Exodus 12:1-14a
1 Corinthians 11:23-26(27-32)
John 13:1-15
Psalm 78:14-20,23-25
It was my first bike. This was my treasure. I inherited it from Randy, the boy next door. He got it from his big brother, Ricky. I think every kid in the neighborhood learned to ride a two-wheeler on that bike. Before Randy gave it to me, he cleaned it up and he showed me how to take care of it. The important stuff – like untangling the streamers on the handles and how to put playing cards by the spokes with clothes pins, so it sounded (we thought) like a motorcycle.
Of course the first thing I did with my new treasure was to run it right into a "spanish bayonet" – one of those spiky yucca plants. I got a few painful pricks, but I knew things would be alright because I knew how to take care of my treasure. Picked my bike right up and got the streamers the clothes pins and cards right back in place.
Later, when I was ready to go off to first grade, it was my turn to pass my treasure on to my little brother. Just like Randy did, I cleaned up the old bike, and showed Dean how to take care of it. Dad even helped me paint it for him.
I was going away to somewhere new and the bicycle, my treasure, was his inheritance. It was a way I could show that thought he was an okay kid after all. Something to remind him of me when I wasn't around.
Now Jesus is leaving for something more than first grade. But he still is thinking about the people he loves, those people who follow him around like little brothers, He wants to know that they are going to be ok when he's gone.
He wants to clean things up for them. He wants to give them his treasure as an inheritance. But they don't understand.
The story begins with "Jesus loved his own to the end." So, how do you tell someone you love them? A treasured bicycle? Poems or songs? Flowers or candy? Hugs and kisses? Touch. That's Jesus' answer. We touch people we love.
And when the love is broken and messy, how do you tell someone they are forgiven? How do you clean up the mess that love makes? Words of apology? Flowers or candy? A gift – I admit that I gave my brother the bike soon after a kinda nasty sibling battle. But Jesus' answer is the same: Touch. Loving touch. Kiss and make up. Forgiveness is touching. That's what's happening ritually between us here when we exchange the peace.
Jesus touches people. He touches untouchable lepers and unclean bleeding women. He touches his sometimes annoying little brothers' dirty feet.
Jesus is not afraid of the messes we make of our lives. He knows how to clean up those messes. Loving touch will do it. Our God is not just some intangible, untouchable Spirit. Our God came to live with us in this messy, dirty world. Our God lived in one of these same messy bodies, a body that sweated in the Jerusalem sun, a body that needed food and drink and the first-century equivalent of a toilet, a body with feet that got dirty on the journey. And this same God comes to us as a slave and kneels at our feet.
If we will let him, Jesus can touch our lives and make us clean again.
But he doesn't stop there. He still has a gift to give to his friends before he leaves.
Jesus tells us we should do as he has done to us. (Older siblings can be kinda annoying that way.) That's the "maundy" part of today. "Maundy" means "mandate" or "command."
Jesus commands us to wash feet: To be willing, like a servant, to touch the messy parts of the lives of the people we love. Like a servant, to wash the wounded. Like a servant, to feed the hungry. Like a servant, to fall on our knees and forgive.. Jesus commands us to love.
That's our inheritance from the new covenant, From Jesus' last will and testament. He has left us his treasure: Jesus has left us each other