April 21, 2011
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 ; Psalm 116:1, 10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Thirteen men having dinner, celebrating a shared history.  One of them washes the others’ feet.  Following dinner, he predicts the future and offers inspirational speeches. No offense, but to ears not accustomed to what we are about, this sounds like some sort of a wacky cult group or something coming out of Roswell, New Mexico.

On Maundy Thursday, the church remembers the Upper Room, the last meal the disciples shared with the pre-resurrected Christ.  We focus on three major movements of that evening which shape our services and Lenten celebration:

• The washing of the disciples’ feet

• The institution of the Eucharist/The Lord’s Table

• The incarnational commissioning: “You also should love one another.”

This third element is the mandatum novum – new commandment – from which Maundy Thursday derives its name.  We recognize a “new commandment Thursday.”

Although there is such rich theology that underpins Maundy Thursday, it has often been relegated to the position of the stepchild of the Lenten season.  Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday – if some churches or members of the congregation were to celebrate only three of those four, which one might they skip? Many Protestant church traditions don’t observe all of these holy days, and might not even refer to them as “holy days.”  One of my fellow island clergypersons in what some might be called a “low church tradition” recently asked, “There’s church on Thursday? That’s a long work week.  You had better take some comp days.”

Yes – there is church on Thursday.  And for those of us who are really serious, there’s the Great Vigil on Saturday night as well.  My Low Church buddies can read all about it on one of their comp days.

Part of the difficulty of Maundy Thursday is keeping it from being as dusty as the 24 feet that were washed that night.  Let’s start with known territory, the classic Maundy Thursday text – the upper room in John 13.  There are two layers to this onion – the passage is about foot washing, and it is not about foot washing at the same time.

“He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”

Can you imagine any world leader doing this today.  The humility of Christ is what stuns us.  The King of Kings chooses the servant’s role as an object lesson.  Remember that in those days, foot washing was no more a symbolic ceremony than was breaking the bread and pouring the wine.

It was practical.  Dusty, muddy and manure-strewn roads made sandaled feet a mealtime buzzkill.  The first-century household slave would always get the foot-washing task as it was one of the most demeaning and filthy tasks in their culture.  Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs would have a field day with this task.

Since the meeting was held in secret, there was no slave to do the work.  To further the irony of the Messiah washing feet, Luke tells us that the Upper Room discourse included the favorite argument among the apostles – “Which of us is the greatest?” (Luke 22:24).

Chest thumping interrupted by foot washing.

The cultural and conversational and Christological juxtaposition of this service event inspires us.  In some churches, including The Episcopal Church tradition, this account is the foundation for foot-washing ceremonies.  The idea is to experience and depict the power of this humility and servitude.  We distance ourselves from comfort for our community.

But the repetition of this Christ-act does not need to be foot washing.  That was the best first-century model, but what about the 21st-century equivalent?

• What characteristics of Christ most stand out to you based on his washing of the disciples’ feet?

• What is the foot washing equivalent in our culture which would communicate these qualities?

• Jesus washed their feet, and they were to do as he had done.  To whom?  Each other?  Their disciples?  The outside world?

• And what were they supposed to do?  Go wash feet, or was there something else?

• Who is one person whose “feet” God wants you to “wash”?  How should you do this?

At a deeper level, John 13 doesn’t have much to do with foot washing at all.  It was only the cultural metaphor Jesus used.  He could’ve chosen mucking out the barn just as easily if he were in a stable and not a room.   The whole passage is about incarnating into a world of pain and brokenness on behalf of those in need.  And Jesus was commissioning the disciples to do this based on the command to imitate him.

John frequently tells a story underneath a story and here he does it again.  Thursday Theology is at work in this text through so many extra, otherwise unnecessary details. John is capturing the idea of downward mobility.  The Christian theology of “leveling.” Incarnating into brokenness.  Here are some details to reflect upon over the next few days. 

“Now before the festival of the Passover” (v. 1).  John had already mentioned it was six days before Passover in John 12:1 – so he wants us to make sure to get the theme and symbolism here.  What does Passover mean in Judeo-Christian theology?  How do the upper room accounts fit within a theology of Passover?  John wants us to catch this.

“Jesus knew that his hour had come” (v. 1).  If given only three more days to live, what would you do?  Who would you talk with?  What would you say?  If you only had three days to create your entire life legacy, what would you do?  How do you see Jesus doing this very thing?

“He loved them to the end” (v. 1).  When we hear this phrase, what event in the life of Christ do we think of?  The cross.  But the cross is five chapters away, and John is painting this event (foot washing) as loving them to the end.  There must be something more than dirty feet here to warrant this statement.

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God …”.  

The details in verses 4-5 are utterly unnecessary, but they are in a deeper sense  symbolic and theological:

• He “got up from the table.”  The Jewish view of heaven includes the eschatological image of the banquet table.  Jesus gets up from it and leaves it.

• He “took off his outer robe.”  He removes his glory, removes that which is fitting dress for the heavens.

• He “tied a towel around himself.”  Jesus takes on the dress of a servant – human flesh.  Think about the visual imagery we typically see representing the crucifixion – Jesus is always in a simple garment around his hips.

• He wipes their feet with “the towel that was tied around him.”   Jesus brings his own humanity to bear upon the filth of the world he encounters.

• Then in verse 12, he puts on his robe and returns to the table.

This kind of detail is either stunning or totally unnecessary.  John is capturing history with the extra literary sophistication that we know of his gospel, drawing us into the deeper details.   This foot washing has little to do with dirty feet and everything to do with the life of the Christ.  Leaving heaven, stripping himself of glory and divine rights, taking on human flesh, and entering into suffering and pain – applying his very humanity to the redemption of the dirty humanity of others.

