Offering

This chapter analyzes the Scriptures in several hymns prescribed for Holy Thursday, whose central theme is Wisdom’s offering and freely sharing a life-sustaining banquet with those searching for her (Prov 9:1–6). God’s begotten Wisdom (Prov 8:22–31) mixes a bowl of ambrosia (i.e., Eucharist, Matt 26:26–29). But prior to Wisdom’s banquet (i.e., Last Supper), Jesus, the incarnate Wisdom, the one who bows the heavens and controls the terrestrial and upper waters (Ps 114 [113]), bows himself before the servants and washes his disciples’ feet as an example of serving leadership (John 13:3–17). However, Jesus’s foot washing is also the expression of divine synkatabasis (condescension), which was possible due to the “mighty love of his [God’s] strength” proclaimed by Habakkuk (3:4 [LXX]). Wisdom’s banquet provides her followers with a “new,” “spiritual drink” (1 Cor 10:4) and makes Jesus be with his disciples forever as “God among gods” (Ps 82 [81]:1–2, 6).

Childhood memories

An analysis in which the Homeric digression intersects with Freud’s notion of regression leads into a comprehensive reading of the Homeric episode of the foot washing of the Odyssey, Book 19. The chapter concentrates on the mnemonic function of the scar in the Homeric epic and Sophocles’ tragedy. The chapter considers the significance of Oedipus’ childhood memories in shaping the tragic plot of Oedipus Rex as a tragedy of recollection. Oedipus’ and Odysseus’ scars bring home something that has collapsed into forgetfulness. The chapter discusses the significance of ancient and Freudian figures and images of scars as junctions of forgetting and remembering, and shows how ancient narratives of memory (Odysseus) and forgetfulness (Oedipus) can inform our understanding of Freud’s notion of the dream navel.

‘You shall not wash my feet εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα’ (John 13.8): Time and Ethics in Peter’s Interactions with Jesus in the Johannine Narrative

In search of ‘timeless’ norms or behavioral examples, the Gospel of John seems to offer few options. The principle of brotherly love exemplified in the act of foot washing is often considered as the only example of ethically significant material in the Johannine narrative. However, by taking a closer look at the ‘tempo’ of actions and the characters’ orientation in time, we can understand that Peter’s protest against the foot washing is not only in favor of norms that secure existing hierarchies, but is driven by temporal norms, i.e. his genuine fear of death. Peter’s protest (Jn 13.8) indicates his desire for the eternal life promised by Jesus (Jn 11.25-26) and at the same time it serves as a defense against the foot washing as pointing to his own burial, which he infers from Jesus’ earlier interpretation of the anointing of his feet (Jn 12.7). Starting from this vantage point, a multitude of other interesting (time) conflicts and behavioral patterns come to light, revealing both Jesus, through his act of foot washing, and all of those who encounter him in their own actions and reactions, as instructive moral agents.

Conclusion

This brief concluding chapter includes a summary of the book’s main points, chapter by chapter. It also includes a brief meditation on the portion of John’s gospel, John 13:1–17, in which Jesus serves his disciples by washing their feet. The act itself expresses humility, a fact that is underscored by the reversal of social roles that it exemplifies. It is especially striking that Jesus washes the feet of Judas, who would soon betray him. This reversal of social roles not only exemplifies the moral virtue of humility, it also provides a model for followers of Christ to imitate in daily life. The foot washing can also serve as a reminder to those who seek to exemplify the Christian virtue of humility, namely, that there are opportunities to do so in small, everyday situations.

Listening to Voices at the Margin: The Washing of the Feet John 13:1–20

Witnessing an entire congregation participating in the Maundy Thursday ritual of foot washing in Johannesburg led to a renewed consideration of the meaning of this, the final sign of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (Jn 13:1-20), and its relevance for today. Making use of the dynamic of intercultural hermeneutics and so listen to voices at the margin, this reflection moves back and forth between the biblical text itself and a variety of contemporary cultural appropriations of the ritual in Asia and the Pacific, focusing upon issues of power, powerlessness, inclusion and exclusion.

A Missing Sacrament? Foot-washing, Gender, and Space in Early Christianity

Although the story recounted in John 13 has often been taken to suggest a communal foot-washing practice existed in some Christian communities, the actual evidence for foot-washing in earliest Christianity suggests not a communal ritual, but women and particularly widows washing the feet of prisoners and others confined and in need. This custom seems to have waned across the third and fourth centuries as expectations of gender roles, liturgical practice, and space shifted, while different readings of the John 13 story encouraged a variety of newer, communal, and more public foot-washing practices, including those connected to initiation, and the monastic communal washings that underlie the medieval and later pedilavium.