Beautiful Feet
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Reading
Series I, Cycle A
There are some things which are not often associated with the word "beautiful." Our lesson today ends with an image associating such an item with "beautiful," and then bringing up another topic which seems completely unrelated.
This odd sentence is: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news."
It is strange enough to call feet beautiful. Most often we think of feet in a much more utilitarian context, as something we stand on and walk on, our basic support for standing upright. People who spend substantial amounts of time focusing on the beauty of feet are generally known as "fetishists."
More often we are about as familiar with our feet as the peasant in a story told by the nineteenth--century theologian Søren Kierkegaard. The man normally went barefooted, but once, when he had some money in his pocket, he went to the city and purchased a pair of shoes and stockings. After his purchase, he had some money left over, so he proceeded to get drunk. He was still in that condition when he tried to get home, but managed only to stagger out of town where he lay down in the middle of the road.
A wagon came along and the driver yelled at the peasant to move or he would drive over his legs. In his condition the peasant looked at the unfamiliar shoes and stockings and replied, "Drive on; they are not my legs."
Feet are simply not something commonly regarded as particular points of beauty in modern society. Usually, they are thought of more like the comment of a fashion--conscious woman. When asked about purchasing shoes, she replied with her rule for shoes: "If the shoe fits, it's ugly."
So this image from our lesson sounds rather strange or, more frankly, weird. Is it possible that Paul is simply using an image which he understood, something he liked? Is this simply Paul's own, weird image? Actually, the image did not start with Paul.
The image comes from Isaiah 52:7. At that place the prophet says: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.' " A little more specific detail, but not really much help in understanding the image.
Isaiah is speaking, in general terms, of the restoration of Israel to what he and other members of Israel regarded as its rightful place, of the return of her people to their homes, where they will live in peace. More than that, he is speaking specifically of the return of those people who are still pure, clean, and ready to live as God's people and worship God as they should.
Paul certainly knew of this background, especially considering the context in which he used this quote from Isaiah. He uses it as the answer to a series of rhetorical questions about the way in which people will hear about God and the good news of Christ. For Paul this reference to the words of Isaiah is both an answer and a call to those who hear his words.
Even though this helps us understand the way the statement is used, it still leaves us with that odd image of "beautiful feet." While feet are not usually seen as beautiful today, and in fact are often the subject of jokes, and derogatory comments and frequently regarded as a subject unfit for polite conversation, they filled a different place in the ancient world.
Hospitality in the time of Paul and Jesus involved a ritual we no longer employ. Guests at a dinner were greeted by having their feet washed. People were expected to wash themselves before they left their homes for the dinner, but walking from one home to another, especially when wearing sandals, resulted in feet that were, at the least, dusty. Both to keep the home and its furnishings clean, and to welcome the guests and restore them to a feeling of freshly scrubbed cleanliness, greetings involved the washing of the guests' feet.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus follows this ritual when he washes the disciples' feet as a part of their last meal together. When Peter objects that it is not seemly for Jesus to wash his feet, Jesus tells him if his feet are not washed, he has no part in the kingdom. And then, in a command which is still a bit bothersome to many people, Jesus commands the disciples to follow his example: "You also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14).
An image that reminds us of the value of humility, of the need to humble ourselves, and to remember that it is not our efforts which should lead us to pride, but the efforts of God working through us. Paul reminds us of all this in his series of questions leading up to this comment about feet.
"But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?" Paul begins with a basic question: How can people call on the name of the Lord, if they have not believed in Jesus before they call on him? It seems like a basic question, but Paul builds on it with a second question.
"And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?" Paul is building a series of questions, a series that sounds very familiar. He selects a key word from the first question and builds the second question on that word, and again with the third, and again with the final question. And the series reminds us of the many times something like that has cropped up in other contexts. There is a classic folk song about an old lady who swallowed a fly, and then swallowed a spider, a bird, a cat, and an increasingly diverse series of animals to get rid of the fly and each other. This is only one example of the same sort of thing Paul is doing with his questions.
And how are we to expect that people could come to believe in someone they have never heard of? Obviously the situation is an absurdity, but Paul goes on to ask the next question.
"And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?" In order to call on Jesus, people must believe in him. In order to believe, people must hear the good news. In order to hear the good news, someone must proclaim that good news. Everything is quite logical, and it all builds clearly to the conclusion in the form of the final question.
"And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?" How can anyone proclaim unless they are sent? To proclaim the Good News, to tell the story of Jesus and God's love for the world, people need to be selected, called out, commissioned, and sent. If that sounds like a description of what happens to missionaries, it quite likely is.
