readings: exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; psalm 116; 1 corinthians

1 / 7 Copyright © 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.

Holy Thursday, April 13, 2017

READINGS: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; Psalm 116; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; and John 13:1-15

“It is a far better thing to feed the hungry than to bury the dead.”

—John Chrysostom

Lent is over. Tonight we begin the three days of the Paschal Mystery, remembering and living together the mystery story of Jesus’ Incarnation, dwelling among us, breathing his Spirit into the world at his death, and Resurrection, and passing his Spirit onto us. We remember: we put back together what was divided and sepa-rated. We are made whole and one together again as the Body of Christ in our God, the Trinity. It is all of one piece, one experience from this night until Easter’s dawning light. We begin with the first lines of the Gospel:

“Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

The story at its heart is about love. Today is a feast of friends. And yet, there is no food! Instead our hearts are to be broken open by Jesus’ words. Then there are feet, and Jesus bent low, kneeling before his friends. For John, this is liturgy, as intimate and powerful as breaking bread and sharing wine together. Jesus is beginning his passing over to his Father and we begin our passover, from being baptized to becoming a disciple to being Beloved Dis-

ciples, his friends drawn together into his intimacy with his Father and Spirit. It is a night that is hushed, with deep moments of stillness, overshadowed both by the intensity of Jesus’ love and a sense of sorrow and endings.

Jesus’ solidarity with us, what we call the Incarnation, God becoming hu-man, mortal flesh and blood is God bending low, downward mobility toward us. There is an ancient Jewish story that will help us face this night and all that lies before us. Once upon a time a student came to a rabbi per-plexed and a bit distraught: “Master, I

am troubled. I have read stories of the old days, when it seemed that there were a good number of people who could see God. But these days there doesn’t seem to be anyone who sees God. Why?” The rabbi paused, silent. Then he knelt before the student, and whispered so that she would have to bend down to listen, “My child, nowadays there are so few who are willing to stoop so low.”


“Jesus, God’s Beloved Disciple,

is seeking to reveal

and make each of his disciples

a beloved disciple ...

This is why we gather,

break open the Word, break bread,

break the structures of power,

and break the cycles of destruction,

indignity, and death

and all eat of the same loaf

and drink of the one cup.

This is how Jesus makes

us all whole, one again,

in communion.”

The story is a bit shocking. It is not what we are expecting—not the words or how they are delivered. What Jesus does tonight is just as shocking. Washing feet is not a gesture that comes easy to us, even now; and it has had a checkered past even in the Church. It is too intimate. It is awkward and embarrassing and humbling. We have focused in Western culture and religion on it being service. At the time of Jesus, it was customary to wash the feet of guests and visitors to one’s home as part of the initial welcome, but it was performed by a lowly house servant. No rabbi would allow his disciples to wash his feet. Perhaps more than any other gesture, it revealed the relationship and the vast difference between the two persons.

And yet, Jesus will turn this display of power and subservience upside down, reversing what is being expressed between two people. This is how Jesus reveals the depth of Incarnation among us. This gesture is as much an icon of worship, an expression of love as what we call liturgy, the work of the people with the symbols of the Word, bread and wine. This is John’s Eucharist, Jesus’ way of giving thanks to his God for and with us, his parting gift to his friends. This is how he reveals the good news of our new relationship with God.

This is the description of what Jesus does, first remind-ing us of who he is:

“…Jesus, fully aware that he had come from God and was going to God, the Father who had handed everything over to him—rose from the meal and took off his cloak. He picked up a towel and tied it around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel he had around him” (A Catechu-men’s Lectionary, p. 118).

We do this ritual, following the actual practice. Jesus RISES from the table meal. John uses the same word for resurrection! He takes off his cloak, laying aside his outer garment, takes up a towel and ties it around his waist. Again, words interconnecting other actions: LAYING ASIDE and TAKING UP, echoing Jesus’ obedience to his Father’s words that he will “lay down his life and take it up again” (John 10:17). It is also the word used to describe new believers in preparation for baptism, laying all their possessions at the feet of the apostles in Acts of the Apostles. He takes up the garment of a servant, a towel, and wraps it around himself as though wrapped in a shroud. Then, he pours water into a basin, as he has poured out his heart and life with us and will pour out his blood for us.


Then he begins the work of feet washing. These feet would have been dirty from walking the roads and fields, streets befouled with refuse and offal (more proper words for stinking garbage and shit). They were calloused, worn, smelly, and tired feet, not ones already washed in preparation for a religious service. Today, they would be the feet of refugees fleeing terror, on the road for weeks; immigrants, migrants, field workers; people who had been on their feet all day cleaning hotel rooms; gardeners, and construction workers. When Jesus finishes washing them, he wipes and dries them with the towel wrapped around him. It was a rough cloth used to mas-sage and stimulate blood flow. Jesus was not just washing dirt away, he was rubbing life back into them (ancient reflexology).

