When Love Grows Feet

As much as I wish I was more like the New York City police officer Lawrence DePrimo, I admit that sadly I am not.  When I grow up, I want to become like him.  In meanwhile, I pray that his good deed goes viral the way the photo capturing it did. As I reflect on his compassion, I feel convicted for I don’t spend anywhere near $100 on the footwear even for our whole family, and that in an entire year! Many times I walk by the homeless and the poor without doing anything. Anything!  I am appalled at the hardness of my own heart and lack of empathy. The more I think about it, the more I see myself as a colossal failure. I pray that God would deliver me from myself... that  He would help me be the kind of person He wants me to become in our needy world...

As I wrestled with my pathetic inadequacy, two somewhat related stories from the Gospel of John came to my mind - having to do with feet. 

Scene One

While Jesus is eating dinner with His friends, Mary comes along and pours a pound of very expensive perfume on His feet and wipes them with her hair.  The house is filled with the smell of perfume  As she is doing this, she is scolded by a thief and a traitor for such a waste, for, Judas Iscariot says,  money could have been given to the poor.  Jesus defends Mary’s deed. It's a symbolic act of preparation for His impending death and burial. As He is preparing Himself to become a love offering for our sins, He receives her actions as a love offering. It's a free-flow of reckless love, given and received. John 12:1-8

Scene Two

Fast-forward just one chapter, and in John 13, we see Jesus pouring water into a bowl, rolling up His sleeves and bending over His disciples' dirty feet and scrubbing the filth off of them.  Peter vocalizes what everyone else is thinking - an outrage over the unseemly role reversal.  Jesus silences his protests declaring Peter’s ignorance.  Then, he explains what just happened.  This simple, ordinary, needful deed, this washing of disciples feet, Jesus gives to His disciples as an example to follow. John 13:1-17

You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. John 13:13-15

The noble deeds of extravagant generosity and sacrifice have been done by noble souls through the ages.  I personally know some of them, seemingly ordinary men and women living lives of extraordinary humility, grace and jaw-dropping sacrificial generosity.  But Jesus, although commending such deeds of love, doesn't set them up as an example for all.  What He gives us as an example to follow is the lowliest, the most common, the dirty job nobody wants to do but needs to be done - like washing muddy, stinky feet.  Or as simple as giving a glass of cold water, sharing a meal, paying a visit or inviting a neighbor in.  This is not even a minimum-wage type of work and it doesn't require special training or certification. Insignificant and invisible to everyone but the One.

Now, that's something that everyone - even I - can do.  No excuses.