For many
years the pope of the Roman Catholic Church has been washing feet on Maundy
Thursday. Before 2013, the mass was held in St Peter's basilica or the basilica
of St John. However, in 2013 a recently
consecrated Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 teenagers in a juvenile prison. Previous
popes typically washed the feet of clergy.
Since Pope Francis was elected, he has washed feet in prisons, a center
for asylum seekers, and a home for the elderly and disabled. This year, he will once again wash the feet
of 12 men in a maximum security prison.
Pope Francis
has been determined to wash the feet of people of different faiths, genders,
and ethnicities. In these 5 years, he has washed the feet of convicted felons,
women (which was previously unheard of), Catholics, Orthodox Christians,
Evangelicals, Muslims, a Buddhist and a Hindu person. For the pope, the
symbolic act of foot washing is not merely an act of humility, it is an act of
love and bringing people together.
If you look
at the verses we read for the Gospel reading, you will see that there is a huge
part that is skipped over. We go from
verse 17 to verse 31. We go from Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and
telling them to do likewise to the verses about Jesus being glorified and then
the love commandment, “Just as I have
loved you, you also should love one another.” It’s a sweet gesture, washing the feet of his
12 disciples, his inner circle. It was
gesture of humility and love. No one
likes to wash feet, so it is nice that he would do this for his friends. If we did not read verses 17 to 31, we could
leave it at that, a nice gesture by Jesus for his friends.
However, if
you read those middle verses, this symbolic act becomes much more radical. In these verses Jesus told the disciples that
one of them will betray him. He told
them by saying, “It is the one to whom I
give this piece of bread…” It was Judas, the man whose feet he had just
washed, the man with whom he had shared a meal.
When Jesus
confronted Judas, Judas left to accept the bribe and betray his friend. It was only after that confrontation when
Jesus told his disciples, “Just as I have
loved you, you also should love one another.” Right after that command, he told Peter that
he would deny him. These are the
bookends of this commandment to love one another, one friend who will betray
him and one who will deny him.
What Jesus
was showing was that despite what these 2 men would do…Jesus would still love
them. Even knowing what would happen—that
one would betray, one deny and the rest abandon him—he still washed their feet
and told them he loved them. That is what makes this more than a sweet and
sentimental gesture. This is not just
about how we treat our friends and family.
It is about how we treat the people who have hurt and betrayed us.
In 1981,
Pope John Paul II was shot 4 times. The
man was arrested and the pope not only forgave him, he visited him in prison. He
then advocated for his release many years later. The would-be assassin left
prison in 2010 and made news when he visited the grave of the late pope and
left flowers. That is an extreme example of loving those who
have hurt us, but it’s a pretty good example.
While most
of us have not been shot or turned in to the police for crimes we did not
commit, we all know what it is to be betrayed or abandoned. We all know what it feels like when someone
we love says one thing and acts in an entirely different way. Imagine what it would feel like to wash their
feet, or maybe just look them in the eye and smile.
At another
church I served, I had someone who yelled at me after the service. He really yelled and did it in front of other
people. I knew it had nothing to do with
me. It was something else going on in his life, but it hurt me and made me
angry. The next week he came up for
communion and I thought “please don’t let him be on my side of the rail”---but he
was of course because God likes to challenge us. I would like to tell you that I gave him
communion and my hurt and angry feelings just went away. But they didn’t. I was still mad. But I smiled and I kept smiling. It took a couple weeks, maybe even more, but
eventually those smiles became genuine and I got over it.
That’s the
thing about symbolic gestures, they don’t always represent exactly what is
going on inside of us, but they do represent what we hope will happen, what we
hope we will become. If we continue to
try, eventually the symbolic gesture becomes more than a gesture. It becomes
real. Jesus was upset with Judas. He
called him out in front of the disciples.
He did the same thing with Peter. But he still shared the meal. He still
washed their feet.
We do more
than foot washing at this service. As we
do every Sunday, we read the confession together. Typically before launching into the
confession, I like to give a moment for everyone to silently consider the sins
they have committed. Tonight I will give us all a little longer to consider
what sins are keeping us from loving people.
Then we will share communion together. We will crowd around the altar in
this rather tight space and we will accept the gift that God has given us, the
same gift that he gave his disciples, a love that knows no boundaries, a love
that is meant to unite instead of divide.
After that,
the altar and this whole chancel area will be stripped. It will be laid bare, which is what we are
all trying to do before God. Then
finally when you leave, I encourage you to drop a coin in one of the
buckets. The coin represents a way we
have betrayed, denied or abandoned God.
When we drop the coin, we leave that sin behind and we journey toward
Easter with the knowledge that we have moved this much closer to loving others
as God loves each one of us.
