Humble Service

Maundy Thursday B, 4/2/15

John 13:1-17; 31b-35

Lord, help us to understand your example of humble leadership. Guide this faith community as we reflect now on your words and your actions, and seek to apply them to our lives. We pray in your holy name, Amen.

There’s a song that I learned many years ago.

Perhaps some of you learned it too.

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,

yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

                  (by Peter Scholtes, (c) 1966 by F.E.L. Productions)

Showing love is the mark of being a Christian.

Love is what identifies us as followers of Jesus.

In today’s Gospel reading we heard about the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples.

At that last meal, Jesus showed his love and his commitment to servanthood by washing the disciples’ feet.

As you can imagine, washing someone’s feet was a very intimate and important act. It carried a lot of meaning with it.

Since we are going to join together in footwashing as part of worship in a few minutes, let’s explore the various meanings that it had.

(Some sermon ideas confirmed or expanded at this website: http://www.zionlutherannj.net/footwashing-in-the-old-and-new-testament-the-graeco-roman-world-the-early-church-and-the-liturgy-2/)

According to Old Testament accounts, footwashing was a sacred act.

Priests were required to wash their hands and feet before they could offer sacrifices in the Temple. (Exodus 30:17-20)

Even in the Roman Empire, which was the political power of Jesus’ day, priests would wash their feet before entering holy places.

Washing someone’s feet was also a sign of hospitality.

In the book of Genesis, when the Lord appeared to Abraham in the form of three travelers, Abraham ordered that some water be brought so that the travelers’ feet could be washed. (Genesis 18:4)

You have probably heard the story of the sinful woman coming in to a dinner party where Jesus was eating, and washing his feet with her tears and anointing them with oil.  When the host wants to chastise the woman for her behavior, Jesus reminds him that he – the host – didn’t provide any water for footwashing – this sinful woman was completing the act of hospitality that the host had failed at. (Luke 7:36-50)

Footwashing showed the subjugation of the washer to the washee.

The person who was getting their feet washed would typically have been at a much higher social status than the one doing the washing. Even though people could order footwashing as an act of hospitality for their guests, it was usually their servants who actually carried it out – this was not an activity that peers would do for each other.

More to the point, footwashing was certainly not something that a superior would have ever done for a subordinate.

The disciples were the ones following Jesus. They considered him to be more important than they were, at least at some level.

Even though Jesus, the Teacher, didn’t have any greater social standing that the disciples according to most human measures, his followers thought that he did. They believed that he had a special message from God. So, in their eyes, Jesus was the superior one of the group.

And yet, Jesus lowered himself into the role of the person with the lower social status. He washed his disciples’ feet as an act of love.

Jesus took on the role of a servant. He performed the sacred act of hospitality. This exemplified what he defined love to be, and it is what he asked the disciples to emulate.

According to Jesus’ example in tonight’s Gospel story, faithful discipleship means showing love to other people by serving them.

The world will know that you are a follower of Jesus by the way that you care for other people.

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,

yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

But Peter didn’t like it.

You may have noticed, it sounds like the first few disciples let Jesus wash their feet without any argument.

But when Jesus comes to Peter, he does not want the Lord to perform such a service for him. Peter does not believe that it is appropriate.

Jesus gently corrects Peter. Being a true follower means serving the Lord, yes… and it also means allowing others to serve you, sometimes.

If you don’t allow other people to give you help when you need it, you won’t be able to accept help from God when you need it.

Being a follower of Christ means being humble before other people, so that we can also be humble before God.

At his last meal with his disciples, Jesus gave them a purpose in life. Have you ever wondered, what is the meaning of life? Well, here it is.

Jesus gives us a new commandment, to love one another.

Love one another as Jesus loved us.

Love. Love is the purpose of life.

In the meal that Jesus shared with the disciples, he filled the roles of both servant and host.

Out of love, Jesus made sure that the meal was prepared, and he broke the bread and poured the wine.

But before that, out of love, Jesus also made sure that the disciples were welcomed appropriately, with their feet being washed, even though Peter didn’t like it.

Some of my favorite books are The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.

In case you’re not familiar with these books… It’s a series of seven children’s books, where kids from England magically find their way into another world, called Narnia, and have all kinds of adventures there.

I highly recommend them, even for adults!

In one of the books, C.S. Lewis gives us a definition of true leadership.

The king is talking to his long-lost son, who has just found out that he will be king himself someday, and this is how the king summarizes that role:

“this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”

The Horse and His Boy, p. 240

 That’s the kind of leader that Jesus is for us. Both a servant and a host.

         So, if we are looking to lead, Jesus can be an example for us.

But remember, we too are followers of Jesus, just like the disciples were.

How would we respond if Jesus showed up here and wanted to wash all of our feet? Would we let him? Or would we recoil, like Peter did?

As we consider what tonight’s story means for us, it’s easy to focus on the example of Jesus.

         Jesus wants us to love others as he loved us.

         We know this – we already try to live by it.

But let’s not forget that we are not Jesus.

No matter how hard we try to show our faith to the world through acts of love, sometimes we will fail, sometimes we will make mistakes, and sometimes we might actually be counterproductive to the faith that we profess.

In those moments, let’s remember that in this whole relationship, we’re actually a lot more like the disciples than like Jesus.

So Jesus can be a role model of faith for us.

But so can the disciples.

The disciples tonight teach us that it is OK to be served by someone else sometimes. We must allow ourselves to accept hospitality as well as offer it – we must remember that while Jesus is able to be both servant and host, that is not always our calling.

We are more likely to be like Peter.

         What? Jesus, you want to wash my feet?

         I don’t think so.

They’re dirty, smelly, calloused… I just got back from the gym and am all sweaty… I haven’t shaved my legs in a week or had a pedicure in a month… we could make excuses all day long.

OK, be honest… those of you who are planning on participating in footwashing tonight – how many of you pre-washed your feet?

That’s understandable. It’s the first time we’ve done this in our congregation, and it’s pushing many of us outside our comfort zone.

Also, as previously noted, we are not Jesus. Maybe you’d be more willing to bare your unwashed feet to Jesus than to me or another pastor.

That’s OK. Tonight’s footwashing is a symbolic remembrance of the one that happened between Jesus and his disciples.

But the lesson the disciples learned is still relevant. The point we can learn from Jesus and Peter is that sometimes we do have to bare our stinky, dirty, calloused feet to Jesus in order to let him clean them.

Jesus reminds Peter that it is important to accept a gift when it is given. Sometimes, we need to let God – or other people – do something for us. We need to allow them to be the host or the servant.

As we do this – as we serve, and as we allow ourselves to be served – we are participating in the holy, hospitable, intimate, acts of discipleship.

Just like Jesus and his followers did on the night he was betrayed.

Please pray with me.

Thank you, Jesus, for your example of how to be the perfect host and the perfect servant. Thank you for the witness of Peter, who only reluctantly accepted your gift of grace. Help us to be like Jesus in our service to others, and help us to accept your grace as Peter finally did, whenever you offer it to us.

We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.