Confused about what’s going on, Peter is told even he won’t understand all of these events until later (v. 7).  Over his protests, his feet are washed anyway.

There is some basic theology that comes out of these actions.  The feet are the part of us that stay in contact with the earth.  Jesus cleanses us by purifying us from that part of our humanity which is dirtied by the world.  Granted, the imago dei in each person is never destroyed by sin; it’s marred in its expression within and to the world.  Jesus cleanses the part of us that will continue to remain in contact with a soiled world, and that cleansing is enough for us to remain standing in the world, without corrupting the whole of us.

Peter’s protest draws attention to the servant/master tension in the passage.  What is Christ doing?  But Jesus’ intentionality levels the playing field.  Given the entire incarnational sub-story John tells, the command of verse 15 is staggering.  It isn’t just about feet.  It’s about life.

Jesus brings the kingdom down to the places of brokenness.  “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (13:15).  Jesus is calling us into downward mobility, bidding us to leave our higher safety for a lower and broken world, asking us to enter into the sorrow that is the incarnation of Maundy Thursday.

The reason the church has traditionally focused on the colors of Lent is that aesthetic considerations guide symbolism and reflection.  We’re visual and sensual by nature.  That is why we intentionally use the colors and settings that we do during these days.

At the heart of Maundy Thursday, and the John 13 text, is this meal between Jesus and his disciples.  This was their last meal together, and as Jesus was a God-fearing Jew, he was most likely leading the disciples through a Passover dinner celebration.

During this evening’s liturgy, the most basic and profound of our liturgical actions are recalled and acted out.  Any liturgy has at its heart a sacrificial action.  We offer something, and God takes that offering and does something wonderful with it, something we cannot do for ourselves.

In the Exodus reading for today, the focus is on the first Passover, a deliverance from the tenth plague – a horrible plague that killed the first-born males in every household, except those who lived where the blood of a lamb had been spread upon the lintels of the household door.  That was followed by the actual deliverance of the people from bondage in Egypt into the freedom of the Promised Land.  This sacred text is read at every Passover feast in a liturgical setting as a profound reminder of a how a liberating and loving God delivers us from bondage, and even death itself.

The reading from Corinthians sets forth the form of the Eucharist, and reminds us all that bread and wine, offered along with “ourselves, our souls and bodies,” as it states in the Holy Eucharist, Rite One, are taken by God, made holy and received by us as the body and blood of Christ, in effect a liturgical born-again experience that transforms us over and over into more of what God desires us to be.

The gospel reading from John focuses on another ancient liturgical rite, that of foot washing, as we have already stated.   Admittedly awkward for some, even distasteful, this solemn act included in tonight’s liturgy causes us to bend the knees of our hearts. As we slowly and solemnly wash one another’s feet, you cannot help but feel the sense of humility accompanied by the ancient tradition – a humility that is not intended to shame, but to assure us that God loves us so much that the Son of God stoops to wash our feet, turning all our concepts of higher and lower, above and below, inequality and equity, into a new reality of love and affection.  “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

There is something about this sacred day that sets it apart – something deeply transforming.  We’re not merely remembering the night before Jesus died, we are actually living it through liturgy.  The flash of insight as we are connected with the Passover of our Jewish sisters and brothers, the solemn washing of the feet, the taking of the bread and the cup, these experiences leave us with a depth of meaning that goes beyond words, as any and all good liturgy does.  The readings and liturgy work in harmony to bring us to that last night.  Then, in a little while, as the altar is stripped and prepared for Good Friday, we transition from the most intimate liturgical moment to the absence of God.  What can we do but leave silently and go to our homes?

As we leave this sacred place of worship, carry the words of Jesus in your hearts: “Where I am going, you cannot come.  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

What we have just done is act out the boundaries of that new commandment – boundaries that expand rather than restrict our vision:  perhaps we have washed the feet of someone with whom we have had a disagreement, or a person who is an ex-con trying to work out a new life after prison; perhaps we have sat and watched an older person wash the feet of a teenager.  These are only glimpses of what that love looks like.  The living out of this loving one another as I have loved you comes through a community of believers that sets aside its own agenda to help others, that allows its buildings to be used by people who need a safe place to meet, a community that practices radical hospitality to strangers, aliens, undocumented immigrants, the poor, and those who have no helper.

Maundy Thursday gives us liberation, freedom, and grace to become a new community, not one centered merely on liturgy that remembers, but one centered on liturgy that leads us to action.  If we see Christ crucified and risen from the dead, then our lives are transformed forever.  If we believe Christ offers himself on the cross as the ultimate act of love, then we can see ourselves as called to act on behalf of others.

So, renewed by this profound night of liturgy, and transformed by Jesus’ taking upon himself the passion of his love for us, there is nothing to do but leave behind the things that bind us: our fear of the unknown, distrust of those unlike ourselves, wariness of others who will come to us, and our own feelings of inadequacy.  When we are called by the new commandment, we are given the liberation from those fears and the strength to respond.  Whatever we do because of this day will transform someone’s life as well as our own.  Whatever action we take to love one another takes us one step closer to the redemption of the world.  Whatever we risk of our own comfort and tranquility will be used by God to restore others who are lost and broken.  Amen.

Sources:

Brink, Emily and John Witvliet, eds. The Worship Sourcebook. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2004.

Meaning and Traditions of Holy Week: crivoice.org/cyholyweek.html.

Passover Seder Links: crivoice.org/seder.html, crivoice.org/haggadah.html, domestic-church.com,
littlethingscount.com/lentseder.htm.