Beautiful feet

Many years ago while I was serving my first church as associate pastor, I horrified two elderly women one afternoon. It was a late summer or early fall day, and I happened to be the only one in the office when these ladies stopped by. I went to open the door, and they noticed my bare feet. My shoes were tucked under my desk where they were most of the time I was in the office. I hadn’t given a thought to slipping them on before I answered the door. These women took one look at my feet and expressed their disapproval. It apparently was not appropriate for a pastor to be barefoot in the church.

Without hesitating, I said, “Oh, I think you might be wrong about that.” They looked at me with raised eyebrows waiting to see what I was going to say. They had previously expressed concerns about a having a woman who was “so young” and now here I was telling them they were wrong. “It’s biblical to be barefoot in church, you see … ” They didn’t think so. “God told Moses to take of his shoes for he was standing on holy ground. Aren’t we standing on holy ground?”

They gave me an odd look but said no more. The next Sunday as I was walking down the aisle during the closing hymn, I saw these women in their back pew seats grinning at me. I looked down at their feet, and, yes, they were barefoot. And my relationship with them was much improved from that moment on.