is and what Jesus is calling his followers to.

After He finished washing their feet, He explained what he had done and instructed them to wash each others' feet. This is why in a culture like our own that does not regularly practice foot washing, a culture that will pay for a pedicure but refuse to have someone wash their feet, we still do it today within the church. Jesus instructed us to do so and tells us that we will be blessed if we do this.

And so while foot washing is literally a cleansing as Peter and Jesus allude to in their conversation, it is also about humility and service. We see the need for these traits in the passage of Luke 22:24-27 in which the disciples argued about who would be the greatest. That is not what we should be striving for. Instead, we are to be humble in our treatment of each other and we are to act as servants even when we are called to lead.