Maundy Thursday

Imagine a leader or a celebrity you admire, and picture that person in your mind.  Now imagine coming home one day and finding that person inside your house, cleaning your toilet.  You would feel like saying, “No!  Stop!  This is not the way things are supposed to be!”

That is the kind of reaction the disciples feel when Jesus does something shocking, something that seems wrong, something that violates all the norms of society.  He leaves the table of fellowship, where he and his disciples are reclining together at this meal, takes off his outer robe, and starts doing the ugly, menial task of handling his disciples’ dirty, stinky feet.  The other disciples respond with stunned silence, but Peter asks what’s going on here? “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus tells Peter, “You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.”  Peter has no interest in waiting for any later understanding, and wants to put a stop to this immediately: “You will never wash my feet.”  We can see why it feels all wrong to him.  The expectations that we take for granted so much that we don’t even notice they exist are being turned upside down.  This is not the way honoured leaders behave. 

And that’s Jesus’ point, that his leadership is the exact opposite of what we’re used to.  This tells us a lot about who Jesus is, that the most exalted, glorious, magnificent divine ruler of the universe wants to do a dirty and dishonorable task for us, and for all the other folks whose feet are as dirty and stinky as ours.  It doesn’t fit into any of our categories, any of our understandings of how earth and heaven operate.  Jesus wants us to open our minds to something totally new, beyond the categories, beyond the understandings.

The passage we read tonight is a plentiful one, with messages for us about two of the most important topics in our faith: who God is and who God is calling us to be as disciples of Jesus.  Love is a recurring theme throughout it, and it’s love in the context of pain, betrayal, and loss.  We see this right from the first three sentences.  The first and third sentences address the pain, betrayal, and loss directly: “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father…The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him.” And in the second sentence, right in the middle of that context, we find the love: “Having loved his own who were in the world, [Jesus] loved them to the end.”

Learning more fully who Jesus is, is valuable, no question.  And then Jesus takes things one step further and talks about each of us.  “So 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.”  If we want to be disciples of Jesus, that involves humble acts of service.  It involves doing the dirty tasks, the ugly tasks, the thankless tasks.  It involves not getting so caught up in our own lives, our own goals, our own emotions, that we forget to pay attention to the poor and those who live on the margins of society. 

When we look at our spiritual lives, we may have a sense that we should have made more progress by now, that our faith should be stronger or more peaceful or more fervent, or maybe that our spiritual life should be more like the spiritual life of that other person we partly admire and partly envy.  We may want to have accomplished more in our spiritual life.  I’ve felt all this myself at various times.  And yet, I also have the sense that our spiritual “accomplishments” are often either beside the point, or sometimes just one more example of the sin of pride in thinking it’s all about me and my accomplishments and how they measure up against somebody else’s accomplishments, while Jesus is not at all interested in my showing off my spiritual accomplishments, because I’m not caring about my poor neighbour who could really use some help.

There are two temptations here which are in some ways mirror images of each other.  Even though they seem like opposites, I’ve experienced both of them at various times. The first temptation is the tendency to neglect the humble service of others, especially those who are beneath us on the social ladder in one way or another. 

The opposite temptation is the tendency to be quite willing to be the giver of help and care, but to be unwilling to be the receiver of help and care.  To be happy to be the helper, but very unhappy about being the helpee.  We can think of this as “oh, I’m just too virtuous for my own good!”  But there’s more to it than that.  To be the giver of help is, in it’s own way, a position of power or superiority.  I’m the person with power, and I’m taking care of you, the person who’s helpless.  I’m the person who’s healthy, and I’m taking care of you, the person who’s sick.  I’m the person who’s rich, and I’m giving to you, the person who’s poor.  I’m the person who understands, and I’m teaching you, the person who’s ignorant.  But to be on the receiving end of that power and superiority can feel kind of icky.  We don’t like feeling helpless and needing care.  We don’t like feeling sick and needing care.  We don’t like feeling poor and needing care.  We don’t like feeling ignorant and needing care.  We often want to get out of those feelings as soon as we possibly can and reassert our power and our superiority again.  This can make us grumpy, resentful, or downright mean.  It is not the way of Jesus. 

Just as Jesus is willing to wash his disciples stinky feet tonight, we remember from the passage we heard a few Sundays ago that Jesus is willing to let Mary of Bethany anoint his stinky feet with her perfume.  He is willing to be the one who receives care, with the humility of knowing he will soon be a corpse.  As he approaches his crucifixion, he knows that he is giving up power and superiority.  He is willing to be poor.  He is willing to suffer pain.  He is willing to be powerless: rejected, despised, thirsty, betrayed, jeered at. 

We can remember this the next time we feel disregarded or helpless, the next time someone doesn’t treat us with the respect we think we deserve, the next time we don’t get our way.  To follow Christ means we don’t always have to react by asserting power and superiority over others.

We see two important things about who Jesus is here.  First, that Jesus is willing to turn all the standards of power and honour upside down, to show love in serving, with humility, the flawed people around him.  Second, that Jesus is willing to show love, with humility, in receiving care, and in enduring pain, helplessness, and rejection and meeting them with patient endurance. 

Jesus calls us to seek two things as his disciples.  First, to show love for our neighbours in serving the hurting people around us, with all their flaws, and to do so humbly, knowing that the tables could be turned and we could be the ones feeling helpless and in need of care.  Second, when the tables are turned and we are the ones feeling helpless and in need of care, to have the humility to endure pain, helplessness, and rejection, meeting them with patient endurance. 

As we strive to follow Jesus, sometimes we will do well, other times we will fail.  When we do fail, when we feel weak or helpless, when we do not have a lot of spiritual accomplishments to boost our egos, when we are insensitive to the needs of others, or our patient endurance goes out the window, when we have acted arrogant or superior, when we feel regret or guilt or shame, we can return to the Jesus who washes dirty, stinky feet.  We can bring to Jesus whatever parts of ourselves are dirty or stinky, and know that Jesus will not recoil in horror and say, “eew, gross!” but Jesus will treat even the parts of us we are embarrassed about with humility and tenderness and care, washing away all our sins, and most of all, Jesus will treat us with love.