A different kind of foot-washing; Maundy Thursday 4/17/25

ByChed Myers
On this day, many Christians ritually perform mutual foot washing, after the example of Jesus in John 13:1-12. It is powerful theater, which means to deconstruct hierarchy and division.

There is a very different tradition about foot washing in Luke 7:36-50, which is also a demonstration of solidarity that subverts patriarchy, invisibility and domination. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear in the Year C gospel lectionary.

So in the spirit of this Maundy Thursday, I invite you to watch this video of a talk on the Luke text I gave ten days ago at All Saints Church in Pasadena, CA (if you start at 5 min and end at 45 min it is a 40 min view). It summarizes my study of Luke’s weeping woman “short story” in HARP, 5B.

I continue to hope you will use HARP for study and proclamation through the rest of this lectionary year, to build courage and conviction for our deepening struggle with unsustainable affluenza and neo-fascist plutocracy.  
You can still order HARP at 20% off using discount code SOJO20 at my page on Bookshop.org. 
Holy Week and Eastertide blessings.  –Ched

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