Call it what you want, but it is still a very moving picture of displayed humility. Why displayed? Because I believe it had to be, to raise public awareness, to raise public accountability and to raise public pressure.
Pope Francis pleaded for the warring leaders of Sudan not to go back to civil war. For five years before, Sudan had been rocked by wars. The nation and people were and are exhausted and the Pope is begging them to build the young nation for the people’s sake.
He invited them for a retreat in the Vatican and stunned them when he (82-year-old, who suffers from chronic leg pain) “was helped by aides as he knelt with difficulty to kiss the shoes of the two main opposing leaders and other people in the room.”
The two leaders, President Salva Kiir (“Kiir”) and his former deputy, Mr Riek Machar (“Machar”), was speechless by the humbling act from the Vicar of Christ.
The background to that is this.
In 2011, Sudan (a predominantly Muslim state) was split in the middle with South Sudan (Christian state) declaring her independence.
Two years later, Kiir fired his deputy Machar and a civil war lasting 5 years (from 2013 to last September 2018) broke out.
“About 400,000 people died and more than a third of the country’s 12 million people were uprooted, sparking Africa’s worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.”
What led to a truce last September was when the two sides signed a power-sharing deal “to assemble, screen and train their respective forces to create a national army before the formation of a unity government next month.”
This is done in the hope that there will be a permanent peace between the two religiously divided nations whose people have suffered tremendously, with children growing up without fathers, and mothers and daughters raped, exiled and dehumanised as sexual slaves.
Here, I recall the parable of the sower, that nothing could ever be built on rocky dry ground and thorns, and this young nation of Sudan desperately needs leaders who are prepared to put aside their differences to rebuild the foundation upon which they and their families can grow once more on good fertile soil of peace, trust and hope.
But a recent incident threatens the power-sharing deal recently signed.
Last Thursday’s coup in neighbouring Sudan “might put at risk the fragile peace” that ended the five long years of atrocity, social dislocation and death.
This led to the papal kiss for peace followed by a 24-hour prayer and preaching in the Vatican residence to close the gap towards a unity government.
Pope Francis made this plea: -
“I am asking you as a brother to stay in peace. I am asking you with my heart, let us go forward. There will be many problems but they will not overcome us. Resolve your problems.”
“There will be struggles, disagreements among you but keep them within you, inside the office, so to speak. But in front of the people, hold hands united. So, as simple citizens, you will become fathers of the nation.”
Lesson? Just one.
When I look at the image of the Pope kissing the feet of the leaders, I am reminded of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
In John 13:14-16, the scripture reads: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.”
These words of Jesus came with his lowly act: “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("I give you a new commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you”).
Alas, if we had followed this example, carried out the new commandment faithfully, with leaders washing the feet of their people and transforming their own hearts first before winning the people’s hearts, the world would be very different from now.
I believe that religion has lost much of its force for change when it claims to do the reverse, that is, instead of washing feet, they bath in their own glory, instead of being a servant, they become the master, with force of tyranny, and instead of changing their own hearts, allowing love to lead, they leave it untouched and pursue ruins driven by their own enslaved appetites.
The power of religion is never in the power of subjugation. If the truth sets us free, then enduring freedom has to come from setting ourselves free from the carnal appetites of our hearts.
If leaders can’t do that, if they can’t set themselves free, then every act that comes from them, regardless of how religious it boasts to be, is no more than an act to further enslave them - for they are never truly free.
And this enslavement perpetuated only leads to destruction unmitigated.
So, I have come full circle with the Pope kissing the feet of the Sudanese leaders. The leadership of my Saviour is always about a sacrifice that starts with him first.
In the wilderness, it was a sacrifice of the flesh. In his selection of his disciples, it was a sacrifice by example. In his ministry and teachings, it was the sacrifice of self in service to others.
In Gethsemane, where he pleaded for the cup to be removed, it was a sacrifice of soul, emotion and will. And at the Cross, it was a sacrifice of love to bring about the healing and overcoming of hearts.
That is why the revolution that Jesus started never went out of circulation. It was so revolutionary during his time that till today, many leaders cannot but acknowledge its distilled power and enduring truth.
And its truth promises to set us free as leaders if only we wash the feet of our people not as an act for show, but as the result of a changed heart redeemed by a love bestowed. Amen.
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