Sound Core, Pretty Feet

Each year in the kindergarten classroom where I worked, we had a whole fall unit on apples. We studied the different types of apples -- Fuji, Gala, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, etc. -- we found out how they grew, we studied all parts of an apple, we taste-tested apples, and we culminated (on non-Covid years) with a field trip to a local apple orchard.

This morning as I read Romans 10, I thought of apples and I thought of feet. I'll get to the feet in a second. We'll start with the apples. 

Romans 10:8-10 says: "But what does it say? 'The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,' that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

Here's where the apple comes in: In the center of the fruit, in the very heart of it, are the seeds. Surrounding the seeds is the core, the hard protective portion of the apple that keeps the seeds securely encased in the center. From there outward, we have the tasty portion of the apple -- that is the part that people eat. And then of course, the skin wraps around the whole thing, keeping what's inside, inside -- and on the outside, showing the brand or color or type of apple.

But the heart of the apple has to be good for the outside of the apple to be good. If there's a rotten heart, the rest of the apple will be rotten, too. Sure, sometimes, you have bad spots or bruises -- those come from outer testing, and generally, if you catch it early enough and cut those things out of the fruit... you can salvage the apple. But if the core is rotten -- the whole thing is rotten.

Note the both/and that Paul sets up in his letter to the Romans: "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and... AND... believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). In other words, if you confess with your mouth (outwardly; the shiny outward skin of the apple)... but you don't believe in your heart... your heart is still black with sin, still unredeemed, still unforgiven, and so, the whole fruit is rotted, from the inside out.

Conversely, if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, truly believe... the exterior will be reflective of what is in your heart. Maybe you don't start up a blog and post daily entries about faith and devotion (that's one type of apple), but maybe, for example, you serve in your church as janitor. Maybe you teach Sunday School. Maybe you work in an office that's hostile to faith, but your quiet and peaceful presence or your work ethic eventually gets noticed by your coworkers. Because of what's inside.

You're different. Your core is sound. Your seeds are good.

Sound core. Good seeds. Now we'll move on to beautiful feet.

What follows is actually a post that I'd written back on March 31, 2021, and it was so exactly what I wanted to say that I figured most of you have forgotten what I said the first time, and so I'm posting it again. :) And if you didn't forget, that's okay, maybe you can pass it on to someone else who hasn't read it yet. 

First, the background: Paul has been weighing the differences between those who are under the law and those who are under grace, and throughout most of the first part of Romans, he's been setting up T-charts and giving Jewish background and Gentile background and checking and balancing the perspectives of both. Here, Paul commissions Gospel preachers with a weighty responsibility to share the good news to all (Jews and Gentiles) -- but with the understanding that Jews may claim that they haven't had a fair opportunity to respond to a Gospel that hasn't yet been preached to them, because they've been "under law." (Paul debunks this argument in Romans 10:18.)

Anyway, Paul says: "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of Whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:14-16). 

In my Bible, I've bracketed that set of verses, and in smudged purple ink, my statement from many years ago is still clear in the margin: "Mission in life. Are my feet beautiful?"

Are your feet beautiful? It's an honest question. Like those apple skins, while they may be pretty on the outside, what's inside of us will come out.

If our heart is sound, we will have beautiful feet, pretty skin, sweet fruit. 

Let's avoid toe fungus at all costs. :) 

Here's my foot story:

For the first seventeen years of my life, I carried an extremely embarrassing and uncomfortable -- sometimes very painful -- condition on the soles of my feet, a little thing most people call: fungus. Yuck.

Yeah, it was gross. It cracked my feet, peeled the skin from their bottoms and between my toes, and generally made them look disgusting. I remember painting toenails with a friend once, who glanced over at my feet and grimaced: "You have the ugliest feet I've ever seen."

I didn't flinch; I'd already accepted those words as truth. I had ugly, gross feet. I rubbed Tinactin and other antifungal creams on them to treat them when they were at their worst, but nothing ever really helped. As I grew into the peer-sensitive portion of my life, I hid my feet in sneakers or close-toed sandals to hide the worst of the condition. 

Sometimes, the cracks would bleed, sometimes I couldn't walk without pain. Sometimes, the skin peeled off in sheets. Most times, the condition was topical only: it looked awful, but didn't affect what I did.

It wasn't until I was seventeen that our family had the ability to pay for a dermatologist. I had other skin conditions that needed more urgent attention than my feet, and so, because insurance finally came through for such a doctor, we were able to go. As the man checked me over, he came to my feet and viewed the cracks and peeling skin. "Have you ever had your feet treated?"

My mom and I glanced at each other. "No," I said.