All of this is important, because what he is doing is a prophetic acting out of what is going to happen to him when this night is over. He will be handed over, man-handled, mishandled, and wiped off the face of the earth. He will lay down his life for us so that he can take it up again when his Father raises him up.

But there is more. There is one basin, one bowl, one towel for everyone. With each person, Jesus takes it from around his body, rubs their feet dry, refreshing them, and wraps the towel around his waist again. The twelve are all washed. Two stick out like sore toes! Judas, who we are reminded of at the start of it all, that he has already betrayed Jesus. He is described as “the devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to hand Jesus over” (John 13:2). He is named, as not a disciple, not begotten of Jesus. The translation for “the devil” is the one who splits wholeness apart or hinders all. That is what Judas, in collusion with those in power, is conspiring to do, while Jesus is conspiring with the Spirit given to him by the Father in putting us back together and making us all one in him.

The other is Peter, always impetuous, blurting out what the others are thinking, and telling Jesus what he thinks he should or should not do, according to his idea of who Jesus is: “You shall never wash my feet” (John 13:15). Peter cannot stand that Jesus is on his knees before him, taking up one of his feet to do something for him that only a lowly slave or a woman was relegated to do. Peter resists “being a slave to all, if you want to be the greatest” in my circle of friends. Jesus insists and they go at it back and forth.

When Jesus has washed all of their feet, he rises, puts his cloak back on and reclines at table again, asking them and us to take to heart what he has done and what we are now to do:

“Do you understand what I just did for you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’, and fittingly enough, for that is what I am. But if I washed your feet—I who am Teacher and Lord—then you must wash each other’s feet. What I just did was to give you an example, as I have done, so you must do” (A Catechumen’s Lectionary, p. 118).


Jesus, God’s Beloved Disciple, is seeking to reveal and make each of his disciples a beloved disciple. This is how it’s done. This is what we are to do with one another. This is how Jesus liberates us, saves us, and we pass over into living in the freedom of the children of God. This is why we gather, break open the Word, break bread, break the structures of power and break the cycles of destruction, indignity, and death, and all eat of the same loaf and drink of the one cup. This is how Jesus makes us all whole, one again, in communion.

But there is another strong understanding of what Jesus is doing that we rarely remember. This is a ritual of slave to master, which Jesus upends, but there was one occasion and relationship that broke the pattern. The wife was allowed to wash her husband’s feet. It was an honor, an act of intimacy, and a gesture of love. There is a story from the time of Jesus of a Jewish couple, Joseph and Asenath. Asenath is Joseph’s bride and she will not let anyone else touch his feet. She tells him, “Your hands are my hands and your feet are my feet and I will wash them, and no one else will touch them.” It was the custom to wash the feet of one another as part of the betrothal and marriage ceremonies, for they were wed becoming one body. The ritual is still practiced in many countries.

Jesus washing our feet, others washing our feet, and we washing the feet of others is about communion, unity, intimacy, holy humility. We kneel before one another as God kneels before us and serves us—forgiving us and making us his friends. One of the follow-ing lines reads, “Blessed are you when you do this!” Blessed like the poor, those who mourn, those who speak the truth to power, those persecuted for the sake of justice, those who are the peacemakers, the children of God. This is the worship that God wants from us: to bend before one another and fill up what is lacking in one another; to feed one another the bread of life and food for our bodies; to forgive one another in spite of betrayals, abandonment, conspiracy, selfishness, and infidelity—to love one another.

This is Jesus’ Passover. This is our Pass-over that we are to celebrate and remember, put into practice and live daily for all to see and know as God’s Good News to the poor. When we do this, we remember Jesus. Every time we do this, and when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes! This is our ritual of passing over into freedom, our feet on the way of Jesus, our feasting with one another and our God in Jesus as friends. This is how beloved disciples are made and we celebrate our communion with one another. This is why we remember and how we are put back together again as Jesus’ Body in the world. This is how we are loved.


REFLECTION QUESTIONS: TO STRETCH YOUR HEART AND SOUL

l John Chrysostom, notable Christian bishop and preacher from the fourth and fifth centuries in Syria and Constantinople, wrote, “If you live alone, whose feet do you wash? Do you dare go to Eucharist?” Think about these two questions. Try to put together for yourself, and then, in a group, what the connections are between tending to the basic needs of others daily and Eucharist every Sunday. When we accept the bread or the cup from another’s hand in liturgy we hear the words, “Body of Christ” and we answer “Amen.” In

accepting this piece of the one loaf, we accept everyone into our lives.

l We have reduced liturgy, even the sharing of the bread in taking communion to a very private affair, as though it were a meal between two—me and God. We even close our eyes after taking Eucharist rather than look with love at one another. How do you think Jesus looked at each of the disciples as he took one of their feet, washed, and dried it? How do you think each one felt? How did they look at one another while Jesus was working on their feet and afterwards when he finished and sat down to tell them this is the way you’re supposed to be with one another?

