We, Also

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 1, 2010
Maundy Thursday

Text: John 13: 1-17, 31b-35

Reverend Jim Green Somerville, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia, writes of how surprised he was when, at a high level minister’s conference, he and other participants were standing, talking with each other between sessions. In the group was one of most distinguished pastors in the country. This pastor noticed that one of Jim’s shoes was untied, and before Jim could kneel to tie it, the distinguished speaker “dropped to his knee to tie it for him, and then stood up and resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened.”

He comments that this little act of kindness reminded him of Jesus at the Last Supper when, according to John, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and then told them to go and do as he had done. Jesus was saying, in summary, “’Do not be afraid to stoop down and offer the most humble service imaginable to one another. It is no more than I have done for you.’” (From Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide, David Bartlett and Barbara Brown, Editors; WJK, 2009, page 276)

Maybe you have had similar experiences, when someone did some menial task for you and you were somewhat embarrassed. It is, as we like to say, more blessed to give than to receive. When we receive, we are not in control of the situation. We can only feel needy----which we are, of course, but we have a hard time admitting this is so.

This is why Peter protested when Jesus came round to him. “You will never wash my feet!”

Jesus’ action was, of course, symbolic as well as personal. He laid aside his garment (his coat, his outer garment) before he knelt at their feet. After he had finished, he stood up and put his garment back on.

He would lay aside his life for love of them, and he would take up his life again when God would glorify him in resurrection.

To be died for, to have someone step up and take the bullet intended for you: well, you would owe him your life, wouldn’t you? There would be nothing from there on you would not do for him. This is the ultimate receiving.

There are many different theories of the atonement (the significance of Jesus’ death) and I find them all helpful, but not one of them completely satisfying. But at a basic human level, I must confess that a phrase out of s sermon by Pastor George Buttrick, which I heard delivered at St Paul UMC in Abilene, sums up the meaning for me as good as any:

“Jesus would rather see flesh broke and blood shed that to see us miss our destiny.”

To receive this self-giving from the Word Become Flesh is humbling indeed---and transforming. It is “grace upon grace.” It is like being born all over again. This gift changes us. And we begin down the long road practicing agape love ourselves.

Such love as Jesus practiced does not come easily to us.  It is not, as C. Clifton Black wrote, “a natural aptitude.” Our hearts are restlessly self-centered, “curved in on ourselves” as Martin Luther so graphically said it. We have sprints of self-giving, but marathons of patient care-giving are hard to sustain. But God in Jesus through the Holy Spirit works on us and in us for just this purpose: to make us into agape ambassadors.

Jesus---- as John sees him--- teaches us that love begins in our closest communities: our families, our neighbors, our little koinonias. At the time The Gospel of John was penned, the little band of disciples were threatened with extinction. They were despised by the religious authorities and hounded by the Romans. They would have to meet in secret to worship. In such situation, their closeness was absolutely essential. Persecution clarifies the heart.

Somewhere I obtained at account of a clandestine Christian community in an Eastern European country during the Communist era. Most of the Christians of one of the smallest circles of believers did grudge work in the mines. Their meetings were forbidden.

So they would come together in a home for a meal. They would save up what they could, some bringing more, some less. In the middle of the meal, the presider would hold up a loaf of bread and begin to praise God. She would tell the story of the faith, culminating in Jesus, and end with the words, “This is Christ’s body, broken for you.”

Then she would ask if anyone wanted to have anyone included in the blessing. Some asked prayers for the unemployed, someone else for an ex-prisoner who could soon be detained; for the “disappeared”. One lifted up prayer for the government; for the sick; for those who were afraid to come to the supper. Another offered up thanks for those who, by their faith, made others strong.

Then they would pass along the broken bread, person to person.

Often there would be a knock on the door and everyone would freeze in place. “Who was it?” they would ask? Would they all be carted off to jail--- or worse.

They give thanks that it is only a late-comer.

They settle back down to eat the rest of their meal. They talk among themselves of their little trails and joys, their work, family. Someone expresses puzzlement that in the West, so many churches are empty.

Then the presider bangs on a cup and gives a second blessing, or thanksgiving, over the wine, with words about the first Lord’s Supper. They pass around the goblet, each taking a sip.

Then the meal ends abruptly----they cannot risk staying too long. They pick up the leftovers and pass the peace to each other. There are hugs and handshakes.

If anyone asked them, “Have you met the Lord?” they would say “Yes, the Lord came in his Supper and I received him.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that when I am wordless, I go to my brothers and sisters and the Word comes to me through them. This is where we learn love, in community as a gift.

We come together in places like this around this table to hear and see and taste an alternative horizon, the story of God’s covenant with the whole earth, the election of the Hebrew people, the gift of our Father-God’s unfailing grace in Jesus, the movement of God’s spirit in us and in the world.

To say it another way, we come here to let Jesus wash our feet and speak comfort to us: “Love one another, even as I have loved you…..God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that the world would not perish but have everlasting life….”

I have seen it over and over again, this communal love brothers and sisters in Christ show one another. In the littlest churches; in churches of Korean and African American, Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon heritage. (And, so I hear, up in Irving and Dallas, in Tongan churches!)

The glue that holds them together is the love of Jesus, the washer of feet.

Oh yes, they struggle with internal strife; they can get clannish and closed if they are not full of care----careful!!

But more often, their love spills over to the wider community: what they practice in their fellowships is transported to their neighborhood meetings, their pleas before city councils, their lobbying for the homeless poor, and their outreach to frightened teenagers, their food panties and their side-walk Sundays School classes and trips to across borders.

There may be big things we sometimes do for each other in our little communites, but most often we do something like Jesus did, some simple, menial acts: a card here, banana bread delivered, a phone call at just the right time, a word of encouragement, a gentle intervention, a song sung or played------ or maybe even a foot-washing itself!

We do what lies before us that someone needs, as best we can.

Again, Pastor Somerville: In his church, there is a member with cerebral palsy. He is confined to a wheelchair. “He also has a thousand watt smile and a wonderful sense of humor. When we have a pot-luck lunch once a month, someone has to volunteer to feed him, and often those people have better intentions than results. I watch out of the corner of my eye as they ease a spoonful of food into his mouth, and then dab at his face with a napkin, tentatively. They have never done this before, but they are trying, and he is grinning, and for those who have eyes to see, some foot washing is going on.”

When I was a seminary student, I took a course called Ministry to the Physically Ill. It was at a major in Dallas where I would show up and put on a white coat with a cross on the name tag----to signify that I was not a doctor (though I was sometimes pleased when I was so addressed!) I had no idea what to do as a chaplain trainee. I was always visiting strangers, “cold calls,” I guess you would call them.

One day I went into the room of a man in his forties who was in excruciating pain. I had visited him the day before and learned that he was an air controller, one who helped planes line up for take-offs and landings. The pressures of the job had gotten to be too much for him.

The more I talked, the more I realized that my words were worse than useless. He reached over and took a cigarette out of his pack and tried to light it, but his hands were shaking too much.

On impulse, I took one out of the pack myself, and though I was not a smoker, put one to my lips and lit it with his lighter, took a drag, coughed, and then placed it in his mouth. It was like a sacrament, I think. He calmed a bit. We talked a few minutes more, I held his hand and prayed. It was the least I could do.
.