It is Maundy Thursday- Maundy from the word meaning “commandment”. There are two themes for tonight- Love each other and remember Jesus. Wash feet and drink wine and eat bread. We know that the cross is just around the corner. Good Friday is just a breath away. And we know that Easter is coming. But tonight we focus on two actions- washing feet and communion.
What a strange service this is in some ways. In public, take off your shoes. Expose those feet that we work so hard to keep hidden to someone else. With all their hair, and gnarled toes. That we disguise with fancy shoes, like so much smoke and mirrors. Our feet that do so much work for us. Let someone wash your feet. Most of us have not had someone else wash us since we were small children. Maybe our hair when we are getting it cut. Maybe our feet for a pedicure. But professionals, those who do it all the time, those we pay to take care of us. Not like this. Not friends, people we chat with over coffee and sweets after the Sunday service. Tonight it might even be someone whose name we don’t know! Quick- go get your name tags, so at least we know the name of the person who is washing our feet. Or whose feet we are washing.
We remember this night, the night before Jesus is to die. He knows it. Things are rough, the authorities are after him. He will not be with this little band of his much longer. They have made it to Jerusalem and are gathered for a meal. They have been, as they made their way to Jerusalem, arguing about who is the most important- who gets the spots of privilege… I can just hear Jesus thinking, “how do I get them to understand? It is not about being powerful, about places of privilege or honor…how do I get them to understand?” And then he washes their feet.
I want to tell you about my boss at the first paid church job I had. Here I am, working part time at a large Episcopal church, running the Children’s ministry program. A slice in a big corporate sized church. Weekend attendance routinely approached 1000. Our staff meetings were on Monday mornings. At 10:30 we would file into the conference room around 12 of us, I think. Clergy, the Youth minister, Director of Music and organist, office business manager, publications person, congregational development director, administrative assistants…you get the picture. I really liked my boss, the rector of this church. Had liked him from the first conversation I had with him, as a new parishioner. And this one day I had a vivid example of one reason why I liked him so much. As we were heading into this meeting, the parish administrator dropped her Coke just inside the conference room. It went crashing from the top of the pile of papers she was carrying in to distribute to all of us. Ice, coke- all over the floor and her standing there with her arms full, some of us already in the room, others trying to make our way in. The rector was seated right next to the door- without hesitating a second he was out of his chair, scooping up ice off the floor and back into the cup with his bare hands, asking someone just outside the door to get some paper towels. Not a shred of “I’m too good, or important, to help.” He was the closest and could help the quickest. And he did.
And we let him. We helped as we could, but we did not insist he stop. And he would have expected nothing less from any of us. Serve those around us. When needed, and with love.
It is interesting to me that we have no problem remembering Jesus’ commandment to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of him. Oh, it may be juice in some places, and the bread ranges from little white puffy chiclets to huge loaves of yeast filled bread, but Christians of all types, throughout the ages, have gathered for the bread and wine.
But the feet washing, now that is more controversial. Ambrose of Milan, from the 4th century, considered it essential, this foot washing. But many other parts of the church moved away from it after the first couple of centuries of Christianity. But here it is in our Gospel for tonight. Jesus, on the floor with a towel around his waist, telling his disciples to wash one another’s feet. Remind yourselves that you are to serve and be served by others. That you are not just to wash others, but allow them to wash you. What kind of ills in the church and in the world could have been avoided if Popes had to wash beggars, presidents the feet of street children. If the regular hierarchy of society was turned over and mixed together on a regular basis by something like washing each others feet.
And in our focus on washing the feet- loving each other and caring for each other- and the bread and wine, the communion, the body and blood of Christ, we do proclaim not just the focus of tonight, but also of the rest of the weekend, both the cross and the resurrection. We do proclaim that we are God’s servants and we do remember Jesus’ sacrifice. We wash. We eat. We remember.
Need more sermon's posted!
ReplyDelete