[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Feet

It was a good Maundy Thursday sermon, thoughtful and well-delivered 
by a gentle man, clearly but quietly holy. I don't know why it 
shocked me a little to notice that his feet were bare.

Bare feet made perfect sense; we were shortly going to do the 
foot-washing thing. I'm just not used to barefoot preaching, I guess. 
Especially not in someone so important, for this preacher was the 
Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz.

Bare feet are free and humble; you don't see them in places like 
downtown Toronto. Bare feet are far more naked than bare hands, more 
naked even than bare knees, which are perfectly possible anywhere 
that culture and climate permit. Bare feet are vulnerable. They are 
in contact with a world that can be cold, hard, unfeeling, and 
possibly quite dangerous.

It makes much more sense, in a city, to stay definitely shod, 
possibly even in steel-toed work boots, depending on the 
circumstances. Sandals in summer, of course, but not bare feet, not 
outside the home or perhaps the beach. That would be taking really 
stupid risks.

It's such a contradiction: we're commanded, mandated, Maundied, to 
give love and also to receive love, God's love, transmitted through 
our Lord who died for us and through each other. And yet to receive 
love we have to be barefoot souls, naked and vulnerable -- and how 
can we be that, in this cold, hard, dangerous world? How can we love 
others when we need to keep the walls up and the boundaries defined, 
because otherwise we can be trashed and overrun and oppressed?

There isn't a simple answer. In Toronto, the day before I got there, 
a man smiled at a stranger on a bus, wishing him good day, and the 
stranger took offence and stabbed the man. No, you can't go barefoot 
in the city, not at this time of year. Take that kind of risk, and 
you'll get frostbite, for sure. Love can get your heart really truly broken.

And yet the Archbishop preached the mandate of love and service, 
bare-footed, his toes right out there in the open. Admittedly, Church 
House's chapel is a safe and well-heated place and he was among staff 
people with whom he works -- I was the only stranger there -- but 
still, it's a statement.

A little later, I took my own sneakers and white cotton socks off and 
allowed a complete stranger to cradle each foot in turn, pouring warm 
water over it and drying it with a white cotton towel. It was oddly 
impersonal. Then I took my turn and cradled another stranger's feet, 
cradling each foot in my hands, pouring warm water over it, and 
drying it with a white cotton towel, noticing a mole on the white 
skin of her left foot. I looked into her pleasant face and tried to 
imagine loving her as a sister, but I'd need to get to know her 
first. And that would be a risk for both of us.

Then again, our model -- the one who fed us the meal and gave us the 
mandate -- took one huge risk. Did he know he'd come out of it 
resurrected, that he'd move through death and be broken back into 
life? We don't know, although we've fought about that one for a 
couple of millennia. I prefer to believe that he hoped, but without 
certainty. That maximized his vulnerability; that left him absolutely 
open to God's willed outcome.

That way, he'd know on a purely personal level how hard this job is, 
this business of loving others in a dangerous world. It may be -- 
really is -- the only right thing to do. But in doing it, we live in 
Holy Saturday, in the hope and expectation of Easter, if not in this 
life, in the Life to Come.

How beautiful are the feet -- and they are, miracles of engineering, 
humble, capable, strong, flexible, grounded, underpinning us, our 
single strongest point of contact with this world, which is (with all 
its problems) still such a beautiful place.

It's still winter here, Easter or not, a time for boots and warm 
socks. But come summer, I will take these feet of mine out back and 
treat them to a sojourn in soft grass; I will remind them of how, 
when we were children, we would race barefoot through cool grass 
without a thought of stones or splinters. That's what it's supposed 
to be. That's what it was once and will be again, in God's good time.