Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi Maundy Thursday April 5, 2007 Go To Trinity's Home Page

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 75 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. 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)

Pedicures and the Passion
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop

     When I was in graduate school, we learned by the “see one, do one, teach one” method 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, and he was a good one too. After all, he took the six hundred and thirteen laws of the Torah, and reduced them to two: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your heart’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mt 22:37-40, NIV; Mk 12:28-34; Lk 10:26-27).

     Although the Gospels don’t totally agree about everything Jesus taught, he was probably a no nonsense preacher. He 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. Jesus doesn’t sound like a theologian or an ivory tower professor, although the gospel of John would test me on that point! 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. As a result, his words are not the sayings of a dead sage, but are the living word of a divine teacher.

     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).

     When Jesus went 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.

     As we remember from the gospel on the last Sunday in Lent, Jesus and his disciples came to Bethany before the Passover. While there, Mary took a jar of very expensive ointment and poured it on his feet (Jn 12:3). As she anointed him, she willingly became his personal servant, cleaning his feet with her hair. And I imagine that as the perfumed fragrance filled the room, Jesus inhaled clarity. He understood her wisdom and foresight through the symbolic teaching she was showing him. She did the “see one” part of teaching. So, when Jesus and his disciples were preparing for what would be Jesus’ last supper, he did the “do one” part 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.

     Exposing one’s feet in public can be a weird experience in modern Western culture. 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 – 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. Jesus used the ugly to create the holy. The symbolic actions that we enact in church and elsewhere, all point to something outside of ourselves. They are ways that we can grasp the intangible, and experience the incarnate Christ in our midst. And we become aware that the incarnate Christ is dependent on the love each one of us has for the other.

     Tonight, we will gather around this Holy Table to enact the Eucharist – the most sacred of our rituals. We will experience the “real presence” of Christ for the last time before Good Friday and that awful day when it seemed that God had turned away from us once and for all. When Jesus dined that night with his friends, he knew it was the last time he would be with them, and so he gave them the memorial supper we continue to enact today. That supper gave him the strength and courage to face the horror of what would follow.

     The presence of Christ always seems to be especially vivid to me on Maundy Thursday. It was Jesus’ last meal on earth. But with his last meal, he taught us what to do: to bless the bread, to break the bread, and to share the bread. And he taught us to share this experience with each other and with the stranger, the widow, and the orphan. It is now up to us: you and me. We are the persons of the Christ. It is time for us to do and to teach what our teacher taught us.

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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 LORD. 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 LORD. 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 LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Psalm 116:1, 10-17 Dilexi, quoniam

1 I love the LORD, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, *
because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.

10 How shall I repay the LORD *
for all the good things he has done for me?

11 I will lift up the cup of salvation *
and call upon the Name of the LORD.

12 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD *
in the presence of all his people.

13 Precious in the sight of the LORD *
is the death of his servants.

14 O LORD, I am your servant; *
I am your servant and the child of your handmaid;
you have freed me from my bonds.

15 I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving *
and call upon the Name of the LORD.

16 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD *
in the presence of all his people,

17 In the courts of the LORD’S house, *
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Hallelujah!

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. 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.”

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 © 2007, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
30 March 2007

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