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The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost I was out walking my regular beat through Cotuit the other day, thinking about my next sermon, mulling over all the obvious hot topics …the Political Conventions and the ensuing drama, Hurricane Gustav, the recession, the ongoing war. All of a sudden, all those weighty issues disappeared, and I became riveted to the pain radiating out of the bottom of my foot. Planter fasciitis it’s called. A vestige from a childhood soccer injury. And the world and all its problems? Forgetaboutit!…the only thing that mattered at that very moment was my foot. Now, if you are like me, you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about your feet. Maybe it’s just that our feet are the furthest extremity from our brain. Sure, if you are a woman, you attend to your feet cosmetically, a pedicure or chic pair of pumps. And if you are a man, it usually boils down to dealing with your feet if you have an ingrown toenail or athlete’s foot. But let’s face it, feet are funny looking, they do what they do with little fanfare, and for the most part, we keep them well hidden, and out of sight, they stay out of mind. This morning, though, I want to invite all of us to become aware of our feet. I want us to feel our feet. Stretch your arches for a moment. Wiggle your toes. Reflect on what your feet have done for you today. Think about how remarkable it is how they supported the weight of the rest of your body in getting here this morning. Consider the great miracle feet are in giving you mobility, and direction, and the ability to live, and move, and have your being. The truth of the matter is feet have a unique spiritual function in our lives. Think about it. They are the only part of our body that touches the ground. They are only things that connect us tp the earth, and by extension, to the source of creation. Although we are mostly oblivious to our feet and their spiritual function, this was not the case with the ancients. Throughout scripture, feet are the focus of great spiritual insight. Think of Mary, washing the feet of Jesus. Think of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Or think about Moses and the burning bush from the Book of Exodus, who removes his shoes in order to experience God. Our story this morning from the Book of Exodus begins with a man who has lost his way, who had run from his true calling. Moses had been reared in the courts of Egypt, in the splendor of the ancient empire. He was privy to all of its wealth, influence, and power. But Moses was actually the son of Hebrew slaves, and one day, when he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating his kinsman, another Hebrew slave, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. Fearing for his life, Moses fled into the desert of Midian, and there he took up with sheepherders, marrying one of their maidens, and fathering a child. There, also, ostensibly, he would have spent the rest of his life, were it not for the event we read about in our lesson today. One day, while keeping his flock, Moses sees a bush aflame, but it iss not consumed. Fascinated, he approaches the bush, and as he comes near, a voice calls to him, telling him to come no closer until he had removes his shoes. For the voice of the Most High tells Moses that he is on holy ground. This practice of removing one’s shoes is common to all the great faiths, and even to this day, rigorously followed by hundreds of millions across the globe. When we were in Crestone, Colorado, over the summer, the different faiths represented in that community shared this practice. When we went to the Hindu ashram for prayers, we were asked to remove our shoes. When we attended mass at Nada, the Carmelite monastery, it was the very same. Removing one’s shoes is a gesture of humility and powerlessness, it is a symbol of reverence and acknowledgement of our connection with everything that is. In our scripture, Moses was only able to discern God in the burning bush, once he had removed his shoes. God became real when Moses became aware of his feet; Moses could only apprehend the divine when he became aware that he was standing on sacred ground. Only with his naked feet on the ground could Moses receive his true calling, to lead the children of Israel out of their bondage to the Promised Land. And, friends, I dare say our feet, too, have this sacred function. They are the means by which we become aware that we are standing on sacred ground. The Navajo Indians believed that our spiritual wellbeing depends on being rooted to the earth, that our feet must be planted in the beauty and wonder of creation. One of their prayers expresses this well: 2500 years ago, the Buddha said: “The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.” This kind of mindfulness is reiterated again in our Gospel in these words of Jesus: “If you want to become my followers, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit you if you gain the whole world and forfeit your life? Or what will you give in return for your life?” Feeling the ground beneath our feet. Putting our feet in the steps of Jesus, and following him. Losing our life in order to find it. Relinquishing the world in order to gain our true life. These are things no doctrine or dogma can teach. These are things that can only be practiced. For me, personally, as I have shared on other occasions, I have experienced this most significantly in the practice of pilgrimage. My pilgrimage in 2003 on the Camino to Santiago Campostela in Spain was about many things, but most importantly it was about becoming aware of my feet. It was about feeling my feet, perhaps for the first time in my life, as I felt the ground beneath me. It was about tracing the footsteps of millions of other pilgrims who, for 1200 years, have journeyed these 400 miles for no other reason than to experience God in the practice of walking on sacred ground. Each night, as the pilgrims arrived at the refugio to eat and sleep, all of us would first remove our hiking boots at the door. And each of us would then attend to our feet, to the blisters and the tendonitis, to the missing toenails and cramping arches. I remember now how humbling it was to feel our feet after such rigors and pain! But humbling in the true sense of that word, coming from the Latin humus, being drawn close to the earth. For our feet have this spiritual function in our lives. They connect us to what is truly sacred, this ground, this earth, this creation. They bring us into solidarity with those, who like Moses and Jesus came to experience God in the burning bush, and in the simple practice of removing one’s shoes and in having one’s feet washed. And when we become fully aware of them, when we feel them, when we feel what they feel in the ground beneath them, our feet become the means by which to lose what cannot give life in order to gain the true source and being of our life, our God, our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer.
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