Welcome to the Father's House: A Homily for Maundy Thursday

  Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, on Maundy Thursday.   Readings for today:  Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31B-35

 

Note:  I'm indebted to the most recent  podcast on Maundy Thursday from workingpreacher.org and to Johanine scholar Karoline Lewis for her preceptive comments on tonight's gospel.  MP+

Tonight as we begin the Triduum, the great three days of Easter, our liturgy takes a curious and dramatic turn.  Besides reenacting the last supper in the form of the Eucharist, as we do normally, we reenact the account in St. John’s gospel of what occurred on that last night that Jesus spent with his friends before his death, as he bent down and washed their feet.   I sometimes wonder what a visitor might think of tonight if this was their first experience of Christian worship!

We only hear about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet in St. John’s gospel.  Had this act been mentioned in the other three gospels, it might be the thing we do when we gather every Sunday instead of the eucharist!

Most of us are probably grateful that foot washing did not become the primary sacrament of the Christian church, probably because many of us have boundaries around our persons

In my first parish, there was a free foot clinic for seniors offered monthly in the village, and one day an old gentleman pitched up at the church door.  “I’m here to get my feet fixed”, he said, looking at me expectantly, and it was with great relief that I directed him down the street to the clinic.

As we get older, we are more reluctant to let people see us or touch us in intimate ways, and exposing one’s feet with their dirt, callouses, and other blemishes can make us feel vulnerable (especially true of men whose wives sing the praises of the pedicure).    Speaking for myself, unless I’d been injured and was in the ER, I wouldn’t want someone else to handle my bare feet.   I’d be too self conscious.

Things were different in the ancient world, where foot washing was offered to a guest after a long or dusty journey.  For Jews, foot washing for guests was  a sign of hospitality and had no religious significance.   It was considered separate from ritual purification, which one would have done at home before visiting another house  (Jesus:  “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet” Jn 13.10).

When they arrived at someone’s house, it’s unlikely that a guest would have felt particularly self-conscious about letting someone wash their feet,  because that person would have been a servant or a slave.    “Who cares what a servant thinks of my ugly feet, they’re not really a person” would have been the attitude of many.   This attitude survives to this day in different forms,  for example in the way in the way that most hotel guests often treat the cleaning staff and maid service as if they’re invisible.

 Jesus’ decision to wash his disciples’ feet scandalizes them, particularly Peter, who seems to think it is inappropriate for Jesus “You will never wash my feet” (Jn 13.7).  However, Jesus insists that the disciples let their rabbi do this, because in blurring the distinction between servant and master, Jesus is setting an example for them:  “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13.14)

Now at this point we might conclude that Jesus is simply making an ethical point, that we should be nice to one another and look after one another, regardless of social status.

But, let’s look more closely at what Jesus is doing.   In playing the role of the servant, who is making the guests welcome and ready to enter the master’s house, Jesus is welcoming the disciples into a deep relationship, an abiding, with himself and with his father.    As Jesus tells them later in the same evening, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” (Jn 14.2).   This is not just a reference to a place to live.  Jesus is not talking about a condo where we can shut the door and have a space to ourselves.  Rather, Our Lord is, to use a word that Jesus likes to use in John’s gospel, is talking about “abiding” with God, a dwelling with God, to be literally at rest in the presence of God.

We see an image of what this abiding with Jesus looks like in the verses that are cut out of tonight’s gospel reading.  After the foot washing, the disciples recline on couches to eat, as was the custom, and while Jesus is predicting his betrayal “One of his disciples – the one whom Jesus loved – was reclining next to him” (Jn 13.23).  That posture, one of intimate presence and closeness to Jesus, even actually leaning or resting on Jesus, may explain why this particular disciple is often called “the Beloved Disciple”, which some people take to be reference to John himself.

Take a moment to imagine the scene, to be resting so close to Jesus, to even be leaning on him.   It’s an image that’s just as intimate, maybe even more so, than the footwashing.  Wouldn’t you want such an opportunity to be so close to Jesus, to be allowed into his presence so that you could rest your cares and burdens on him?      It’s also an image of deep relationship and closeness to God that echoes what we hear in the Prologue to John’s Gospel, that “It is God’s only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart” (Jn 1.18).

It may well be though that in John’s gospel the term beloved refers to the church in general, or to anyone who wished to be a follower of Jesus.    Contrast the posture of the beloved disciple, reclining in the presence of Jesus, with that of Judas, who will leave to betray Jesus (Jn 13.21-30).   Judas, like the other disciples, has experienced the love of Jesus by having his feet washed, but he chooses to reject this gift and leave.    

And yet, those who profess to stay with Jesus to the end, like Peter (Jn 13.36-38) will, as Jesus predicts, betray him, thus reminding us that we are frail, even sinful, and all in need of the love and forgiveness that Jesus offers and will offer on the cross, as we hear tomorrow on Good Friday.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another, just as I ave loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13.34).  If we just thought about these words in terms of the foot washing episode, we might just think that this commandment was just about doing stuff, about loving others even if they make us uncomfortable, which it is, in part, but it is also more than about ethics, about how we treat one another.    It’s also about how God treats us.

In washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus is putting them at the door of his Father’s house and inviting them in as guests.   He welcomes them, and us, to his Father’s mansion.  Once inside, Jesus invites us to recline with him, to rest ourselves in him, to abide with him, to experience the deep love that he shares with the father. 

This love is offered to all of us, drawing us all into the love and peace and joy that Jesus shares with the Father.    It’s a deep invitation that erases the distinction between master and servant, where none are inferior or above others.  It’s the love that creates a new community, where we can all be forgiven and beloved disciples and thus become more like Jesus in how we live with one another.

This Easter, I encourage you not to hold back from this invitation to come home, to live with Jesus in the heart of the Trinity.    If you feel you aren’t worthy, remember that just as Jesus knew Judas would betray him and Peter would deny them, even so he loved them “to the end”, or “to the uttermost” as another translation puts it.    That same love is offered to you, to come into the Father’s house and rest there, knowing that we are loved and forgiven, and so finding ourselves able to love others as we are loved