The doc pulled out a metal... scrapey-thing (I have obviously never been to medical school; I don't know what a scrapey-thing is called), and he scraped loose some pieces of skin. He excused himself and left the room. When he returned, he gave us the mind-blowing news: What I had accepted as unalterable, unchanging pain and embarrassment, probably for the rest of my life -- could be easily cured, as though it had never existed. I still remember the echo of the doctor's words today: "How would you like to get rid of that stuff on your feet?"

Long story short-ish, I took some powerful antifungal pills for fourteen days, and my feet looked like normal feet. No cracks. No peeling. No sore spots. No longer an embarrassment. Smooth, supple, undamaged skin.

Seventeen years one way, in a ridiculously short amount of time, a complete reversal. The flawless beauty of transformation.

I thought about this as I went back to my Holy Week reading this morning. Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36-50, and John 12:1-8 all describe a dinner Jesus is eating where a woman appears and has an interesting interaction with His feet.

It's not exactly clear the circumstances: John writes this as an encounter with Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and takes place in their home. Matthew and Mark both write that this is a dinner at the home of Simon the Leper, though the woman may have still been Mary. Luke describes this as being a dinner in the home of a Pharisee (named Simon -- possibly the Leper, although it's not clear why a Pharisee would be associated with this title), and the woman is a prostitute -- or "a woman who has lived a sinful life in that town." It could be that these are two separate occasions spaced at various parts of Jesus' ministry (Luke's account takes place early on in his Gospel, while Matthew, Mark, and John place theirs near or in Holy Week), and perhaps Mary has heard of the previous woman's encounter with Jesus, and decides to do a similar act of devotion. Or it could even be that Mary, Martha and Lazarus's sister, is the one who has lived a sinful life in that town. There are lots of possibilities; I'll look forward to hearing the account again -- told with clarity -- when I reach heaven. :)

Whatever the case, I want to look at Jesus' feet... and a woman who honors them.

In Luke's account, the one that takes place in the home of a Pharisee named Simon (who may or may not have been trying to trap Jesus with wordplay), Luke writes: "When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them" (Luke 7:37-38). 

I have always felt... uncomfortable when I've read this. Jesus may never have had a fungal condition shredding His soles like I did, but whatever the case: Feet are gross. There's just no getting around this. They are the parts of the body usually responsible for transporting a person from Point A to Point B, and they get bathed in the ignominy of dirt, dust, germs -- every imaginable and unimaginable ick-factor during that journey. This was even more the case when people constantly wore sandals or went barefoot, as they typically did in the geographical portion of the world and the time period in which Jesus lived and traveled.

Customarily, the host of a household during this time would invite his guests inside and would give them water to wash their feet as a courtesy. However, Simon the Pharisee did not display this courtesy (which is why it's imaginable that he is trying to trap Jesus here rather than simply fellowship with Him). Jesus turns to His host and says: "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give Me any water for My feet, but she wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give Me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing My feet. You did not put oil on My head, but she has poured perfume on My feet" (Luke 7:44-46).

In other words, all the things this host should have shown as simple courtesies -- are ignored.

In contrast, a woman -- a prostitute, someone from the dregs of society -- takes up the position ignored by the Pharisee -- the "whitewashed tomb" (as Jesus calls them in Matthew 23). She washes His feet with her tears. No fluffy towel? No problem. Hair will do. She kisses His feet when His host ignores the courteous greeting of a kiss on the cheek. She anoints His feet with oil when His host should have blessed the guests with oil on their foreheads.

So Jesus exonerates this woman before the guests and says: "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven -- for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

In all honesty, what God told me this morning was simple: "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Isaiah 52:7, Romans 10:15).

In other words, Jesus is the Bringer of the best news, and no matter what the soiled, dusty, dirty condition of His physical appendages in Simon's house, to the woman who most needed Jesus' message of good news, His feet are priceless, beautiful. In Revelation 1:15, a new descriptor is added to Jesus' feet: "His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace." 

Feet that have been through the worst and now offer the best.  

This woman who lives on the bottom crust of society -- kisses the least of His body, His feet. This woman who is the brunt of the town's gossip -- becomes the talk of the feast. This woman who has never been presented before the synagogue or anointed by the priest as "forgiven" -- is forgiven by the Most High Priest Who will carry her sins on the cross. 

What was once this woman's unalterable, unchanging pain, embarrassment, and unforgiveness -- Jesus turns around and makes clean, clear, and pure. He forgives her sins, and she is at once whole again, as though she had never sinned.

This morning... do a quick foot-check. What is the condition of your feet? Are they beautiful? Are they as beautiful as He means them to be?