To The End

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 9, 2009
Holy Thursday

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

When the prophet Elijah asked his younger colleague, Elisha, what he could do for him before he was taken up to heaven, Elisha answered, “Let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” (2 Kings 2: 9) Elijah was the powerful prophet who faced down the priests of Ba’al, and Queen Jezebel. Elijah was so close to God that he heard  the “still small voice” while others heard only silence.

To be given a double share of Elijah’s power----that would truly be something impressive.

Have you ever received some word or symbol from a revered mentor or teacher upon their departure?

Bishop Eugene Slater, at his last session as presiding bishop of the SWTX Annual Conference at La Villita Center in San Antonio gave such a memento in his farewell speech. I expected that he would reminisce about his accomplishments as a pastor and bishop over the past almost-half century. But he spoke instead of world and church events through which he had lived, and his thankfulness at being present through so many of the changes. And though no one else may have received it the way I did, his message spoke to me of his humility and his servant heart: his ministry was not all about him but about God at work in the world around him and through him.

Jesus knew that his days were numbered, that he would return to his heavenly Father. And because he loved his disciples fully and to the end (without reserve), wanted to prepare them for their future without his physical presence.

Jesus’ followers were for him “bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord God,” “the precious package” of close disciples (I Samuel 25:29) ---words of Abigail to David and his followers, when their life was in danger.

Now a “double share of Jesus’ abilities” would have been a great gift for his friends! Perhaps his “water to wine” ability, or his power to calm the storm, or his ability to raise others from the dead!  Or to forgive or retain forgiveness!Or, when he comes into his power, it might be especially helpful to sit at the right and left, to have a cabinet post! So, what does Jesus do first to prepare his precious package of disciples?

At the supper on the evening before Passover he takes off his outer garment (jacket?), pours water into a basin, and then takes a towel, ties it around his waist, gets down on all fours to wash each of his disciples dusty feet.

Sandals do not keep out the sand. (Remember ever walking on a dusty road with sandals on your feet?) Silence must have been the first response. Not even a Hebrew slave was expected to do this. (Though gentile slaves might be required to do so.) More common was the practice of bringing a basin of water to guests so that they each could wash their own feet.

Abigail, King David’s wife, offers to wash David’s feet, as a sign of her devotion to him. The nameless “woman who was a sinner,” washes Jesus’ feet with her tears. Widows were reported to have “washed the feet of the saints.” All women, you may notice. (I Samuel 25:41; Luke 7:38 and I Timothy 5:10)
“How low he stooped” to show his love for them!

And the towel? Not a fancy one like the stole I am wearing, but a common dish or bathroom towel. Something that people dry dishes with, swaddle  babies with, mop up spills with, clean up the sweat off the basketball court, clean up spills; do “cheeks and chin” for your children after their ice cream. The towel is a tool for “practical, unglamorous service.”

Though each disciple may have protested when Jesus came to them, it is Peter who flat refuses. “You will never wash my feet!” “But, if I do not wash you, you will have no heritage (share) with me.” Then we begin to see that Jesus is not only doing a practical, soothing, comforting deed for his friends. He is doing a symbolic act, signifying his self-emptying and his death for their sakes.

If you want life abundant with God, now and forever, you must accept God’s sacrificial gift for you, for yourself.How hard it is to receive someone else’s sacrificial gift! We are governed by quid pro quo: “let’s keep it even; no debts!” When Jesus told us we must become like children to receive the kingdom of God, he may have meant that we must be able to receive some gifts like children do, happily, joyfully, without the compulsion to make it even, just as a child cannot make it even. And, “those who cannot with grace receive the gift of physical cleansing are scarcely in position to receive the even more humbling cleansing of sin that occurs in his more humiliating death on a cross.” (All quotes above are from Mary Louise Bringle, from Feasting on the Word)

Some bits of wisdom stick with me. The pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lubbock was reported to have said that you either trust in forgiveness of your sins as a gift, or you try to work it off for yourself. Peter, getting this message, asks for a good hosing down! And probably needs one! As do we all, when we ‘fess up. (James Lamkin, FW) When Jesus finishes washing the 24 feet of his disciples (including Judas’s), he stands up and puts his outer cloak back on and returns to the table. The he asks what must have been a rhetorical question: “Do you know what I have done to you?”

The answer must be yes! (Or No!) Then if I, your teacher and lord, have done this for you, follow my example and wash one another’s feet! Unless you consider yourself greater than I am-----and too good to do such menial things! You will be blessed if you do them.

Serving each other in our ordinary needs has its own paradoxical rewards. But we must be careful here. “First be on the receiving end of service. Otherwise, our service comes across as condescension……and unless we are washed, we’re in danger of neglecting the small, exhausting, inelegant demands of service while seeking instead the spectacular and showy.” Roberta Bondi wrote that we are wrong-headed to think that the little things do not matter. “Disregard for the little things is more often than not experienced by people around us as a contemptuous or at least thoughtless disregard of their everyday welfare.” (To Pray and to Love) We are speaking of love here. The word is so misused that we need a substitute. Love as Jesus shows it is not liking, or wanting, or pitying, though these may be involved.

C.S. Lewis wrote that the way to be loving is not to try to manufacture positive feelings for someone. Some seem to be able to do this but others are, by nature, more reserved. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him [or her.]” (Mere Christianity, page 101) Maybe not always. But it is worth a try!

Love is the “momentary or prolonged refusal to think of another person in terms of power.” (Phyllis Rose, in Synthesis RCL, Year C, April 9, 1998)

The love Jesus asks us to have is not one among the arrows in our quiver, “not one part-time ingredient among the many in the well-rounded person.”  Love is the “full-time orientation through which the Christian knows when each other ingredient is appropriate.” (W. Paul Jones in Weavings, January/February, 1998, page 25) In the Gospel of John, Jesus is portrayed as especially concerned about the men and women who are his followers, the church, if you will. Christians are hated by so many (by the end of the first century) that church could just up and disappear----unless they love each other. “It is imperative that they love one another since they are all each other has.” (Greg D. Nave, FW, page 281)

And loving those closest to us can be the greatest challenge of all. We can go somewhere and deliver service and feel good about it most of the time, but loving those closest to us may be the ultimate test of love. We get on each other’s nerves! We know too much! Or, we may simply take them for granted or not even notice them. When churches lose their way, it is usually because love has died in the body. And servant-love is the life-blood of the body of Christ. Yes, love your neighbor, and start with those closest at hand. So here we are at table. Jesus is the host. In this bread and juice, in the taking of it, in the receiving of it, together with others let Christ give you…..himself.  And this is one gift you cannot “make even.”

Let Christ forgive you and wash you clean. Now is the time to renew your trust “in a God who is bigger than our past hopes and our future mistakes.” (Lamkin, FW, page 280)