A Sermon for Maundy Thursday
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie
Exodus 12:1-14a
Psalm 22
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
John 13:1-15
I arrived at one of my churches on Palm Sunday to find the senior warden's husband on his knees. Certainly that's where we all should spend some time during Holy Week.
But he was not only on his knees, but up to his elbows in a backed up toilet. Today's gospel suggests that that may also be a place we should spend some time as a spiritual discipline.
Maundy Thursday. "Maundy" comes from the same word as "mandate." This is the day Jesus "mandates," tells us what we ought to do. (Most of us today don't react too well to "should"s and "oughts"s.) Jesus says, "Do this in remembrance of me." And he says, "You also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."
The first mandate is not too bad. We don't mind too much gathering for a meal together, eating bread and drinking wine, and remembering that Jesus is with us and that Jesus feeds us.
But when it comes to washing each other's feet we get really uncomfortable. It's an intimate thing, all touchy, feely. It might tickle. We might embarrass ourselves by laughing in church. Besides our feet might be dirty and stinky.
Yep.. That's just what Peter knows. Dirty, sweaty, stinky feet. In Jesus time, footwashing was a menial job. Even the students of a rabbi had too much dignity to wash their teacher's feet. Footwashing was for slaves and women to do. Footwashing was done by one of your possessions not by any proper person. How scandalous for Jesus to even think of doing it. Dirty, filthy, menial work.
This is not a lovely foot massage or a token, symbolic washing that we might want as part of our service today. It's more like Jesus offering to clean out our backed up toilet or to change the bed pan or the diapers. It's a job we'd never give to those whose respect and admiration we desire. Let the plumbers or the nurses's aids or maybe the parents of small children do it.
That's not what Jesus says. He's saying more with this footwashing commandment than just, "Serve one another." Jesus is telling us that we are to help each other clean up the really dirty messes that we make of our lives. He's saying that in Christian community we don't need to hide from each other the ugly and embarrassing messes of our lives. Jesus is saying we can and should wash one another clean.
In baptism we are bathed and we are clean. But still we dirty ourselves up with sins and hurts. And unless we clean up the dirt, we end up rubbing the smelly stuff all over each other. Sin is like an overflowing church toilet – one great, big filthy mess.
But if we confess our sin, God will forgive our sin, and all the mess is cleaned up. It is miraculous good news that Jesus tells us that we CAN wash one another's feet. In Christ, we have the ability together to clean up our messy lives. When we forgive each other – and that can be harder than cleaning toilets or washing feet – we are clean and have a share with him of eternal life.
Jesus has set us an example. Like Jesus, and plumbers, a nurses aids and parents, we should all fall to our knees and clean up the mess.