Foot Washing - An Act Of Love

 

Sermon 04/06/2023 -- Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17; 31b-35

Tonight’s gospel reading, John’s version of the last supper and the washing of his disciples feet is, I am sure, just as familiar to you as it is to me. As a deacon I have read this gospel at Maundy Thursday services in five different churches a total of 13 times, and I have preached on it in those same churches no fewer than 10 times.

As you can imagine, in situations like this it is tempting for the preacher, whoever they might be, to look back, dust off a favorite sermon from the past, and heave a sigh of relief that a sermon “short-cut” is at hand. I mean, what more can there be to say after 10 sermons on the same scripture passage?

So, as I once again read through John’s account of this last meeting between Jesus and the twelve disciples, I thought, “O wow what am I going to say this year?” Am I going to focus on the foot washing or the commandment – or, what?

After some thought I decided to discipline myself and read and then re-read the passage five times, pausing after each reading to reflect and write down a word or two.

As those of you who enjoy the discipline of lectio divina know full well, each time we read Scripture we hear the words and understand each story in a new light and through new lenses. And the very same held true for me earlier last week as I re-read John’s description of this incredible moment in time. The story of the last supper, the foot washing, and Jesus’ exhortation of a new commandment when he said: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”

In the end, putting together tonight’s sermon sent me on quite a journey. A journey that led me to new insights and new ways of thinking about Jesus and his disciples last evening together. Even more than new insights and new ways of interpreting the events of the evening, however, was the new lens through which I now saw Jesus as he interacted with his disciples at this critical moment in time, teaching them and modeling behavior for them, even as he faced immanent arrest, torture, and a certain humiliating death on the cross.

Let me start at the beginning of my sermon journey. My first inclination was to focus this year on Jesus’ humility. The phrase “…[he] got up from the table, took off his outer robe and tied a towel around himself” popped out at me in new and quite graphic ways. I read this amazing act of humility through and through and gradually an image of Jesus sitting at the long wooden table, gazing at his disciples as they finished their last meal together, wondering how he might further demonstrate to them the way in which, through him, God loved them and called them to love others in the same way became startingly clear.

I found my breath taken away as I imagined this young man, the Son of God, the Messiah, deciding to humble himself to the lowest possible denominator, that of a slave, in order to demonstrate his love of these few ragged followers whom he was about to leave behind. The kind of love we call agape love, the highest form of love, charity, and the love of God for man and of man for God.

What must Jesus have been thinking? What must he have been feeling? In my limited imagination I envisioned a man who, despite facing the immanence of his own brutal death, was filled with passion, hope, and an urgent desire to convey God’s message of love to mankind. Perhaps a man a bit tormented. Torn between deep passion and deep frustration. A passion of commitment to teach and a frustration that his disciples continually failed to apprehend his teachings.

All of these imaginings brought me to the second stage of my sermon journey. I wondered, is John’s gospel primarily about humility, or is it primarily about passion and love? After all, the passage begins with a statement about Jesus’ love for his disciples. “…Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” The text moves on to describe the meal and then the foot washing before closing with the statement, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

I thought about the foot washing and wondered about its placement after the meal. Foot washing in Jesus’ time normally occurred before the meal. It was performed as an act of hospitality and cleansing. Since in John’s account it occurs after the meal it must have had an alternative meaning.

My research led me to a journal article entitled “The Meaning of Jesus Washing the Feet of His Disciples.” In it, author Jan van der Watt writes, “[We have argued] that the emphasis in the foot washing narrative…should be placed not on humble service as such, but on the nature of intense love…Foot washing has a clear meaning as a key to the rejection of social hierarchy and a new form of social relationships based on Jesus. These new relationships, defined by the intense love Jesus has for his own, are expressed in service to one another…[as expressed] in the words of Jesus, ‘A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.’”

Van der Watt points out that tonight’s gospel reading is framed by passages that address love, opening with “…Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” And concluding with “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

He concludes, and I agree, that the foot washing was an act of extreme and passionate love. An act that furnished for the disciples, and today furnishes for us, a model of just what love actually looks like. The tenderness, the caring, the touching, and yes, the humility that comprises acts of love that have no boundaries. Love that knows no class, no skin color, no judgment. Love that is the very same love that God has for all his beloved children – no matter who, no matter where.

In just a few moments we will be invited to wash each other’s feet. Frankly, this has never been a popular activity anywhere that I have ever been. Indeed, at two of the churches I served there was no foot washing at all during the course of the Maundy Thursday service. The entire focus was on the stripping of the altar.

But we here at St. Simon’s include this act of love of neighbor in our Maundy Thursday liturgy each year. We include it because we believe that as disciples of Christ, we are called to love each other as he loved us – not just when it is easy to do so, but also when it is difficult and most humbling to do so. Indeed, it is in the most humbling of moments that we truly see God and God’s love, as he becomes alive in our act of serving and loving the other.

As we leave this holy place tonight and go silently into the darkness of night contemplating the death of the church – the crucifixion of Jesus – what will we carry in our hearts?

Will we keep in our mind’s eye the image of a passionate and loving Jesus who despite facing immanent death calmly knelt before his beloved disciples in humble, passionate, and loving servitude, modeling for them through the concrete action of foot washing his teaching of loving each other as he loved us – as God loved us?

Will we continue to experience the passion of that love as it is shown through all aspects of the incarnation. Will we carry it forward as we struggle as a community with worldly matters that confuse, frustrate, and so frequently tear us apart? Will we carry that message of love forward teaching others through our concrete actions just as Jesus who also struggled with complex feelings taught and showed us through his humble service to his God – and to us?

Tonight, is a night filled with complex, conflicting, and frequently distressing feelings. That is precisely why it is an important night. A challenging night that we should not shy away from. It is a night that is reflective of the complex, conflicting, and frequently distressing life events that we must face. Life events that all too frequently, tear us away from Jesus’ love, rudely pushing us off the path of love and propelling us down paths of anger and hatred. Feelings and situations that blind us to the gift of love given to us by God and demonstrated to us in the incarnation, in the life and death of his Son Jesus Christ. 

Which path will we take as we leave this complex evening and its message of love?