Washing up

Remember what you were told as kids just after dinner was announced? In my house it was "Wash up!"

And I am sure that you’ve seen the signs: "employees must wash hands before returning to work." We are getting more and more used to it. 

The other day, I heard a little boy washing his hands with his dad. I loved hearing them both sang “happy birthday to you” because evidently the little boy learned in school that he needed to scrub that long to wash away the germs.

Look around. Almost everywhere, including in this church, you see bottles of sanitizer so people can clean their hands. Why? Well, we want to be clean, and we want to be healthy. And we are trying to protect ourselves from things we can’t see. And we’ve gotten used to seeing them everywhere: at the entries to stores, restaurants, doctor’s offices, medical buildings, hospitals, convenience store counters, even at Church. These past two years, we’ve gotten used to hand washing and sanitizing.

Hands, okay. But washing feet? 

Every year, I've heard the same thing when Holy Week rolls around. Whenever we invite people to have their feet washed, they often say “ugh” or “eww” or “no thank you!” But it was once part of everyday life but even in Biblical times, people got weird about washing feet.

There are three stories of foot washing in the Gospels, and each time someone is unhappy. In two of these, women wash Jesus feet. In Luke, a woman comes into a dinner party where Jesus was eating with both his disciples and with Pharisees and scribes, and washes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. In the Gospel of John, Mary of Bethany washes Jesus’ feet and anoints them with expensive perfume and also dries his feet with her hair.

In these cases, people were scandalized. In Luke, when Jesus allowed a woman to touch him and while she was at it took a typical ritual of hospitality and went overboard, the people in the room were scandalized. In John, Judas sniffs that expensive perfume used on his feet was wasted.

Tonight, we heard that Simon Peter protested, “You will never wash my feet.”  Not Jesus.  Not his master.  Not ever.  Still, there was Jesus with his wash basin and his towel.  He knelt in front of them one by one and washed their feet, calluses and all.

In all of these accounts, no one is upset that foot-washing per se is, well, yucky. It’s just that it should be done by someone else, preferably a servant, and whatever happens, no one should talk about it too much. In all three Gospel accounts, though, the person washing the feet draws attention to both the status of the washer and the status of the one being washed.

When Jesus was done washing his disciples feet, he told them why he did it.  “I’m setting an example for you,” he said.  “You also should do what I have done to you.” 

If we look at the precedents set, at least in the Gospel of John, look at what Jesus did. He reduced himself not only to the status of a slave, worse than that he is now at the level of women.

Shocking, yes, but it is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry and the reason he is heading to the cross. In Jesus’ action, he has flipped everything upside down. Servants are now at the heart of the Gospel. Those who are being served…the humble, the sick, the incarcerated, the poor, the outcast…are the head of the line in God’s reign.

The word “Maundy” for “Maundy Thursday” comes from the Latin for the new command that Jesus gives his disciples. We are no longer to settle for merely practicing the golden rule of treating others in the way we would like to be treated. To follow Jesus is more than simply being “nice.”

No. Jesus’ new commandment is to love one another as he has loved us. This new command is one where our love is to be love for it’s own sake, with no expectation for anything in return.

Jesus is sending his disciples—and us-- out into the world, into those crowds of people with all kinds of needs, fears, hopes, possibilities and foibles.. And what are we to do? We are to wash their feet. We are to share Jesus’ body and blood in broken bread and poured out wine. We are to baptize, washing people in water and the Holy Spirit so that they may be a part of God’s family, the Church. Jesus’ washing of feet teaches us that at the heart of the Gospel is to actively, practically love them because in the act of loving, both the lover and the loved is changed.

This Lent, I read a book called Priests de la Resistance!: The Loose Canons Who Fought Fascism in the Twentieth Century by a priest in the Church of England named The Rev. Fergus Butler-Gallie. In it, he describes the many clergy, nuns, monks, and Christian laity of several traditions who fought fascism, often resulting in death. It was a useful meditation on the sacrificial nature of Christian discipleship. But one does not have to experience martyrdom to understand and live the practical love of Jesus every day.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once talked about the enormous job of being Christ’s people in a broken world. She said:

“People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway.

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. 

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. 

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. 

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. 

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. 

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. 

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” 

Jesus demonstrates his new commandment to love one another as he loves us when he stoops to wash his disciples feet. He becomes the slave so that we can learn about the primacy of service. He will demonstrate it again when he will willingly give himself to the cross so that none of us have to face death with the same terror again. He lives, he dies, he serves so that we might have life and live in in service to others.

Now that we have been given this new commandment, just what are we to do now? Jesus’ answers when he takes up a towel and some water and gets down on his knees to serve: His answer: Love them anyway.

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Here is the bulletin for Maundy Thursday at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater, FL

Here is a video of the liturgy.

Here is a video of the sermon.