April 13, 2006
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15
Was that conversation with Peter really about washing feet? I don’t think so.I think it was about relationship, about intimacy. Peter wanted to make it about washing, at least at first. Then, slow to catch on as usual, he got it. His feet were not dirty. It was not about washing. It was about the two of them: their love, their relationship. The whole action was not about dirty feet. It was an invitation to intimacy.
That towel and that basin were not taken up by the usual servant who would never have looked at them, would have taken no time to see who it was, who was expected and would have been hired for the service as a typical sign of hospitality. This was the host. Something different is going on here.
In asking them to bear their feet to him he asks them to be vulnerable, like intimate friends. He asks them to let him kneel before him and touch them perhaps in a way they have never been touched before. The disciples are being invited into intimacy with the One who loved them so much he would lay down his life for them.
Brothers and Sisters, it is not only those apostles who are invited into this intimacy. “You also ought to wash one another’s feet.” He says to them. He would have us look at each other, notice each other, touch each other deeply, emotionally, spiritually, be bound up with each other perhaps in a way never known before. It is something new, and perhaps slightly uncomfortable. Like Peter, we might at first object, but now not because we miss the point; but now because we are afraid and sometimes want to keep our secrets, hide our shame, and avoid the needs of another. None the less, the invitation still stands. We are asked to become a people who love and care for each other. We are asked to become vulnerable to each other; to be willing to wash each other’s feet, to risk pride, position, power, live, everything for each other. But he took a towel and a basin.
Christ calls us to do the same. He calls us also to take bread and bless it and break it and eat it together. He calls us to take the cup of wine, give thanks for it and drink it. What is more intimate than drinking from the same cup? Yet, it is not only about bread and wine, just as the washing of the feet was not about washing up. It is about remembering who died for us, that we might live for him. It is about sharing in his life as he shares in out life, all of it, even the worse of it.
Again, it is about intimacy: coming to this table. It is about coming into intimacy with the God who has promised to be really present among us, blessing us, strengthening us, giving us life abundant and eternal. No random gathering of strangers here. When we share the holy food of this table, we are invited into the intimate community of friends who love and care for each other: no longer strangers, no longer servants, but friends. It is the covenant of friendship and love.
It is the covenant of service and care. How could we ever miss or skip the gift and the promise we are given here? Come, let us adore. Come, let us give thanks.
Come, let us rise to this new life.