In today’s Gospel account, Jesus wraps a towel around his
waist, takes a pitcher of water and, on the night before he dies, begins washing
the feet of his disciples. The disciples
are stunned. The washing of feet was
usually done by a slave. It was Jesus
who was washing their feet. Jesus is
certainly acknowledging in gratitude the courage of his disciples in having
walked with him for three years to this dark night. He is surely proclaiming that in such
walking, despite all that will happen on the next day, they have arrived
nonetheless at the threshold of new life.
But most of all, Jesus is teaching them that this new life is gained not
in presiding over multitudes from royal thrones; it is gained, however, in walking with the
humble and in humbly serving this world’s walkers. When he tells his disciples to do as he has
done in washing their feet, he is commissioning them to walk as he has walked
and to heal as he has healed.
His disciples are to change the world by getting down on
their knees and washing the feet of God’s poor.
This is the authentic mark of the follower of Jesus
Christ: that he and she wash the feet of
the beggar, the leper, the miserable sinner rejected by everyone else.
Jesus the teacher demonstrated his life-giving message: foot washing.
He did not ask his friends to die for one another, but to live for one
another. Holy Thursday is a celebration
of life, and life together as a people of God.
In the Gospel account we find that Peter was uncomfortable
with having Jesus wash his feet. Peter,
who was somewhat of an activist, would have preferred to see himself doing the
washing, washing the feet of Jesus, and even of the other disciples. Sometimes it is harder to remain passive and
allow someone else to bathe us than it is to bathe someone else.
But having our feet washed and washing the feet of others
are two sides of the coin we call the Christian life.
Peter’s image of God was more of a king rather than a humble
servant. He was imprisoned by his image
of who God is. Jesus was giving Peter a
different image of God and saying the only way to stay close to Jesus was to
let him wash you.
The first and most essential part is to let the Lord wash
us. As Jesus said to Peter, “Unless I
wash you, you have no share with me.
First, the Lord washes us clean so that we belong to the Lord. Only then are we qualified and empowered to
wash the feet of our sisters and brothers in the Lord. When this truth dawned on Peter, he overcame
his reluctance and cried our, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my
head.” For this to happen all that the
Lord needs from us is simply to be there, to present ourselves to him and to
let him wash us.
The other side of the coin, which is equally important, is
that after our feet have been washed by the Lord, we must go and wash the feet
of others. After Jesus washed his
disciples’ feet, he said to them:
“Do you know what I have done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and rightly
so, for that is what I am. So if I, your
Lord and Master, wash your feet, you are to wash the feet of one another. I have given you an example, what I have
done, you are to do likewise.
On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands
and feet for the work of forgiveness, for the work of loving each other. We pledge to wash each other’s feet, to hand
over our lives for each other, for the sake of the world. We pledge ourselves to do Eucharist, to do
this in memory of the One who gave his life for us.
Isn’t it odd what we experience this evening in this liturgy
of the Lord’s Supper? The meaning of
salvation focuses on the voice of God speaking to us through Jesus with a towel
around his waist asking us to find the towel with our name on it: “As I have done for you, so you also must
do.”
Service rooted in love is the example Jesus gives to his
disciples. It is a radical form of
service because it is based on a radical form of love.
So, the question I leave with you as we ritually wash the
feet of parishioners is: Where is your
towel with your name on it?
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