Dirty Hokas, Beautiful Feet, and a Gospel Worth Carrying

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” -Romans 10:14-15

An old pair of Hoka tennis shoes hangs from my closet rod, laces tied together, dirty and waterlogged. The pink has faded to brown, the soles worn bare. They have not been worn in over a year, but I just cannot muster the motivation to get rid of them. I justify keeping them in my mind, telling myself they will be a good pair of shoes to wear on a yard workday. The problem is that the real reason I do not get rid of them is that they, just like every pair of Hokas before them, represent life lived and miles traveled.

If my Hokas could speak, they would tell the stories of dancing in the cobbled streets in Spain, hiking up mountains in India, blackberry picking in Tajikistan, and washing the dishes in North Carolina. It is almost funny how one pair of shoes meant for such a mundane task as walking can become artifacts, attached to memories that seem to belong in a keep-sake box instead of the trash can. Funny how something attached to your feet can take you nowhere at all or somewhere so far away. Something mundane, dirty even, turned into something beautiful.

As I reflect on Romans 10:14-15 I think of the faces I saw in Tajikistan and India. The men and women who have such a high chance of never hearing the gospel, never even hearing the name of Jesus. I walked passed so many faces, so many souls longing for the hope that the gospel provides and I may be the only Christian they ever see. These experiences were the closest experiences I have to understanding Paul’s thought process in Romans. Here he shows his deep and raw conviction for the unreached. He explains why he makes it his “ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named.”[1]

There is an urgency in his tone. By repeating the words “and how are they” three times, Paul builds suspense and desperation in the reader. He wants them to feel the need and the conviction he feels. Each question logically flows out of the previous, making the need all the more obvious. People need to be sent for the gospel to be proclaimed in order for people to hear and believe. Understanding the need gives Paul a deep compassion for the unreached and a deep desire for more believers to be sent out to share the gospel with them.

He claims the ones who choose to go will have beautiful feet. But don’t beautiful feet kind of sound like an oxymoron? Here Paul references Isaiah 52:7 which says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

In referencing this verse, Paul shows the Romans that their mission is to be this messenger that brings the good news of happiness, peace, and salvation to the nations. These messengers may have to travel far, and their journey may be arduous, but what a wonderful day it will be when someone receives their good news! The journey will be forgotten, worth all the effort for the reception of the message. Paul calls them into this– they are to be the ones who bridge the gap between the reached and the unreached. This call was not taken lightly because they understood the discomfort it would bring.

Though we often crave comfort over sacrifice, we can have hope in this challenging call because there is one who became the perfect messenger, walking the journey of sacrifice faithfully before us. He was the one who would bridge the gap to reach the unreached, exchanging a heavenly throne for dirty feet. He was the one who traveled the farthest, had the most arduous journey, but became the true herald of good news, sacrificing his very life to bring salvation, peace, and happiness to the world. He was the one who had the most beautiful feet, perhaps because they were the dirtiest.

Mary understood this as she knelt down, pouring perfume over Jesus’ feet and washed them with her hair. [2] In this sacrificial act she filled the room with the scent of the expression of gratitude. She showed her deep raw conviction that Jesus was this perfect messenger, the one worthy of her surrender.

Unlike Mary our role is not to anoint Jesus’ feet, but to dirty our own. I have the joy of sharing the good news. Even if the journey is long, I will choose to remember my Savior’s journey and have compassion for the unreached. So, my dirty, well-traveled Hokas will continue the process of being worn, dirtied, and retired because the dirtier they are, the more they get to share the good news of peace, happiness, and salvation.