Whose feet will we wash?

 

During supper, Jesus, knowing that he had come from God and was going back to God, did something his friends considered unthinkable, by taking off his robe and tying a towel around his waist and serving his friends, serving even the one who was to betray him, and washing their feet. He could do this because he knew who he was.  He had no doubt about that. What he was doing might be unthinkable for Peter, but not for Jesus who knew he had nothing to fear.

What could we do if we truly lived as if we believed that we have come from God and are going back to God? Could we do what others might consider unthinkable because we knew we had nothing to fear? Could we give up our fears - fear of change, fear of loss, fear of other people, fear of losing control over our lives? If we knew that the world is about to change irrevocably,  as the disciples were soon to realize when the resurrected Lord showed up in their locked room, could we give up our our allegiance to the old order to make way for a new thing?  

After he washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus gave them a new commandment:  go out and love one another just as I have loved you.  The world will see and know that you are my disciples if you show love for one another. 

As Christians, as disciples Jesus, we are here to show Jesus to the world through what we do and how we live our lives, and loving one another starts with understanding that we are all bound up together.

In uncertain times, we are tempted to store up our treasures in our own barns for ourselves because we are afraid of loss and potential scarcity. But we have a sacred connection to all of God’s creation, to every living thing, to every person, even those we don’t understand or don’t want to understand. Whether we know them or don’t know them we are called to serve them. And because we belong to God we have nothing to fear, and nothing to lose, from giving of ourselves.

Jesus loved his disciples. He loved Judas whose feet he washed, too.  He loves us even in our doubts and struggles to be faithful. He was set free from fear to love, to forgive, to hold nothing back because he knew who he was, God’s own. He was set free to lay down his life, willingly, because he could see all the way through to the other side of the darkness that appeared once Judas went out that door to betray him. He was safe in God’s care all the time.

We tend to be fearful about our safety. When it seems like the world is on fire we are tempted to surround ourselves with protections of every kind, not to give ourselves away. Yet there are folks out there who are giving themselves away right now. I hope someone is serving them tonight. I hope someone is washing their feet. 

Back in 2020 those people were health care professionals, and grocery store shelf-stockers, cleaning people, people who drove to our houses to deliver the things we needed. They put their metaphorical towels around their waists - masks on their faces and gloves on their hands - and put out whatever served as their basins and water to be servants to anyone who needed them, be they saints or sinners, known or unknown, for the good of us all. 

Five years later the people who are giving themselves away are still doctors and nursesand also farmers and fire fighters and aid suppliers, cooks and caregivers and companions for people who are young or old or dying, rescue workers and and community refrigerator stockers.

They are people who willingly do all of those things right here in Richmond where there are countless people in need of them.

 

And they also are doing those things in emergency kitchens and makeshift aid stations in Ukraine and Palestine and Myanmar and in West Virginia and Tennessee in the wake of tornadoes and floods and earthquakes and bombs and bullets and what else other terrors are ravaging God’s people in every corner of God’s green earth. 

There are always terrors ravaging God’s people. 

Tonight Jesus is asking us again to love without expectation of return, to love without fear, to love without the worry that we won’t have enough if we give ourselves away. 

There are plenty of opportunities for us to tie some kind of towel around our waists, to wash a shivering foot, to put a piece of bread in a trembling hand, to show love the way Jesus did. Our job is to discern not IF we are called but in WHAT WAY we are called to love and give today, secure in the belief that we belong to God and nothing can eve, ever change that.

Life is hard, friends. But in the end, all will be redeemed. Every day all is being redeemed whether we are able to see it or not. God will bring life out of death and God will wipe away every tear.And will need God to do both........

Now supper has ended, the servant has acted. Now the world is about to irrevocably change and we are invited to respond.

 

Let it come.