John 13:1-17; 34-36
Maundy Thursday, April 2nd, 2015
Jesus Offers Us a Share in his Life
You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.
Unless I wash you, you have no share with me. What seems like a
simple act of service is not.
By the surprising act of foot washing of his disciples, Jesus
showed the disciples the full extent of his love. This demonstration
of his love became a command for each of his disciples to serve each
other in the same way. This command, the mandate of Christ, is
enacted among us on Maundy Thursday. The command of selfless
service to one another is re-enacted among us in the same way that
Jesus performed and demonstrated his will for the disciples. As
disciples, we carry this out tonight. This command is further
developed at the end of the passage with the following words, “as a
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new commandment, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you
must love one another. By this all will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.”
Most of us feel the same reluctance that Peter felt about allowing
Jesus to wash his feet. Our feelings mirror the disciples. The clergy,
as instructed by Jesus, wash each other’s feet, and, then hand the
sponge, the basin and towels to you who wash each other as Christ
washed his disciples. The experience of being washed and washing
is an act of trust and intimacy.
Normally, being washed is something that we do for children, or,
as family members or professional caregivers, we wash those who
are too ill or frail to wash themselves. The alarm the disciples felt
was probably not unlike our discomfort within our ceremony this
night, because Jesus washing their feet was definitely a reversal of
the expected social order as it is today.
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In the social order of hospitality in Jesus’ time, hosts would
provide footwashing supplies or servants as people entered their
homes for a meal, because people wore sandals walked dusty roads
to their destination. Providing for foot washing was a way to honor
a guest, not a way to keep the house clean. Nor, did the guests wash
each other’s feet. Jesus was the servant and the host providing
service and hospitality to the disciples. He showed the full extent of
his love to the end by freely offering himself in servitude. At Peter’s
resistance to Jesus washing him, Jesus says, you must or you will
have no part or share in me. In other words, if you do not allow me
to care for you, you will not know me or be in me. Being cared for
by Christ was receiving Christ.
We start our services of Holy Eucharist with the Collect for Purity
which acknowledges that we are known for what we have done and
for what we have left undone. “Almighty God to you all hearts are
open, all desires known and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse
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the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that
we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name;
through Christ our Lord.” Amen.
We invite God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, to cleanse us at the
beginning of almost every service. We do this at the very beginning
before we ever get around to our corporate and private confessions
which take place after the sermon and before Holy Communion. So,
we are a little closer to the emotional and spiritual complexity of
this cleansing, and Jesus said we would understand. Indeed, the
Collect of Purity is the spiritual and verbal acknowledgment of our
willingness to be cleaned by the Lord and leads to the spiritual and
psychic space allowing us to authentically confess our sins.
Sin for all of us is remarkably durable. St. Paul acknowledged this
in Romans 7:19, and I paraphrase, “ We know that the law is
spiritual; but I am unspiritual,...I do not understand what I do. For
what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do......as it is no longer
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I myself who does it, but is sin living in me. ....I have the desire to do
good but I keep on doing what I do not want to do...it is the sin living
within me. ...who will rescue me from this body of sin...Thanks be to
God---through Jesus Christ our Lord...
It’s hard for me to look out at all of you and think of any of you as
sinners, because, indeed, I know of your loving natures, your grace
and goodness. You probably look up here at me in the pulpit or at
Robin and others on the altar and think the same thing. But, I’m
sure that what I know of all your truthful and respectful natures and
what I know of your deep spirituality, that we can also acknowledge,
tonight in this intimate space, that St. Paul’s cry against his sin is our
cry. Most of us, most of the time have been obedient to the Ten
Commandments and most of us try most of the time, to love one
another as Christ loved us, but we have often failed, perhaps, not
egregiously, most of the time, but we know ourselves well enough to
know that there is a persistent body of sin within us that yields only
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to the grace of God who redeems us by forgiving us and by washing
us. It’s fundamental to the human condition and, we’re all in it. The
disciples were endowed with spiritual gifts, yet they wrestled, too,
with sin. They vied for special places in heaven next to Jesus. They
often were brusque and impatient with the demanding crowds
needing Jesus so much. They were not often able to pray rightly to
heal someone suffering. They often got God and Jesus wrongly, but
Jesus loved them and called them and demonstrated God’s grace to
them, specifically, for them, on this night, before their suffering
would begin at his death.
The Hebrew purity codes were, of course, concerned about this
very issue, because, yes, they were just like us, wanting to be
pleasing to God, wanting to be free of sin and deeply understanding
sin’s durability. The Hebrew purity codes provided the Hebrews
with “works” that the Jew could perform to become worthy to stand
before God.
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The way Jesus upset the apple cart theologically was that God in
seeing our sin will cleanse us if we make ourselves available for that
cleansing, and the beautiful thing is that cleansing is received in the
place of judgment. St. Paul, again in Romans, said that God sent his
Son so that we may live according to what the Holy Spirit
desires......the mind inspired by the Holy Spirit is life and peace with
the Holy Spirit living within you has given you a share in Christ as
children of God.
Instead, Jesus is opening our minds to purity and blessedness
through the experience of his Grace through his service that no
effort we make will yield. We can have no share in our Lord unless
we let him clean us; unless we let him to get that close to us. We are
in our figurative nursing home beds where no one else will go but
Jesus. Will we let him in? Will we let him clean us? Will we give up
control? “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved
them to the end.”
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As children of God, we fundamentally have to come to terms with
the notion that there simply are things in life we really have no
control over. Jesus makes it clear, though, that once we have
experienced his Grace, which is freely offered and freely given, we
are required to offer the Lord’s grace to our fellow human beings.
At the end of the supper, Jesus issues a new commandmentthat we
are to serve just as he did. Jesus’ commanment at the end of the
passage, that we must love one another, so that all will know that we
are Jesus’ disciples, and, all, through our example and offerings of
love will open the way to the life of the Spirit for others.
The washing is a blessing, and, as such, speaks with ancient
biblical significance; blessings are the transmission of inheritance
of God’s people. When Jesus uses, the terminology of share, it is a
term of inheritance, of blessing. Jesus is promising us a new
relationship that has been uniquely revealed in him and by his life of
love and sacrifice with us. Unless, you let me wash you, you will not
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inherit, you will not receive your share. In the old purity codes,
human beings washed themselves before coming before God. Jesus
says we must come before God and let God wash us. It turns
everything upside down, just as he did in the Sermon on the Mount,
when he created an alternative and authentic God reality for
humankind on earth. In that sermon, Jesus blessed all the sinful, the
sick, those who are longing and mourning and promised them a
place in heaven. Jesus at the footwashing reminds us that God’s
order is not our order. God does not think as we do, so it is God to
whom we must turn, to whom we must become pure through the
experience of His love and to whom we learn the way to treat other
human beings. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
Amen.
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