Footwashing

Tara asks:
hey Amy, here's the usual seminary trick question, inspired by the Maundy Thursday service today: Why is foot-washing not a sacrament like communion or baptism?

A very good question--I was wondering that myself. It seems that footwashing is not a sacrament at least partly because of the obvious issues--it's very personal, is logistically complicated, and is not always aesthetically pleasing. However, it used to be that the Mennonites, Amish, and other Anabaptists did practice footwashing as part of the communion service.

There were some retired Church of the Brethren pastors at my footwashing service (a friend refers to them as "left-wing Amish") and they told about how when they were young everyone would gather from around the countryside on Easter weekend for the Love Feast, which was communion and wine and lots of other food, and also included footwashing. Communion took place, however, only once or twice a year--Maundy Thursday and World Communion Sunday. The change to just bread and wine was gradual, but some people still refer to it as "Bread and Cup Communion" as opposed to the full service.

Aside from the aesthetic and logistical problems with footwashing, I'd say there are at least four other reasons that it did not become a Christian sacrament:

First, the situation in which it is originally used is fairly specific to people who wear sandals all the time and who expected to have their feet washed as part of a formal banquet. This doesn't translate well to cultures where people don't customarily wash feet.

Second, while the custom of drinking blessed wine and bread was a longstanding religious ritual in ancient Israel, footwashing did not carry with it a similar symbolic weight of connection to Passover or any other Israelite tradition.

Third, footwashing was not as widespread as communion among the early Christians--it is only described in John, and so the communities from which the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke came were not practicing this ritual from the very beginning, making it all the more unlikely that it would later become a sacrament.

Finally, John uses Jesus' act of footwashing as a prefiguring of and symbol for his death on the cross. It's not clear from the story whether when Jesus says "also wash each other's feet" that he means it literally or symbolically.

I will say, though, that footwashing is an excellent ceremony for occasional use--it is a good way to experience in powerful ritual the call to service that Jesus makes on Maundy Thursday.