The reading
John 13:1-17
1 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that
his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved
his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The devil had
already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And
during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his
hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the
table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he
poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe
them with the towel that was tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who
said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered,
"You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."
8 Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered,
"Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." 9 Simon Peter said to
him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus
said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the
feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." 11
For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of
you are clean." 12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe,
and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have
done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is
what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also
ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you
also should do as I have done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you, servants are
not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent
them. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
The message
It takes John’s Gospel 12 chapters to get to Jesus last
night. It will take 5 chapters to describe those hours and their
significance. In the first 12 chapters
of John, we see the 7 signs that will show the bold promises of the prologue we
heard on Christmas are true, proof that Jesus is the word of God made flesh,
evidence that he is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness did
not overcome it. There is an aggressive argument that Jesus is superior even to
Moses: This is set out in the introduction “The law indeed was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It
is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”.
The 7 signs in John’s Gospel are Changing water into wine at
a wedding for friends in Cana (told in John 2:1-11) Then there is the healing
the royal official's son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54, Healing the paralytic at
Bethesda in John 5:1-15 and Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14 (one of the few
stories found in all 4 Gospels). After this, there is walking on water in John
6:16-24, healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1-7 and finally, Jesus
raising his friend Lazarus from the dead in John 11:1-45. This list is not meant to be a complete or
comprehensive description of what Jesus did, each sign is selected to show us
something about Jesus. The feeding of
5000 (plus an unknown number of woman and children) with a few loaves and fish
shows that Jesus is greater than the prophet Elijah, who feed 100 with a small
amount of food. The power to heal a man
born blind was never experienced or shown before, likewise, no one could raise
the dead.
Along with these signs, we hear reports of Jesus chasing the
money lenders out of the temple (an early action that amplifies the conflict
between Jesus and the religious authorities). We also hear of Jesus welcoming an
outsider, a Samaritan woman with a hard story into the kingdom of God. Finally,
these first 12 chapters are filled with information on how Jesus called, taught
and equipped his followers for ministry.
Today’s reading is the start of John’s detailed description
of Jesus last hours. This reading from
John 13 is one we usually reserve for Holy or Maundy Thursday, where we
remember Jesus command, “do this in remembrance of me”. We usually focus on Jesus
instructions and promises on Holy Communion first made this night as reported
in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians. The
challenge for us is that John’s Gospel makes no mention of Holy Communion,
instead, we have this story of Jesus washing his disciples feet. Communion is about God being present with us,
in the world, mysteriously being what Luther calls “in, with and under” these
common elements of bread and wine. For
John, the presence of God with us, in the world, can be shown in how we serve
one another. In particular, how we overlook social, political or economic
things and live seeing everyone as loved by God. The foot-washing is a way that Jesus prepares
his disciples for the work of being the church, for starting new congregations,
preaching in the face of oppression and threat, defending their beliefs against
other philosophies or ideas, healing the
sick, welcoming others and living a different way.
Foot-washing was a common custom in Jesus time, a basic act
of welcome into someone’s home and a job reserved for the lowest of servants. Today, most of us wash ourselves, it’s a
private experience. In fact one of the biggest discomforts for many people as
they grow older is the inability to care for their own bodies. We also walk on cement, paved streets, travel
in vehicles and mostly wear solid, hole free, closed shoes. Even for our Holy Thursday worship services, instead of footwashing, we purchase hygiene
items (soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, washcloth, mouthwash, shampoo, etc) to be
distributed to new arrivals at the Pam Am family shelter (and leave the washing
to them). This simple act helps us recognize
the shared humanness of all those around us, the shared deserving and the
shared need.
I do not want to totally forget about the foot-washing. It is not irrelevant to us today. As Jesus prepares to wash his disciples feet,
Peter objects, no way is he going to allow his teacher and Lord to wash his
feet, that’s not right, Jesus has done more than enough already. To this, Jesus answers, "You do not
know now what I am doing, but later you will understand" and "Unless
I wash you, you have no share with me." After this, Peter decides instead
of no washing, he wants full washing, "Lord, not my feet only but also my
hands and my head!" to this, Jesus says "One who has bathed does not need to
wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean. Jesus is
giving his disciples a lesson in serving and caring for others. In showing God’s care through caring for
people. If Jesus, the teacher and Lord can wash their feet, no one can ever say
“I won’t do that for a neighbhor”.
There is another level here in this story as well. I keep
thinking about one of the most annoying things that my wife Jennifer does. It’s about walking barefoot in the
house. If I get caught doing it, she
will yell put on sippers, when I go to bed, I hear “do you have your slippers”, sometimes to be
proactive she will say “I left your slippers near the bed” (with the assumption,
they better be used). My side is we do
not wear outside shoes in the house and clean regularly, so what’s the big
deal. I mean we don’t put booties on the cat, she can just walk around. If I do get caught walking some steps with my
feet unprotected from whatever is lurking on the floors, I get an ill, you need
to wash your feet, you don’t know what
you are carrying around, bringing into bed, putting on the couch etc. She might have a point here, our feet do take
a lot of abuse and are surrounded by stuff the rest of our bodies can avoid.
I also think back to Martial arts class as a kid (an oddly
significant part of how I became Lutheran to begin with, we used to meet in the
basement of a Lutheran Church and my mom would attend community meetings there,
so when I left the Catholic Church, I just went there). Anyway, a lot of church
basement floors are not so clean, so your feet would be black, a stamp of pride
in some ways, showing that you did the work in class.
As Jesus washes his disciples feet, we are reminded that our
Faith, like our feet, is going to be used,
hammered, go through the dirt and mess and yucky stuff. We cannot really put slippers on faith, it
gets attacked by evil, by things we believe should not happen in God’s world,
by people with other philosophies, by cries of hypocrites and mentally
ill. Our faith needs to be renewed,
refreshed, strengthened, cleaned up, refocused, whatever you call it, faith
needs to be maintained. That is the work
that happens here, this is the washing that Jesus offers,
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