To Wash the Feet of a Hurting and Embarrassed World

I was fortunate enough to be asked to preach Maundy Thursday this year at the church that is sponsoring me for ordination.  Below is the text I preached from:

Jesus said: You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.

And again,

You also should do as I have done to you.

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

I’d like to tell you, just for a minute, about my best friend Ryan.

Ryan is a very clean human being.

He is a neat-freak, a germaphobe, an obsessive cleaner.

He wrote rules for his housemates and put them up by the sink,

Rules for how to keep the sponge clean.

Ryan knows that I’m not going to wear my shoes,

But he still thinks I’m crazy.

Ryan would never go around barefoot.

Ryan is the kind of person who comes to Maundy Thursday and says:

No way - no how - no chance am I taking my shoes off to have my feet washed.

Dirty.  Gross.  Unsanitary.  Weird.  EMBARASSING.

How good of Jesus to be honest,

As he knelt to wash his friends’ feet:

You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.

How many times did Jesus say this that we do not have written down?

How many times should Jesus have said this?

When the storm raged all around that little fishing boat,

Jesus took a nap.

When the crowd of five-thousand was half-starved and far from home,

Jesus sent the twelve out with two pieces of fish between all of them.

When the Pharisees, the strictest of all Jews, confronted Jesus,

He told them straight-up that they didn’t understand the Sabbath.

When a hated tax-collector was in the crowd,

Jesus broke everybody’s social rules and invited himself over for dinner.

            You go to the nicest house in Oxford and try that.

When the mob was already holding their stones, intent on righteous murder,

Jesus dropped down and drew in the dirt.

When a voice from heaven announced the start of his ministry,

Jesus fled / into the desert  and disappeared // for forty days.

You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.

In Bible study last Sunday morning

Pastor John told us that when we get baptized

We don’t have to turn in our brains at the door.

I’m glad for that.  I’m a teacher!  I’m glad for that.

But I also know something else:

A life that follows Jesus is going to be filled with a whole lot of confusion.

You do not understand what I am doing, Jesus said,

but later you will understand.

Peter did not understand.

Brash, impulsive Peter.

Peter,

Who named Jesus rabbi, master, teacher, messiah.

All Peter could see was Jesus,

Doing the work of a slave.

It was a slave’s job to deal with the feet,

The lowest slave of the low.

Jesus took his job,

Taking sandaled feet that trod the dusty, unpaved roads where the animals ran wild,

And washing them clean.

{Peter did not understand,

 “Lord, not my feed only but also my hands and my head!”

Peter did not understand.}

For all that Maundy Thursday is concerned with our feet,

It says a lot about our hands as well.

Jesus knew, the gospel says, that the Father had put ALL things into his hands.

It reminds me of that song:

“He’s got the whole world, in his hands…”

The Father had put all things into Jesus hands.

ALL things.

Justice. 

            Dominion. 

                        Glory.

            Power.

The Kingdom.

Do you remember the temptation?

“Now Satan took Jesus to a high mountain.

And he showed him all the kingdoms of the earth.
And he said to him:

“All this I will give to you,

If only you will bow down and worship me.”

“Love the Lord your God and worship Him only”

Jesus replied.

Satan thought the kingdom, the power, and the glory were in his hands.

But Satan         does not understand                power.

When Satan in his pride grabs for power

He thinks of ruling and of riches,

            Of fury and force,

            of might and of majesty,

                        of command    and of control.

Satan grabs power to lord it over others and force them to serve him.

The temptation Jesus faced in the desert was a double edged attack:

Jesus dodged one temptation by not taking the power from Satan,

By staying true to the One True God.

The other temptation that Jesus now overcomes

The temptation was to understand power in the way that Satan seeks to hold it.

The battle Jesus began with Satan in the desert begins to reach its climax here,

In the upper room at the last supper.

The Father had given all things into his hands.

Don’t you know that even now the tempter was there,

The echo of his voice whispering in Jesus’ ear:

“Take up the sword with a mighty hand and oustretched arm,

Attack your enemies, force the Romans out of Jerusalem,

Set up a kingdom of great power and glory

Put all the nations under your feet!”

In that moment,

When Jesus had all things in his hands,

He did not stretch out a mighty arm,

But he knelt and took up stinking, filthy feet.

Jesus understands power.

Power is to be used for the sake of love.

 “He loved them to the end,” one translation says,

Or in another “He showed them the full extent of his love.”

He took off his outer robe,

Tied a towel around his waist,

Knelt before them to do the work of a slave,

And used his hands to wash their feet.

And he said to them:

“You also should do as I     have done to you.”

What has Jesus done

                                    With his hands?

He has done the work of the lowest of the low.

He has ensured that they are clean in their body and their spirit.

He has anointed the feet of his friends
            That he knows will flee from his suffering.

I was with my friend Ryan one Maundy Thursday.

The bulletin for that service told us that we were free to have our hands washed

instead of our feet.

And Ryan, germaphobe that he is,

Instantly said “no way am I taking off my shoes.”

I peer pressured him,

Embarrassed him into doing what everyone else was doing.

I understand that many of you may feel now as Ryan did that night.

No way am I taking off my shoes.

Dirty.  Gross.  Unsanitary.  Weird.  EMBARASSING.

I know you may not believe it,

But even I know how hard it can be to accept having your feet washed.

I know it can be truly humiliating to take off your shoes

And allow someone to go so low as to wash off your feet.

One of the most humiliating experiences of my life was having my feet washed.

I was out in the grass playing soccer with my friends,

And of course, I was barefoot.

We played for hours in the mud and the grass.

At one point, a friend kicked me with her shoes on and cut open my foot.

It wasn’t that painful, so of course I kept playing!

But when I went to return to pick up my backpack from a classroom,

I passed by a friend of mine.

She was shocked at the sight of my feet,

Bruised and dirty and still slightly bleeding.

She forced me into a bathroom – a women’s bathroom! –

And made me sit on the sink so that she could wash off my feet.

I was just like Peter:

No!  Stop! 

You don’t have to do this!

I’m not worth this kind of love.

Friends, the lesson from 1 Corinthians is clear:

We must be humble as we come to this altar to receive,

To discern the body and blood of the Lord.

We must proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Friends, we are used to coming to this altar.

But tonight, we are invited to come forward not once, but twice.

One time will seem familiar. 

We come to kneel at this altar,

To receive communion.

But when we do that tonight,

It will be after the first time we come,

When we come to we have our feet washed.

We come to receive communion

After we have been humbled,

Embarassed, and even humiliated,

After we have come to realize

We do not deserve this kind of love.

This is no empty religious ritual.

We are coming forward to meet the hands that hold the whole world in place.

The hands into which the Father has given everything.

The hands that truly understand that

Having power means to love.

That having everything means being invited to serve.

That the true kingdom and power of God is NOT of this world,

But calls us to die to this world.

To come to the altar unsure, confused, and even embarrassed.

Calls us NOT to understand,

But to stretch out our own hands,

Weak, empty and frail,

And to hear the words:

The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.

The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.

Then we will be called to get up, on our feet, and to go out

To love and serve the Lord with gladness and singleness of heart,

To do to others as has been done unto us.

To be the hands of Jesus,

Seeking not our own power,

But filled with love,

To go out into a world that is confused, broken, hurting and embarrassed,

And to wash its feet.

Amen.