08497
July 10, 2008
Clean between your toes
Foot-washing, sacraments unlock doors to community, service, youth told
MONTREAT, NC — Revved up, as they have been all week, by music led by Jeffrey Harper and energizers led by Rachel Harrod of Johns Island, SC, and Nick Reed of Lebanon, TN, the 1,300 high schoolers attending week three of the 2008 Montreat Youth Conferences today (July 10) began to turn their attention back toward home.
Nick Reed (left) of Lebanon, TN, and Rachel Harrod of Johns Island, SC, are recreation leaders for weeks three and four of the 2008 Montreat Youth Conferences.
Photo by David Ealy And to foot-washing.
The announcement that the New Testament ritual was going to be shared in small groups was met with loud, skeptical groans.
“I know — it’s just plain weird,” admitted the Rev. Patrick Laney, associate pastor for youth and families at First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa, AL, and co-keynoter for the week. “And yet, even though it’s strange and difficult to accept, Jesus chose foot-washing as the way to serve his disciples on their last night together” (recounted in John 13).
Like the sacraments of Baptism and Lord’s Supper, Laney said, foot-washing symbolizes “the ribbon through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that connects us to each other.”
Laney recounted his first experience of foot-washing — 13 years ago as a high school junior at a Montreat Youth Conference. “I vividly remember my immediate reaction,” he said, “’This is a really bad idea.’”
Joining Laney on stage, planning team member Betsy Jackson Homer, agreed. “I was mortified, not because I was shy, but because I couldn’t imagine how it was going to be meaningful.”
Laney said he wasn’t as afraid of washing someone else’s feet “as I was of having my sweaty smelly feet washed by someone else. Then I was paired up with a really hot girl.”
Homer said, “My partner’s hands were shaking and so were mine. And then we were instructed to get acquainted a little while we waited in line for the foot-washing station. He was a gangly kid from Alabama and I had no idea what to talk about until we got to talking about Crimson Tide football.”
Laney and Homer said their experience of foot-washing surprised them by its spiritual power. “I felt the presence of God, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck,” Laney said. “I have never forgotten it. It helped form my understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ.” Again, Homer agreed: “It was a powerful, fulfilling, awesome experience.”
Then, for the first time since they were paired here 13 years ago, Laney and Homer again washed each other’s feet.
“When we are able to wash each other’s feet, no matter how weird the world thinks it is,” Laney said, “then I’m convinced we are able to turn this world upside down with the love of Jesus Christ.”
That’s the call and the challenge as conference participants begin to think about going back home, said co-keynoter Jo Owens, associate pastor of Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, NC.
“Church is not a perfect place for perfect people,” she reminded the crowd. “It’s a place for sinners, for us,” and in the church’s rituals — the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper and ancient rituals like foot-washing — the spiritual ribbon of Jesus Christ connects us and knits us into community, Owens said.
“Churches are hard, full of contradictions, and yet we keep going back day after day, week after week, year after year. Why?
“We go to church in order to live in community, to be counter-cultural to the individualism of society, to be the body of Christ working together,” Owens answered. “Without the people of God, we wouldn’t have Montreat or any of the groups that give us meaning and fun. It is only through community that we are able to fulfill God’s will.”
And God’s will is one of action, she said, quoting popular youth leader Rodger Nishioka: “Church isn’t just about feelings, it’s about actions. We show up to church expecting God to do all the work, but that’s not it.”
“Throw Open the Doors!” — the conference theme — means putting faith into action, Owens said, citing James 2. “Faith doesn’t stand alone but requires us to follow Jesus’ teachings to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison — to serve ‘the least of these,’” she said.
“The Holy Spirit can’t continue to move until we start moving,” Owens concluded, “putting our faith into action in our own churches, by throwing open all the doors to love and service.”
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