Gospel of John, John 13.1-17, 31b-35
Once again, they have a new machine at Southampton Airport. It’s quite a new gizmo. After passing through the thing that looks like they’ve drawn round a dead body from those ancient detective movies, you have to place your foot into what I can best describe as a foot spa. You keep your shoes on, put your hands on what can be best described as a zimmer frame and then place each foot in turn on this thing, and it scans your shoe to see if you want to blow the plane up. I’ve not seen one of these before but it does mean you don’t have to struggle with putting your footwear back on in public. I said to the attendant that it looked like the contraption that they used to use at Clarks when your mother took you to get your new school shoes at the beginning of the new school year. ‘Yes, he said, they all say that.’ Thinking I was on to something I then said to him, ‘I’m doing foot-washing later this week, does it do that?’ He gave me one of those smart-alec looks and rolled his eyes and simply said, ‘You’re through.’ I didn’t know if that meant I had passed through security or if it was a comment on my comedy career. I’ll come back to foot-washing.
Since I was with you last, the church has been through a seemingly never ending saga of bad news stories concerning leadership. Institutionally, we are having a tough time. Our safeguarding failures have been laid bare and have become a source of ridicule, rightly so in most cases. Our failure to unite and to include is turning people away. Our narrative has become, inquiries, reports and redress. We have seen unprecedented resignations and the people in the pews, who have kept the faith in spite of some of us, must have wondered when this will end.
Our diocesan vision is to Make Jesus Christ known in every place, so that all may flourish and grow, seeking his Kingdom here and now.
We have prioritised Courageous Christian Leadership, Creative Partnerships in local mission, Working for justice, Climate action and Financing the future sustainably.
In the context of the last six months, I want to address Courageous Christian Leadership. This is not of the messiah type, the hero Christian leader, successful and yet spiritually abusive. We even know their names now as there have been so many. No this is not about the leaders who attract great numbers and control other peoples lives with a distorted Gospel, this is about having to have the courage to lead as Jesus did.
The Gospels tell of a leader who humbled himself, who came to live among us, even though he was in the form of God. Word made flesh. Humanity was visited. God came alongside his people, and served them. Jesus put others first, prioritised the vulnerable and those on the margins, those excluded by tribe and certainty. He shunned the trappings of earthly power and listened before he spoke. We see in this so called new world political order today the very opposite type of leadership and it is dangerous.
Courageous Christian Leadership need not be grand but it does need to be relational. It need not be successful in earthly terms but it does need to be intentionally missional, invitational, and full of teaching. Courageous Christian Leadership is faithful in a time of faithlessness and is generous, prayerful, community based and rooted in the local. Courageous Christian Leadership finds a way to renew, to respond to the challenges of the day, and to enable others to share in the leading. As those called to such leadership, and as we renew our vows, we commit ourselves again to follow Jesus and to become ever more like him in our discipleship.
So what is our model? Who can we look to? How can we make new disciples when we are not necessarily trusted?
We will wash feet. Jesus’ greatest act of leadership was to bend down, God stooping, to take water and a towel and wash the feet of those he called, and those who were about to betray him. We struggle with it. Peter struggled with it. I remember one person who screamed in shock when I touched their foot, and several others who have been moved to tears at the power of the moment. It’s so intimate, intensely humbling. Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ The act of touching and washing touches not just the sole of our feet, but our very souls themselves. And one of the problems we face, as foot-washers, is when did we, as Courageous Christian Leaders, last allow our feet to be washed?
I would suggest to you and me alike, that Courageous Christian Leadership is all about foot-washing. When you visit the sick, you are washing feet. When you bring those together who fight each other, you wash feet. When you raise funds for the foodbank, you wash many feet. When you pray with the dying, you wash feet one last time. When you make difficult decisions or plan ahead for the good of the church in unity, you are washing the feet of those who come, and those who never darken the door in this Church for England. And in response to this new political world order I would suggest our response should be to redouble our foot washing, yes even of politicians, so that the value of such Courageous Christian Leadership is there for all to see in their lives.
None of us are perfect, but we are all here today as Christian leaders. Today this is renewed. Our vows matter to us, to each other and to God. In this coming year before we do this again in 2026, I call you, and me, to be making Jesus Known by seeing everything you do and everything you say, as an act of foot-washing. Let this be our leadership style and culture. Foot-washing for everyone you meet and for society. We need to be foot-washers of the Kingdom of God. Only in this will the leadership of Christ shine through. ‘So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you’.
We are foot-washers of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus said, ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
My sisters and brothers, I call you to be foot-washers of the Kingdom of God today, and everyday. Amen.