In the Doing -- Maundy Thursday

April 18, 2019

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

            I have reached the season of lasts. Last Sunday was the last Palm Sunday that I’ll celebrate with all of you. Tonight is my last Maundy Thursday, tomorrow is my last Good Friday … well, you get the picture. But as I think about all of the lasts that are rapidly approaching, I’m also remembering my firsts. Tonight I am specifically remembering my first Maundy Thursday service here in our congregation.

            I had led many other Maundy Thursday services before I came here, but there was something different about our Maundy Thursday service in comparison to the others I had been a part of. The first Maundy Thursday service that I led in our church was also the first time I had ever led or participated in a foot washing.

My memory is fuzzy on the particulars of how Alice and I decided to include the foot washing. I suspect, although I cannot confirm this, that it was Alice who brought up the fact that foot washing is often a component of a Maundy Thursday service. And if she did say that, then I probably confessed to her that I had never done that before. I had not even been here a year by that time, but I’m sure I would have been comfortable enough with Alice to also say that I was extremely uncomfortable with foot washing, and that I was unsure about taking it on in worship. Knowing Alice, she probably assured me that we did not have to have foot washing anywhere near our Maundy Thursday service. And knowing me, I probably replied well now that we’ve talked about it, I feel that we should go ahead with it. If it makes me this uncomfortable, it probably means I need to experience it.  

            Again, my memory is pretty fuzzy, but I imagine a conversation like that or something similar took place. What is most important is that we decided to wash feet. Actually, we decided that I would wash feet. And I did. I washed the feet of anyone who came forward. If you were there that night, you may or may not have realized how nervous I was about doing this. I wasn’t sure if there was a foot washing etiquette. Would I be turned off by it? What if I really hated doing it, and was this setting a precedent I would never be able to get out of?

            It is my job to be here tonight. This is a duty and a responsibility, and I take that seriously. And part of our service is the foot washing. Yet, even if this was not part of the job description and I had no obligation to be here, I would still be here. I would still lead this service, and I would still do what I’m going to do in just a few minutes: kneel down and wash your feet. Because far from being a precedent that I don’t know how to change, the act of foot washing in our service has made me appreciate and love this particular night even more. And what is more, washing the feet of the people I serve has made me love all of you even more.

            When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, he was giving them an example of how to love one another. You love one another by serving one another. Love is not about how you feel, it is about what you do, how you act toward and live with others. If you love one another, then you serve one another.

            This is all right and true and beautiful. It is also hard and can sometimes feel almost impossible to live up to. But it has occurred to me that maybe Jesus understood something that us regular folks struggle to get. We think that loving leads to serving, and it does. I will say again that love is not a feeling. It is not only a noun. It is also a verb. Loving is what you do. But I also think that it is the serving that increases our ability to love: to do love, and to feel love. The doing increases the loving.

            I already cared about all of you when we shared our first Maundy Thursday together. But after washing your feet, I loved you even more. Our feet are not necessarily our most beautiful attribute. They get callused and tired and achy and smelly and roughed up. Just by living we put our feet through their paces – pun intended because I wrote it – every single day. But when you allowed me to wash your feet, to see them in all their imperfections, you allowed me to see you a little more deeply, a little more clearly. It was in the doing that I learned even more about the loving.

            In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus set his followers a new commandment: to love one another as he loved them. That loving came in the form of doing, of service. Jesus knew that the way to show their love for him was to show love in the form of service to each other and to others. But maybe he also knew that the more they served one another, the more they did for one another, the more their feelings of love would grow and expand. Because I believe that it is in the doing that we learn love. It is in the doing for others that we truly learn how to love others. What would this beautiful and broken world that God gave us look like if we took that out in the streets? What would the world look like if we just realized that the more we do for others, the more we will love others?

            I don’t know, but I can imagine. I can imagine because I know from personal experience that it is in the doing that you learn the loving. I love you, so I wash your feet. And when I wash your feet, I love you even more.

            Amen and amen and amen.