But things don't stop with missionaries, with people sent to far--away lands to proclaim the good news. Those who lead in our congregations are also called and sent to proclaim. As are we all, each week, called together here for worship and sent forth from our worship, back into the world, called and sent to tell others about the good news of Jesus and God's love, called and sent to proclaim him where we already are.
So, in the final analysis, it is really our feet Paul is talking about. Our feet are beautiful because we bring good news. Our feet are beautiful when we announce peace, as Isaiah puts it. And our feet are beautiful, as Paul reminds us, when we proclaim the good news of Jesus.
Beautiful feet is still a strange image, but when we think about it, how beautiful are the feet, and everything else, about the people who announce peace. In our modern world there are not all that many people who actually get to announce peace. There are some who try hard, announcing peace in louder and louder tones, even as those around them blow themselves up, shoot others, and generally behave in very unpeaceful ways.
In our modern world, some people who announce peace and actually seem to accomplish it are given awards such as the Nobel Peace Prize. More often, however, the people who spend much of their time working toward peace are faced with violent reactions from those around them. Rather than getting praise from most people, they are accused of things such as being unpatriotic, seditious, cowardly, and worse.
It has often been said that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who proclaimed passive resistance and non--violence, was regularly surrounded by very violent behavior. In fact, the same thing can also be said about the example who inspired Dr. King's plan of action, Mahatma Gandhi. There are some peacemakers who seem to have very unpeaceful activities swirl around them.
Often, it is only in retrospect that peacemakers are recognized for their labors. And there have been times when even after the peace is accomplished, those who were most important in bringing it about are still not recognized. Of course, recognition is not what peacemakers are really seeking. The obvious reward they seek is peace.
And peace, true peace, is certainly something to be sought. Not merely the absence of war, but a positive force, an opportunity for growth together, a situation where people are able to work together so all can accomplish a better life is certainly something everyone would recognize as a thing to be sought, at least in an ideal sense.
But Isaiah doesn't stop with peace, as desirable as it is. Isaiah goes on to say beautiful feet also belong to those who bring good news, the part of the verse that Paul seizes upon. Isaiah continues with other thoughts, but Paul is content to quote the part about those who bring good news.
We often think that the only people who can bring the Good News are those who are ordained, who preach on Sunday mornings, those specially called to be pastors. There is a story that reminds us of the true situation.
A minister found himself in the line waiting for Saint Peter's attention at the Pearly Gates. He was behind a guy dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket, and wearing sunglasses. Finally Saint Peter addressed the man in the outlandish costume, "Who are you, so I might know what to do with you?"
"I'm Joe Green, a New York taxi driver."
After a moment consulting his list, Saint Peter broke into a big smile and gave the taxi driver a silken robe and a golden staff along with a hearty welcome.
The minister announced, "I'm Harold Snow, head pastor at St. Mary's for the last 43 years."
Saint Peter consulted his list, provided a thin cotton robe, a wooden staff, and jerked his thumb, indicating the minister should enter. Not too clear about this treatment, the minister asked the reason.
"We work by results here," Saint Peter replied. "When you preached, people slept; when he drove, people prayed."
The people specially called to bring the good news are not only those who preach on Sunday, but also those who are witnesses on every day of the week. The matter of beautiful feet is not limited to those who get up on Sunday morning and preach; it includes all who show how the good news works itself out in their lives. In truth, beautiful feet are even more common among the people of the congregation than among the people in the pulpit.
This is because it is in our lives that the good news is working itself out. Even when it might not seem that the good news is particularly active, nor particularly present, it manages to work itself out in our lives. Even under the most trying of circumstances, we find the good news not merely present, but often showing itself forth in our lives.
Consider Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. He made his discovery in a dust--filled, poorly--equipped laboratory. There were few conveniences, and a culture he was about to examine happened to be the precise spot where a mold spore, carried by a breeze, had previously landed.
Several years later, when he was a world--famous scientist, he was taken on a tour of a modern lab, a facility which glistened in its air--conditioned, dust--free, super--sterile purity.
"What a pity you didn't have a place like this to work in," commented Fleming's guide. "Just think of the wonders you could have discovered in surroundings like this."
Fleming responded, "Not penicillin."
We act like that sometimes. We think the only way to be witnesses to the good news is to find ourselves in some special place, to act in a way unlike the way we act every day, to say and do things that impress other people with how Christian we are.
In reality, we act as witnesses to the good news in our lives every day, where we find ourselves, acting the way we act. Not in some spectacular fashion, but in the normal actions which make up our daily lives.
We witness in that way, in the places where we are. We witness with our actions, with our lives, and with our beautiful feet. Amen.
This odd sentence is: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news."
It is strange enough to call feet beautiful. Most often we think of feet in a much more utilitarian context, as something we stand on and walk on, our basic support for standing upright. People who spend substantial amounts of time focusing on the beauty of feet are generally known as "fetishists."
More often we are about as familiar with our feet as the peasant in a story told by the nineteenth--century theologian Søren Kierkegaard. The man normally went barefooted, but once, when he had some money in his pocket, he went to the city and purchased a pair of shoes and stockings. After his purchase, he had some money left over, so he proceeded to get drunk. He was still in that condition when he tried to get home, but managed only to stagger out of town where he lay down in the middle of the road.
A wagon came along and the driver yelled at the peasant to move or he would drive over his legs. In his condition the peasant looked at the unfamiliar shoes and stockings and replied, "Drive on; they are not my legs."
Feet are simply not something commonly regarded as particular points of beauty in modern society. Usually, they are thought of more like the comment of a fashion--conscious woman. When asked about purchasing shoes, she replied with her rule for shoes: "If the shoe fits, it's ugly."
So this image from our lesson sounds rather strange or, more frankly, weird. Is it possible that Paul is simply using an image which he understood, something he liked? Is this simply Paul's own, weird image? Actually, the image did not start with Paul.
The image comes from Isaiah 52:7. At that place the prophet says: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.' " A little more specific detail, but not really much help in understanding the image.
Isaiah is speaking, in general terms, of the restoration of Israel to what he and other members of Israel regarded as its rightful place, of the return of her people to their homes, where they will live in peace. More than that, he is speaking specifically of the return of those people who are still pure, clean, and ready to live as God's people and worship God as they should.
Paul certainly knew of this background, especially considering the context in which he used this quote from Isaiah. He uses it as the answer to a series of rhetorical questions about the way in which people will hear about God and the good news of Christ. For Paul this reference to the words of Isaiah is both an answer and a call to those who hear his words.
Even though this helps us understand the way the statement is used, it still leaves us with that odd image of "beautiful feet." While feet are not usually seen as beautiful today, and in fact are often the subject of jokes, and derogatory comments and frequently regarded as a subject unfit for polite conversation, they filled a different place in the ancient world.
Hospitality in the time of Paul and Jesus involved a ritual we no longer employ. Guests at a dinner were greeted by having their feet washed. People were expected to wash themselves before they left their homes for the dinner, but walking from one home to another, especially when wearing sandals, resulted in feet that were, at the least, dusty. Both to keep the home and its furnishings clean, and to welcome the guests and restore them to a feeling of freshly scrubbed cleanliness, greetings involved the washing of the guests' feet.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus follows this ritual when he washes the disciples' feet as a part of their last meal together. When Peter objects that it is not seemly for Jesus to wash his feet, Jesus tells him if his feet are not washed, he has no part in the kingdom. And then, in a command which is still a bit bothersome to many people, Jesus commands the disciples to follow his example: "You also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14).
An image that reminds us of the value of humility, of the need to humble ourselves, and to remember that it is not our efforts which should lead us to pride, but the efforts of God working through us. Paul reminds us of all this in his series of questions leading up to this comment about feet.
"But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?" Paul begins with a basic question: How can people call on the name of the Lord, if they have not believed in Jesus before they call on him? It seems like a basic question, but Paul builds on it with a second question.
"And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?" Paul is building a series of questions, a series that sounds very familiar. He selects a key word from the first question and builds the second question on that word, and again with the third, and again with the final question. And the series reminds us of the many times something like that has cropped up in other contexts. There is a classic folk song about an old lady who swallowed a fly, and then swallowed a spider, a bird, a cat, and an increasingly diverse series of animals to get rid of the fly and each other. This is only one example of the same sort of thing Paul is doing with his questions.
And how are we to expect that people could come to believe in someone they have never heard of? Obviously the situation is an absurdity, but Paul goes on to ask the next question.
"And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?" In order to call on Jesus, people must believe in him. In order to believe, people must hear the good news. In order to hear the good news, someone must proclaim that good news. Everything is quite logical, and it all builds clearly to the conclusion in the form of the final question.
"And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?" How can anyone proclaim unless they are sent? To proclaim the Good News, to tell the story of Jesus and God's love for the world, people need to be selected, called out, commissioned, and sent. If that sounds like a description of what happens to missionaries, it quite likely is.
