There
are two ways to wash someone’s feet: either you lower yourself, or you raise
the other up. In Christ, God does both for us. And in a way, that’s an entirely
new irruption of divine grace into the human story, but in another way it’s the
culmination of how God has always acted towards God’s people. It’s new, but it’s
the same divine love pouring out.
Our readings
tonight take us back to the first Passover, and they do that because Jesus took
his disciples back to the first Passover at that Last Supper of his earthly
ministry. And, in a way, Jesus didn’t need to take them back; as faithful Jews
they were already ready to take themselves back, by celebrating the Passover
feast, as the Jewish people had for centuries, and still do today. Our Jewish sisters
and brothers this year will actually begin to celebrate Passover tomorrow
evening. And as they do, just as Jesus and the Twelve did, they’ll remember the
lamb’s blood on the doorposts and the lintel and they’ll remember the Exodus
through the parted waters of the Red Sea.
The lamb’s
blood: that marked the houses of God’s people, who were ready to begin their
long journey to freedom, as a sign to the angel of death not to meet out death
in these households. The blood wasn’t just a convenient distinctively colored
liquid, as if the angel were too dim to notice anything else. No, blood is
life, and God consented to have blood he created, the life of a creature, shed
that his beloved people might not know that twelfth plague, that they might
live to go forth to the waters of the Red Sea to begin their long walk towards
freedom. And they remember how God parted the Red Sea, how God saved them from
the destructive waters and gave them safe passage, how God made possible a walk
towards freedom that they had to walk themselves, but which they could never
have begun without God’s action.
And
thanks be to God for all of that! That’s not just Old Testament stuff that we
people of the New Testament can forget about. That’s not just Jewish stuff
which is interesting but not that important for Christians. It’s vital for us
partly because Jesus himself celebrated this. But it’s also because God still
acts to protect us from evil and to open up the path on which we’re to walk.
The scrutiny rites that we’ve been celebrating with the catechumens who have
been chosen (or elected) for baptism are rich with prayers that God would
protect these people from evil, and they give thanks for the way God has opened
a way to walk we could never have opened for ourselves, in which these
soon-to-be new Christians are to walk with us.
But,
only that first Holy Thursday, as Jesus celebrated fully all of this, he also
did something radically new. He did something radically new with blood and he did
something radically new with water.
In
saying that the blood of His creation could be shed to save his beloved people,
God did something that would save their lives for a night. Now, in Christ, God
offers his own blood, his own life to be shed to save his beloved people, and
that does more than save our lives for a night. God lets us see, God bids us
taste, how beloved we are. And loved people love. God saves us, yes, from death
(coming soon to an Easter homily near you…), but even more wondrously, in
showing us that we are worth sacrificing for, God saves us from fear, from
slavery to past hurts, from all that keeps us turned in on ourselves, and not
open to love, to neighbor, to God. Tonight, he offers himself to us, body, blood,
soul and divinity, not just to save us from evil (though we still need that too)
but to infuse us with good.
At the
Exodus, God saved his people from water. Now, on Holy Thursday, John tells us
that he brought water to them to show his love. God lets us not just see His
love, taste His love, but feel His love tickle our feet. There’s a reason old
maps were marked “here be dragons” on large expanses of waters, why many
Ancient Near Eastern peoples thought the seas were chaotic hostile gods or goddesses.
In the Exodus, God took that water the Israelites were right to be scared of,
and brought it away from them. On Holy Thursday, in Christ, God shows the water
can be close, and can be intimate and can be healing. And Peter was still
pretty scared and shocked by that. In the foot washing, Christ told his Twelve “I
want the real you; I want the ‘you’ you try to hide. Because the ‘you’ you are
is delightful and nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s gotten dirty and I’ll
lower myself, and raise you up, and clean it.” We are wonderfully and fearfully
made, but we have gotten dirty, and we are so sorry about that, and sometimes
we don’t want even God to see that, maybe especially not God. God loves what’s
lovely about us so much that there’s nothing He won’t do to clean us up so all creation
can see that. He’ll lower himself, and he’ll raise us up.
And just
as Christ’ body, blood, soul and divinity will be offered to us tonight under
form of bread and wine, so will foot washing be. And I want to offer some
thoughts on how to engage that, and some questions for you to ponder. First,
our pastor, Fr. Robert, will wash the feet of small sampling of parishioners.
Today, at a prison in Rome, our chief pastor, Pope Francis, washed the feet of twelve
prisoners. I spoke today to a priest friend in Texas who washed the feet of one
homebound parishioner earlier today and round about now will wash the feet of
eleven more parishioners during Mass.
After
that, here there’ll be an opportunity for mutual foot washing among the
congregation. Now, the Pope didn’t have the prisoners wash each other’s feet,
he didn’t ask them to wash his. I say this without any judgment, but just as an
observation: in most parishes I’ve served, there is no mutual foot washing
during the liturgy. This parish isn’t unique, I’ve been part of one other that
offered this, but most, in my experience, don’t. No one should feel under any
pressure either to participate in that or not to participate in that. And I’m
not going to tell you what I’ve discerned so as you do your own discernment.
But, I do want to just offer some questions to help you discern.
Some
people really appreciate participating in a mutual foot washing because feeling
that, in their feet and in their hands, speaks to their heart and their soul
more powerfully than just hearing about it and seeing it. But some other people
note that even though Jesus said to the apostles to wash each other’s feet,
they don’t do that during Holy Thursday. They certainly lived it later in their
lives, but it’s not actually clear they ever did it literally. So, for some
people, what they want to enter into fully is not foot washing, but the pattern
of Jesus’ life on Holy Thursday. They want to see one person wash several
people’s feet (as Jesus did), then participate in the Lord’s Supper, then go
with him to the altar of repose and stay a while as the disciples did at
Gethsemane. For some people, to insert a mutual foot washing is to disrupt Holy
Thursday.
I’ll
also note that Jesus’ command to imitate is not given to all his followers, but
just to the Twelve, who had accompanied each other on this intense three year
experience, had developed incredible bonds of intimacy, and were about to enter
into servant leadership. There’s an ancient novel from about this time, about
Joseph (the Joseph with the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat), who gets married
and is about to call in a slave to wash his feet when his new wife says, “No, I’m
your wife now, no one washes your feet but me.” Jesus’ washing his apostles
feet is about that intimacy, that almost spousal intimacy, and that slavelike
service. Some people look at their parish communities and I say, “that’s what I
want for this parish. I want this to be a place where we have that intimacy and
where we serve each other like that, so, even if we don’t have that yet, foot
washing can help get us there.” Others look at their parish communities and
say, “I don’t have that kind of intimacy with my fellow parishioners, beyond
maybe family and a few friends, (we’re called to love everyone, but not
necessarily have the same intimacy with everyone) and I’m not in that position
of service. Mutual foot washing now would be putting the cart before the horse.”
No
judgment; whatever you discern. We’ll probably make different decisions one
from another. But, together, we affirm and celebrate, it’s Christ who lowers
himself and raises us up, and however we express that with our bodies, that
frees us for love.
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