Forgiveness and Love and Humility and Servanthood Maundy Thursday March 20, 2008

(First read the text for this sermon: John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

Three months before my father died, we got him to Pawley’s Island for the last time. (For decades, my extended family has gathered at Pawley’s for an annual vacation.) Dad was very frail. To give my mother a week off, my brother and I took turns caring for Dad.

The first thing each morning was to wash him. The first time, it was a difficult thing to do – to care for my father in such an intimate way. The next time it was easier. In fact, it felt sacramental: I felt a strong sense of God’s presence in the work. It was an act of love and humility and servanthood.

Have you ever washed a loved one who has been unable to care for himself?

Three months after this experience with my father, I found myself unable to care for myself. In the hospital, I experienced what my father had – being helpless, being dependent upon others to wash me. I was very fortunate with the nurses and aides who were assigned to me. What care they showed while doing this work! I know it was their job. But it was how they did their job: in a spirit of patient servanthood.

Have you ever been washed? It was a humbling experience to wash my father’s body. It was a humbling experience to be washed, in the hospital.

It is through these experiences that I have entered into tonight’s story from John. I thought of them immediately, when I read these verses: [D]uring supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

Imagine Jesus’ love and humility and servanthood as he does that work. Indeed, the washing is a startling act of forgiveness, in advance of the betrayal Jesus will endure from these same disciples who will abandon him in the hours to come.

In our Lutheran understanding, Jesus is the Word of God. In our Lutheran understanding, the Word of God primarily is not something that’s on a printed page. The Word of God is something that is enfleshed in Jesus. And so, what does Jesus embody? It is forgiveness and love and humility and servanthood.

Tonight’s story from the gospel of John witnesses to a God who does not stand in judgment – but who kneels before us in servanthood! As Brian Wren puts it, in the hymn we will sing next:

“We strain to glimpse your mercy seat
and find you kneeling at our feet.”

If this does not shock you, then you’re not entering into the old story! It certainly outrages Simon Peter, who cannot imagine that this is what God is like! Here’s what we read: [Jesus] came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me."

God comes to us in forgiveness and love and humility and servanthood that is shocking! But – unless we know forgiveness (of ourselves in particular!) we do not know God. Unless we know how to live in love and humility and servanthood, we have not received God.

Indeed, the Word of God, enfleshed in Jesus the Christ, commands you and me to live in this way, and to treat each other in this way. (Tonight is Maundy Thursday. You may remember that the word, “maundy” comes from the Latin word for “command.”) We read this: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

“Just as I have loved you.”

Jesus is the model for you and me.

I pray that you and I will emerge from these three days of worship, at this most holy time of year, following the Christ in forgiveness and love and humility and servanthood.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia