Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 35, Kitchen Servers for the Week

Chapter 35 of The Rule of St. Benedict has a mundane title--"Kitchen Servers for the Week"--but it's a powerful vision of the liturgy of communal meals and learning to serve in general.

Chapter 35
¹The brothers should serve one another...²for such service increases reward and fosters love...⁷On Saturday the brother who is completing his work will do the washing. ⁸He is to wash the towels which the brothers use to wipe their hands and feet. ⁹Both the one who is ending his service and the one who is about to begin are to wash the feet of everyone.

Where has foot washing gone in the Christian tradition? From conversations I've had with people from traditions that preserve the practice, foot washing is often more discussed than observed. And when observed it might be annually.

So I wonder, what would happen if this practice was recovered and/or practiced with more frequency in our churches?

Here's the deal. We all know that liturgy is formative. Think of how formative the regular and liturgical practice of washing feet would be. How would it form our hearts and imaginations? How would it form how we view our bodies? How would it form our relationships with those in the church? How might it, in fact, cause us to rethink the very nature of worship?

And then think about how all that formation is not happening. And then ponder that loss.