Dr. Horne, What Do I Do?

He was old but still had pep to his step as he came to the Seminary to teach preaching classes. Dr. Horne had written books on preaching and had spent forty-five years at one church, which is an amazing feat since the average term of a pastor is about eighteen months. With great care He led us in lectures that were written chapter by chapter in his book. If you read the homework you could hear it spoken by the author in class the next day. After a short while I decided that I wanted to hear it from the mouth of the author rather than read it from a book and stopped doing my homework in his class. I didn’t like homework anyway. It was a joy each class to hear him give his knowledge to us so freely, trying to help us in our present ministries as well as our future ones. You could feel the spirit of God in his life and witness it, as he would grab you by the arm and encourage you. We said the Holy Spirit oozed from his shoes. His goodness and kindness had a way of making you feel guilty and you had done nothing wrong. His hands were bent with arthritis and his hair was pearly white. Everybody seemed to like him.


At the end of each class he would ask for questions. There always seems to be one guy that asks stupid questions. We would cringe when this one guy would ask a question but never would Dr. Horne. No matter what the question was he would give his utmost attention to it and the person asking the question. On this day after a particularly slow class this same guy asked a question. This young Student had been preaching for three weeks at a church that was entertaining the idea of calling him as their pastor. He needed the position and was really worried that they would not call him. The chairman of the deacon board had called him to the side for a conference and told him that they liked him very much. The deacon told him that they enjoyed his sermons but that he wanted to hear a sermon that would step on the toes of certain members. To step on someone’s toes meant that he had to preach hard about certain sins and try to make the people feel guilty about their actions and repent. It is a common practice among preachers. This young preacher did not feel good about doing this so he asked Dr. Horne for his advice. Dr. Horne repeated the description of the dilemma that the young man was in to be sure that he understood the question correctly. Then came his answer. Dr. Horne raised his bent hand in the air, leaned forward in the pulpit stand where he stood to give lectures and told him to not step on their toes but to wash their feet. That should have been my last day at Seminary. I believe that I could preach on that for the rest of my life. What did Jesus do when no one offered to clean their feet when he and the disciples entered that house on that day at the Last Supper. He didn’t step on toes rather he got down and washed their feet.


When I was young I would aid my Grandfather when he held footwashing services at the church I grew up in. Though I never was a participant I saw big strong men bend down and wash the feet of other men. This was quite humbling in a way. How could you bend down on your knees and wash someone else’s dirty feet and not somehow feel a connection to them, especially if you do not have to. Do you remember how upset Jesus was later when he kept finding the disciples asleep when he would return from praying in the garden? This crew was going to be left with the Great Gospel and the job of spreading it to the world. Jesus had to be disappointed with them at this point. He had to wonder if it had been a mistake to have chosen these men to do this enormous job. Part of his pain and frustration when he asked to let this cup pass from him could have been that he did not feel they were ready for the task at hand. We know later that same night they all ran away out of fear of being arrested. Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed. Jesus could have been upset that not a soul was there to wash their feet as they entered that house that day. Instead of yelling at them or stepping on their toes he washed their feet and 11 lazy, sleepy, unmotivated, poorly mannered disciples spread the news to the world. Don’t step on their toes but rather wash their feet.