l In The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “The one who bows and pays respect, and the one who receives the bow and the respect, both of us are empty. That is why communion is perfect.” Each evening, before going to bed, take some time to remember your day. Who did you kneel before? Who did you bow before? Whose basic needs did you tend to? Who bowed before you? How did you respond to them—like Peter, like Judas, like a beloved disciple?

l In the Didache, an early account of the Church, Christians said the following, “See how those Christians love one another, there are no poor among them!” (Echoes of Acts 2 and 5, where everyone held everything in common and there was no need that went unfilled.) Eucharist, whether it is breaking bread, breaking open the Word, or washing feet, is about living together, serving one another, and extending communion with others. Have a reflection group before liturgy twice a month asking this question: “What does it mean for us and our Church community to go out the door after worshiping and put the ritual into practice? Remember the photograph of a homeless person stretched out in an empty pew in Church—it was meant to be Jesus trying to get some rest—the one “who had nowhere to lay his head.”


PRAYERYou Lord, you have loved us. You have bowed before us,

Washed our feet and fed us hope with your words.

You have showed us in your body,With your hands and heart,

How to return the favor of your love.

We are to bend in respect and honor before all others, Caring for them and their needs as completely

And as intimately as you have done with each of us.

Lord, you stay with us now, Telling us to look into the face of every other person

And see your face mirrored back to us.

Let us recognize each one’s dignity, And bend before each person, tending to their needs,

Encouraging them, being gentle and strong with them.

Let us bless you in gratitude By drawing everyone closer

And deeper into your presence among us.

Lord, make us one with them in you As you are One in your community of the Three. Amen.

—Megan McKenna


FAITH IN ACTION: SHIFTING INTO NEW PRACTICES

l In the 1930s, a young girl from India, Shanti Devi, claimed to remember details of a past which stirred up complicated debates about the afterlife. She said, “At the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling.” Think of people in the world today who literally need their feet washed, cared for, massaged—the homeless, street folk, immigrants, migrants, day laborers, caregivers who work 24/7, waitresses, maids, and refugees. Along with feet, they need food. Start close to home—who could use some attention, to their feet, their dragging hearts, and weary souls? What can you do to alleviate some of their strain, and tend to their needs while relating to them as a friend? Find groups and organizations, who work with people who are hungry—pantries, soup kitchens, houses of hospitality—and begin to help out by collecting food from restaurants, markets, and distribution centers, or in providing meals for those at home.

l Labor leader, and civil rights activist, co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, César Chávez said, “If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with them…the people who give you their food give you their heart.” Invite people to share meals in your neighborhood, even once a month, and begin by finding out who’s hungry: children, teens, the elderly, and families. Many families know hunger daily. Six point eight million teens (ages 10-17) are “food-insecure,” including another 2.9 million with very low food security” (Zero Hedge, http://bit.ly/2i4J7oc).With shifts in economies, the price of food rising over the last years, this is being called hidden starvation. They live thinking about when they will have their next meal or what it is they will be eating. Organize and serve meals after school, after sports practice, or one evening every week at a community center. Get creative in how to bend and bow before those in need with respect. But remember this is something you do with others, for others, not as lone rangers.

l Meet with members of your parish and places of worship. Share statistics: 9.2 million children under five die each year in developing countries (WHO: Child Mortality, http://bit.ly/1FnDZgS). In the United States 14 million families, one in 10 households, skip meals. Then share the words of Dutch scientist and writer, Louise Fresco, with everyone, “Food, in the end, in our tradition, is something holy. It’s not [only] about nutrients and calories. It’s about sharing. It’s about honesty. It’s about identity.” Remember that in the early Church, the breaking of the bread and the breaking open of the scriptures was part of an actual meal where everyone brought food and everyone ate together, slave and free, rich and poor, men and women, young and old, all races, etc. Connect with Bread for the World, local food pantries, and others that seek to help people locally feed one another. Someone in a sprawling poor parish in Brazil once told me after Mass, while they were both feeding people a meal, handing out food (with music, singing and dancing), that, when you go to communion, you have to make sure that no one in your neighborhood is going hungry. It insults God who feeds us the bread of life!

l Dirty feet. Hungry stomachs. Starving hopes. The staggering number of immigrants, refugees, migrants, those without a country, without shelter, without security are those that are given to us as gift to bow before and to begin with the basics: wash their feet, feed them, and refresh them—aiding them on their way to set-tling and living beyond mere survival and often slow or violent death. Every city, every diocese (hopefully)has “processing centers,” offices and services for incoming people seeking freedom and life, displaced and in transition—living their own Passovers. First, take a stand in public, as a Church community shows that you stand with them, and then, have the parish together adopt and sponsor a number of families.

readings: exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; psalm 116; 1 corinthians

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