John 13:1-17, 34-35
Being Disciples
You wouldn’t think it would be all that difficult.
We are all formed from the dust of the earth, but the same Creator.
Basically, our bodies are pretty much the same.
We all get sick, we all need to eat, we all go to the bathroom.
All of us are lonely at times, everyone has insecurities and fears, we are all sinners, and we’re all going to get old (Lord willing) and then eventually die.
And yet, it’s difficult for us to accept or admit that we—ourselves—are no better than anyone else.
I remember when my sister Lisa found out that she was going to have to get glasses.
She ran into the house, up the stairs, and into her room crying and wailing!
I asked my mother why Lisa was so upset by the fact that she had to get glasses.
My mother replied, “Don’t worry. Lisa has just found out that she is not perfect.”
When did you find out that you were not perfect?
When did you find out that you needed a Savior?
Our Gospel lesson for this evening begins with a meal.
Jesus is at the table with His disciples, all of them reclining, propped up on their elbows, dipping pita bread into bowls of savory hummus and smacking their lips, licking their fingers.
There is conversation, loud laughter and the clink of one clay cup against another.
While all of this is going on Jesus gets up from the table, strips off His outer robe, wraps a towel around His waist, pours water into a basin and starts to wash the disciples’ feet.
Now this wouldn’t have been unusual if Jesus had been a household servant, but this is their teacher, their Lord!
As He moves from one to another, lovingly and delicately washing their calloused, dusty feet, Peter objects, but Jesus persists.
In the end Jesus puts His robe back on to join them at the table.
“Do you understand what I have done for you,” Jesus asks them.
Apparently not because no one says a word.
“I have set you an example,” Jesus says, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
The disciples needed to have their feet washed.
They couldn’t afford a servant and so one of them would have had to do it and apparently no one else had volunteered to do it.
Perhaps, as in Luke’s Gospel, they have been arguing about which one of them is the greatest, and for any one of them to volunteer would have been to lose the argument, or so they thought.
So, Jesus got up to do it—shocking them all.
As Peter implies by his objection, foot washing is slave labor.
However, when Jesus finished he says, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
This is a good reminder for us Jesus followers of the 21st Century who still sometimes argue over who is the greatest.
We aren’t here to lord it over one another; we are here to wash one another’s feet.
We aren’t here to compete we are here to serve.
On Maundy Thursday we try and wash one another’s feet literally, and it can be awkward and embarrassing.
Maybe the real problem is that we don’t do it enough to be good at it—not actual foot washing necessarily, but those countless acts of humble service we can offer one another on a daily basis.
I remember speaking with a well-respected pastor at a minister’s conference when he looked down and noticed that my shoe was untied.
Before I could do anything about it, he had dropped to one knee to tie it for me.
I was embarrassed—like Peter—but when he stood up again, he continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
Maybe that is why he was so well respected.
Maybe that is why Jesus says to His disciples, “Do not be afraid to stoop down and offer the most humble service imaginable to one another. It’s no more than I have done for you.”
And maybe that’s why Paul says in Philippians Chapter 2: “My friends, look at Jesus Christ… “Who being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
This should humble us.
Jesus, Who is God, emptied Himself.
How many of us, mere mortals, are able to empty ourselves?
So many of us work so hard, get so stressed out, and expend so much energy trying to make others think we are something great.
And no matter how much we may say we want to please God, we are really wanting to please other people.
But, in striving to have the same attitude of Christ Jesus any and all of our prejudices and superior attitudes must fly back to hell where they came from.
Christ did not discriminate.
Christ didn’t “swagger.”
He helped the poor and the rich, the mighty and the small, the strong and the weak…with equal love and care.
In the world, the so-called great people are the ones who are served…and look where that has gotten us.
But in God’s Kingdom the great do the serving.
How different is the attitude of Jesus from me.
“If I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet,” Jesus says.
Then he goes one better.
“If I have laid down by life for you, you also ought to lay down your lives for each other.”
Well, that’s not exactly the way He puts it.
He says, “A new command I give you: Love one another” but in the next phrase He says, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Then in Chapter 15 He says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The connection is there: love is laying down our lives for one another; foot washing is one of those small, everyday acts of humble service; and both of these reveal who we are—the disciples of Jesus.
May it be so with us.
Amen.
