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St. George's Episcopal Church Roseburg, Oregon Maundy Thursday 13 April 2006 Go To St. George's Home Page

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

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. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 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.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 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? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. 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. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. [Then Jesus said] “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 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.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:1-17, 31b-35 )

Feet, Kneeling, Bread and Wine
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop

     When I was in graduate school, we learned by the “see one, do one, teach one” praxis of education. That is, we saw how to do something; then we did it; and eventually we taught it to someone else. It was in the teaching that we really found out if we really knew what we had been taught. And we learned that in teaching, we had to draw upon different approaches, different materials, and different kinds of life experiences in order to teach effectively to different audiences.

     I think Jesus was a “see one, do one, teach one” kind of teacher too. Although the Gospels don’t totally agree about everything Jesus taught, or how long it took him to teach it, Jesus was probably a kind of no nonsense preacher who had something to say about God’s action in the world, and used stories, parables, and the events of life at the moment to make a point about the Kingdom of God. I suspect he was an “in your face” kind of guy who enjoyed pointing out issues of social injustice and what his countrymen could do about them. When the disciples asked him how they were supposed to feed the poor with a couple of fish and some bread, he said “You give them something to eat.” (Mt 14:16, NIV). When Jesus came to the Temple and saw that merchants were overcharging people for sacrificial animals and that others were making an unfair profit exchanging currency he didn’t fool around. He told them “Get out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (Jn 2:16, NIV).

     Jesus often used simple stories, parables, and sayings to teach especially early in his ministry. But once Jesus got to Jerusalem during the last week of his life, he began using another teaching tool: symbolism. At the supper table, Jesus ritualistically enacted the kingdom of heaven for his dinner companions when he invited everyone in the vicinity to join him at supper – particularly those who were not usually welcome. I imagine that at every meal – not just the last supper – Jesus gave thanks for his companions at table, for the food before them, and then broke the bread and distributed it to each and every one of them. And there we have it: Outcasts and nobles all sharing the same food at the same table. What a perfect way to symbolize the equality and depth of God’s love.

     Simple, direct teaching is often the best kind. The Gospels don’t tell us much about how Jesus got to be such a good teacher and preacher. There are rumors that he may have studied with the Essenes, a small Jewish sect that followed strict community and personal practices, but none of the new testament writers bother to give us Jesus’ teaching credentials. So how did Jesus come by his amazingly powerful teaching skill?

     If we look closely at the gospels, we learn that Jesus was like a sponge, soaking up things of culture, tradition, and society, and using them to teach and preach about God’s vision for us. Jesus doesn’t sound like a theologian or an ivory tower professor, although the gospel of John would test me on that point! But in the other three gospels, the synoptics, Jesus speaks plainly and directly, and as a result, his words are not the sayings of a dead sage, but are the living word of a divine teacher.

     In the passage of John’s gospel immediately preceding tonight’s reading, Jesus and his disciples came to Bethany before the Passover. While there, his close friends Martha and Mary prepared a dinner for him (Jn 12:2). Mary was near Jesus during the meal. Since people in Biblical times reclined to eat, her dining couch was probably next to his. She took a jar of very expensive ointment and poured it on his feet (Jn 12:3). No one asked Mary to do this. As she anointed him, she willingly became his personal servant, cleaning his feet with her hair. And I imagine that as the fragrance filled the room, Jesus inhaled clarity. He understood her wisdom and foresight; that she was ritualistically anointing him for his own burial. In that instant, Jesus learned something very important: the value of symbolic teaching. So, when Jesus and his disciples were preparing for what would be Jesus’ last supper, he followed the see one, do, one, teach method as he re-enacted what Mary had done. He took off his tunic, and assumed the posture of a servant, and washed his own disciples’ feet.

     “When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place at the table. “‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ “ he asked them. ‘You call me teacher and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.’” Jesus took what Mary taught him and used it to teach others. He used it to teach us.

     When a group of people gather together freely around a divine idea and begin to work in the direction of this idea, they have the potential to transform the community into something holy. A communal, spiritual strength can emerge that can re-member the community, ground itself in the past, strengthen itself in the present, and project itself into the future. Jesus gave us simple and direct rituals that can transform us and empower us.

     In a few moments, we will engage in the re-enactment of the foot washing. I will begin by washing the feet of those who wish to come forward. And I will invite the washed to become washers of other people’s feet. In this way, we will all become strangely vulnerable to each other as we become servants to one another.

     Feet are funny things. Jesus washed feet because people of his day wore sandals, walked everywhere, and had perpetually dirty feet. It was a mark of hospitality to wash the feet of one’s guest.

     Exposing one’s feet can be a weird experience. Some people celebrate feet. For example, Adele Coombs in her book Barefoot Dreaming, writes that ““Going barefoot is the gentlest way of walking and can symbolize a way of living — being authentic, vulnerable, sensitive to our surroundings. It’s the feeling of enjoying warm sand beneath our toes, or carefully making our way over sharp rocks in the darkness. It’s a way of living that has the lightest impact, removing the barrier between us and nature.”[1] On the other hand, there are others who find the appearance of feet something less than a spiritual experience. A group of trail runners members of the Road Runners Club, for example, held what is believed to be the first “Ugliest Feet Competition” at the 40 th convention of the Road Runners Club of America. Pictures of these misshapen feet are available on line.[2] According to Dr. Jack Morgan, a podiatrist and podiatric surgeon, the appearance of one’s feet is important to self esteem and sex appeal.[3] Thick toenails, malformed toes, flat arches, bunions – all of those things are revealed when our feet are uncovered – and many find those things just plain ugly.

     But herein lies the unexpected genius of Jesus’ symbolic action that night. When we are willing to expose our feet in this especially vulnerable way, and when we are willing to become servants to one another by kneeling and holding and washing another’s feet, we are literally taking into our hands the reality that the final incarnation of the Christ in our community and the world depends on the love each one of us has for the other. It also depends on being willing to be vulnerable to one another. It depends on each of us being authentic and completely honest and unafraid.

     Tonight, after we have washed, and been washed, let us then gather together as a revitalized community and experience the incarnate God in our midst as we break bread and share wine together.

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Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the L ord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the L ord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the L ord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel.

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19

1 I love the LORD, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.

2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

12 What shall I return to the LORD
for all his bounty to me?

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD,

14 I will pay my vows to the LORD
16 O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the child of your serving girl.
You have loosed my bonds.

17 I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice
and call on the name of the LORD.

18 I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,

19 in the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!
in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

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. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 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.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 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? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. 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. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. [Then Jesus said] “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 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.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Collect of the Day

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] Cited at “Barefoot Living,” accessed 11 April 2006 at http://www.barefooters.org/
[2] See http://www.rrca.org/publicat/uglyfeet.html
[3] See http://www.xenna.com/info_pressreleases19.html

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Copyright © 2006, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
11 April 2006

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