Rick Olson, Thursday, March 20, 2008
The word “Maundy” in Maundy Thursday is from the Latin maundatum which means commandment, and our passage ends with the new commandment that Jesus gave his disciples, who are, of course, us: “Just as I have loved you,” he says “you should also love one another.” In fact, our passage begins and ends with love, it’s surrounded by it: at the beginning, we’re told that Jesus “having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end” and so there’s no doubt that that’s what this passage is all about, love, but Peter doesn’t get it, at least not at the time, he thinks it’s all about who’s the greatest, and who should wash who’s feet.
It’s Jesus’ last Passover meal, what we’ve come to call the Last Supper, and just like tonight, they’re gathered around the table. Just like tonight, the room is darkened and the world rages on outside; Just like tonight, they’re in a little pool of calm, a little island of quiet in the middle of all the chaos. And John tells us that the devil has already put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus, but the disciples don’t know it, Peter doesn’t know it, though perhaps they should . . . Jesus has told them so on more than one occasion . . . but I imagine they felt the weight of the world, outside their walls, as they contemplated their place as subversives in a world arrayed against them.
And as they recline at the table—we sit, they recline—as they recline around the table, pondering their fate and the fate of their teacher, that same teacher, who they’d called Lord and Master, that same teacher very deliberately gets up, takes off his robe, and ties a towel around his waist, and suddenly he’s like any other household slave, any other servant who refreshed the dusty feet of dinner guest throughout Palestine, and as he made his way around the disciples sat like polled oxen, dumfounded, unable to speak, but with increasingly uncomfortable, increasingly squirmy looks on their faces. They were clearly uncomfortable, clearly uneasy with the situation, but they didn’t want to say anything.
But not ol’ Peter . . . when it was his turn he rared up and put it plainly: “are you gonna wash my feet?” And Jesus replied “you don’t know what I’m doing, but later you’ll understand” which made no sense whatsoever to Peter, who could see very plainly, thank you very much, what Jesus was doing, he was making a fool out of himself, that’s what it was, and he said: “You’re never gonna wash my feet.” And Jesus says: Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” And immediately Peter tries to backpedal, tries to put the best face on it “Lord, if that’s the case, then do me up brown, wash my whole body, my hands and feet,” and here we could see that he doesn’t get it at all ‘cause he thinks it’s gonna be pleasant, any share he gets with Christ, but we know what he’s talking about here . . . not exactly a walk in the park, what’s gonna happen in just a few short hours . . .
But we do, don’t we? We know what will happen tonight, in the garden as Peter and James and John sleep . . . but Peter thinks it’s about who’s greater than who, he reminds me of John the Baptist, saying “You are baptizing me?” and when he’d removed the towel and put on his robe, he was once again in the teaching mode, and they couldn’t miss it, he was once again their teacher in his formal robe . . . and like the good teacher he was, he asks them if they get the lesson: “Do you know what I have done to you?” What have you learned from all of this, by observing my actions . . . what Jesus has done is to model what they are to do: 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.” And even Peter was not so obtuse as to miss the meaning this time: Christian disciples are to be servants, one to another.
This reminds me of another time when the disciples didn’t get it, where James and John asked to be seated in the kingdom, one on Jesus’ right and one on his left in their glory, and Jesus rebuked them compared them to non-believers, saying “among them, those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them . . . but it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all . . .” and Judas stumbles up from the table, shame-faced but determined, and Jesus knows it is near . . . “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.’ But I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
And finally, we see what it’s about, the object-lesson of the foot-washing, all the talk of “Now the Son of Man has been glorified . . . all the “where I am going, you cannot come” . . . it’s all bound up in love.
Brothers and sisters, in a few short hours, Christ will go to his doom . . . in a few short hours, he’ll be arrested, tried without much honor, and then nailed to a cross-shaped tree . . . and it’s a measure of God’s love, a measure of God’s devotion, that it should be so. For God so loved the world that God gave his only-begotten son . . . and how are we to respond? How are we to live our lives in the light of this amazing act of love? Simply to respond in kind . . . I give you a new commandment, Jesus says, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Because Christ has loved us, because he performed the ultimate act of service for us, so are we able to love others.
And there’s one other thing, one other mark of Christians everywhere: by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, Christ said, if you have love for one another. They won’t recognize us by how many hymns we sing, by who we choose to ordain or not ordain, or even by who we vote for in the upcoming election. They will know we are Christians by our love. Amen.
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