2013 Maundy Thoughts

The more I think I understand this day, the more I realize I have so much to learn.  

One pastor says, “Jesus saves his best teaching, not for a sermon in the synagogue or inside the Temple at a high-ritual moment, but rather for an evening meal among friends.” (Another pastor pointed out that this teaching is only 32 words long and I couldn’t help thinking, “Don’t you wish that was true for all great teaching?”)

But I have to agree, this is most likely Jesus’ best teaching; Maundy Thursday and this passage from John 13 ranks among my favorites.  But…is the teaching the sign, or the grace that lies behind it?  Is the teaching the words, or the grace that lies behind them?

Jesus washes feet and says we should love as he has loved. And I frequently find myself wondering what exactly that means. 

But tonight I am thinking of humility.  To wash the feet of another is to embrace humility.  To love as Jesus has loved, is to embrace humility.  Forgiveness given to one who has done us harm, or to those who seek to do us harm, is to live in humility, to embrace humility, and to love as Jesus has loved us.

Jesus gives the Church a sign act in the Eucharistic meal of his body and his blood, broken and shed for the sake of forgiveness, and he tells us “when you do this, remember me.”

If we take what Jesus says with any amount of seriousness, then this meal cannot be just a memorial that invites us to remember his sacrifice on our behalf—then the meal becomes about us and not about him. 

If we want to be serious in our remembrance, we have to think of this passage from John’s gospel where Jesus tells his friends and followers to love as he has loved.  In this way the holy meal calls us to a living remembrance of his life in our lives, loving the ones who don’t love us back.

Look at the people at this meal:  Judas: the Betrayer.  Peter: the Denier.  And they are just the famous (or infamous) players in this drama.  All of them scattered and most of them hid for the sake of their own safety while Jesus was dragged away to be mocked and crucified.

And yet he loved them to the end.  I want to point that out.  Verse 1 of John 13: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” And in verse 5: “Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash (their) feet.”

I recently had a conversation with someone regarding Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies.  We both agreed that it is much easier to intellectually assent to this teaching when our enemy is a distant, abstract someone we will never see face-to-face.  But when our enemy is someone at the table with us, breaking bread with us, when the enemy is known, that’s when it gets difficult.  Is it easier to forgive the one time great big “oops” of a betrayal, or to forgive the repeated tiny betrayals that erode our trust day after day after day?  Some days I’m not so sure. But in either case, the command is to love and forgive.

Having loved his own—the betrayer, the denier, the self-servers—he loved them to the end and says to them (us):

 “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John’s gospel) or “When you do this, remember me.” (the synoptic gospels)

So then, isn’t John 13 really about loving with reckless abandon? Isn’t that what grace really ends up being about? Grace and forgiveness, through the lens of this passage, becomes less about calling us to a life of pharisaical sin management and more of a call to love like Jesus, which is a life given to loving with reckless abandon.  Since we know that forgiveness is always ours, why not pursue God’s will, why not offer God’s grace and radical hospitality, with reckless abandon.

So maybe when Jesus says, “Do what I do. Love like I love. Follow my example.” It’s not so much about the actual washing of feet.  It’s about giving the grace behind it.  Jesus takes on the willingness to deal with our dirt so that we will follow his example and deal with the dirt of others.  He gives us grace, not for our sake, but so that we’ll give it to others.

The more I think I understand this day, the more I realize I have so much to learn.