But things don't stop with missionaries, with people sent to far--away lands to proclaim the good news. Those who lead in our congregations are also called and sent to proclaim. As are we all, each week, called together here for worship and sent forth from our worship, back into the world, called and sent to tell others about the good news of Jesus and God's love, called and sent to proclaim him where we already are.
So, in the final analysis, it is really our feet Paul is talking about. Our feet are beautiful because we bring good news. Our feet are beautiful when we announce peace, as Isaiah puts it. And our feet are beautiful, as Paul reminds us, when we proclaim the good news of Jesus.
Beautiful feet is still a strange image, but when we think about it, how beautiful are the feet, and everything else, about the people who announce peace. In our modern world there are not all that many people who actually get to announce peace. There are some who try hard, announcing peace in louder and louder tones, even as those around them blow themselves up, shoot others, and generally behave in very unpeaceful ways.
In our modern world, some people who announce peace and actually seem to accomplish it are given awards such as the Nobel Peace Prize. More often, however, the people who spend much of their time working toward peace are faced with violent reactions from those around them. Rather than getting praise from most people, they are accused of things such as being unpatriotic, seditious, cowardly, and worse.
It has often been said that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who proclaimed passive resistance and non--violence, was regularly surrounded by very violent behavior. In fact, the same thing can also be said about the example who inspired Dr. King's plan of action, Mahatma Gandhi. There are some peacemakers who seem to have very unpeaceful activities swirl around them.
Often, it is only in retrospect that peacemakers are recognized for their labors. And there have been times when even after the peace is accomplished, those who were most important in bringing it about are still not recognized. Of course, recognition is not what peacemakers are really seeking. The obvious reward they seek is peace.
And peace, true peace, is certainly something to be sought. Not merely the absence of war, but a positive force, an opportunity for growth together, a situation where people are able to work together so all can accomplish a better life is certainly something everyone would recognize as a thing to be sought, at least in an ideal sense.
But Isaiah doesn't stop with peace, as desirable as it is. Isaiah goes on to say beautiful feet also belong to those who bring good news, the part of the verse that Paul seizes upon. Isaiah continues with other thoughts, but Paul is content to quote the part about those who bring good news.
We often think that the only people who can bring the Good News are those who are ordained, who preach on Sunday mornings, those specially called to be pastors. There is a story that reminds us of the true situation.
A minister found himself in the line waiting for Saint Peter's attention at the Pearly Gates. He was behind a guy dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket, and wearing sunglasses. Finally Saint Peter addressed the man in the outlandish costume, "Who are you, so I might know what to do with you?"
"I'm Joe Green, a New York taxi driver."
After a moment consulting his list, Saint Peter broke into a big smile and gave the taxi driver a silken robe and a golden staff along with a hearty welcome.
The minister announced, "I'm Harold Snow, head pastor at St. Mary's for the last 43 years."
Saint Peter consulted his list, provided a thin cotton robe, a wooden staff, and jerked his thumb, indicating the minister should enter. Not too clear about this treatment, the minister asked the reason.
"We work by results here," Saint Peter replied. "When you preached, people slept; when he drove, people prayed."
The people specially called to bring the good news are not only those who preach on Sunday, but also those who are witnesses on every day of the week. The matter of beautiful feet is not limited to those who get up on Sunday morning and preach; it includes all who show how the good news works itself out in their lives. In truth, beautiful feet are even more common among the people of the congregation than among the people in the pulpit.
This is because it is in our lives that the good news is working itself out. Even when it might not seem that the good news is particularly active, nor particularly present, it manages to work itself out in our lives. Even under the most trying of circumstances, we find the good news not merely present, but often showing itself forth in our lives.
Consider Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. He made his discovery in a dust--filled, poorly--equipped laboratory. There were few conveniences, and a culture he was about to examine happened to be the precise spot where a mold spore, carried by a breeze, had previously landed.
Several years later, when he was a world--famous scientist, he was taken on a tour of a modern lab, a facility which glistened in its air--conditioned, dust--free, super--sterile purity.
"What a pity you didn't have a place like this to work in," commented Fleming's guide. "Just think of the wonders you could have discovered in surroundings like this."
Fleming responded, "Not penicillin."
We act like that sometimes. We think the only way to be witnesses to the good news is to find ourselves in some special place, to act in a way unlike the way we act every day, to say and do things that impress other people with how Christian we are.
In reality, we act as witnesses to the good news in our lives every day, where we find ourselves, acting the way we act. Not in some spectacular fashion, but in the normal actions which make up our daily lives.
We witness in that way, in the places where we are. We witness with our actions, with our lives, and with our beautiful feet. Amen.
