Sermon for Maundy Thursday 3-28-24
Do you know what I have done to you?
Early this week we watched in shock as the Key bridge in Baltimore collapsed. The people of that city traveled over that bridge for over 50 years. They relied on it, trusted it’s surface to support them until suddenly the bridges own supports were damaged. One woman in a news story spoke of the ripples of shock those who live in the area were feeling.
We can identify with the people of Baltimore, we each have our own narratives of shock and loss.
It’s that shock of loss, not of a structure but of identity grounded in a social structure that prompt’s Peter’s protest.
Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Jesus is doing the unthinkable — again.
Here they are, the night before Passover. It’s pretty clear Jesus is going to be arrested any time now
And after the meal Jesus gets up and starts washing the feet of the disciples. Offering water for foot washing was an ordinary part of hospitality in Jesus’ time. The city streets were dirty, sometimes with the gutters full of garbage.
By the time you walked to your destination your feet needed washing, especially if you were going to sit down to a meal. But the washing was done by a servant.
For Jesus, their teacher and Master, to take that role shattered every social norm. Jesus their teacher, the one who had come from God and was going to God chose to wash the disciples’ feet.
Occasionally disciples might wash their teacher’s feet. Certainly not the other way ‘round. But here goes Jesus, standing up and wrapping himself with a servant’s towel.
No wonder Peter was in shock. This is the same group of disciples who not so long ago were arguing about rank, on the road to Jerusalem, about who was going to sit at Jesus’ right and left.
Now Jesus, their teacher, the one they expected to save them, is doing a slave’s job.
Peter’s protest, “Lord You will never wash my feet!” comes from his instinctive resistance to having something just built into the social structure he knew – footwashing is servant’s work – turned upside down by Jesus again.
Shock turns to resistance, as it so often does for us .When something we count on, a person, a place, a perspective, a social identity suddenly changes it feels like the ground opens up beneath us. Everything feels strange and we grab for the security of what we know.
Jesus steps outside of the role of Teacher, washing the disciples’ feet, He serves them Jesus is the example. Jesus emptied himself, taking on the role of a slave, as we heard in the reading from Philippians just a few days ago.
Jesus tells the disciples and us – I give you a new commandment – love one another as I have loved you. This is sacrificial love. Love that goes beyond what’s expected.
Love that shatters the social structures which separate us from one another, love that steps outside of social roles or expectations and does what’s needed. Love that is willing to die.
We call this night Maundy Thursday because it is focused on the new commandment the mandautum from Jesus us to love one another as he has loved us. We cannot separate the love of the new commandment which shapes our community from Jesus’ impending death.
To love one another as Jesus did means letting go of all our ideas of rank and power and prestige, Emptying ourselves of all that stuff we hold onto that separates us from one another.The impoverished love of basin and towel shatter the social structures which separate us – if we let them.
So this night, we follow Jesus’ example. We move from thinking about self-emptying love to practicing in a small way our love and care for one another. Tonight we will wash hands rather than feet, as we remember the commandment Jesus gave us.
As we wash one another’s hands, may we remember that sacrificial love is a practical thing, love which takes on flesh in the practical, gritty choices of our daily lives.
The basin and towel Jesus used for footwashing was part and parcel of the practical reality of life in Jerusalem. Feet got dirty and smelly walking those city streets. They needed to be washed.
Our hands may not be so dirty. Our social divisions are just as real, but we may not see them so easily in this basin and towel.
For Jesus’ disciples this action embodied self-emptying sacrificial love because he literally took the position of a marginalized person. A servant, one of the invisible people whose presence doesn’t even make it into many of the gospel stories about meals. Everyone knew hospitality included having servants available to wash the grimy feet of your guests.
Except on this night.
This night is different than all other nights…
This night Jesus creates a new community.
Do you know what I have done to you?
if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you
To you not for you. Jesus action is transformative, creating a new way of relating a new community defined by sacrificial love. Self-emptying love that lays aside rank, power, pretense. Love that serves love that sees and stands with those who are invisible in our society those who live on the edges of our own social narratives for any reason – financial, physical, health, immigration status, housing, race…. Whatever it is….
I give you a new commandment love one another as I have loved you. We catch a glimpse of love’s power in the first responders working to save lives in a frigid Maryland river.
We see love building community every Wednesday among volunteers and guests at Trinity Pantry. And we pray. That tonight the basin and towel may evoke transformation in us.
Do you know what I have done to you?
What does Jesus invite you to pour out in these waters? What emptying will enable you to love as Jesus loved?
As the song says, The call is to community, the impoverished power that sets the soul free In humility to take the vow that day after day we will take up the basin and the towel.
May Jesus work through these basins and towels to shatter our illusions of separateness and form us into a community of love.
Amen+
© Karen Lawler, OEF