Grace to you and peace, from our Master Jesus Christ, who kneels at your feet to wash them, who calls you friend, you, who loves you beyond measure. AMEN.
Come, sisters and brothers in Christ, let us be the church. Tonight is the night. Let us do as Christ has commanded us. Let us wash one another’s feet. Let us forgive one another. Let us love one another.
Tonight there is a sense of urgency. The palm branches are dying; the big crowds of Palm Sunday are gone. Now it’s just us, and Jesus is getting serious. Tonight we remember the last supper. A last and final word. A farewell lesson. But the thing that sticks even more than any words, as powerful as words can be…are actions. Feelings. Sensations. Tonight we get to hear that we are forgiven. We get to taste once more that we are forgiven. And we get to feel it, we get to feel that water. We get to feel that we are forgiven in a strange place on our bodies: on our feet. Feeling forgiveness on your feet. From head to toe tonight.
The first time I ever had my feet washed in church was just three years ago, it was at a service like this in Minnesota. (I had always just watched others do it, or dramatic presentations.) So this ritual was weird and scary to me. I have stinky feet, and my toes are long and goofy. Plus they had been inside my shoes all day. But I did it. And when that water first touched them, there was a tingle. I tensed and jumped a little. My heart beat kind of sped up. I almost kicked accidentally the stranger who was putting their hands on and washing my feet. A little zing spread all over my body. It was kind of intimate…which made me nervous, and for an instant, even angry. It wasn’t sexual, but it was definitely intimate. And that whole experience was so memorable and strange that I said to myself, I’ve got to offer opportunities for others to feel this. I can’t describe the sensation any more. You just have to feel it for yourself.
Come, let us be the church. Let our discipleship, our love for Christ, have consequences. Let it make us uncomfortable and scared. Let it make us feel awkward and tingly. If anyone came here sure that you were going to skip the foot washing tonight, I’d beg you to reconsider now.
Christ’s love causes us to tense up and jump a little this urgent evening, like the way you jump when someone gently blows on the hairs of your neck or pours water on your feet. Your first reaction is almost to kick them. This is a strange love Jesus has for us. Jesus calls us his friends. What kind of a God has to have friends?
A God who cries. A God who serves us. A God who becomes incarnate into human skin. A God who needs our help.
Dietrich Bonheoffer said that when “Christ calls us, he bids we come and die.” He spoke of discipleship with consequences. Let us go, friends, and die with Christ; let us be a church that first washes each others’ stinky feet, and then turns to wash the stinky feet of this world, a church with dirty—maybe even bloody—hands. Ew. Strange love. Awkward. Let us be that church: risky and sick with care for this world. For that is how Jesus loves--risky and sick with care for this world. Now he bids we come and join him. He calls us friends. Now we’ve got to offer opportunities for others to feel this love. It’s so strange and real…and good. We call each other friends, now we call the world friends.
Friendship means that no one is better than the other. Author Sandra Schneiders writes that “friendship is the one human relationship based on equality.” And there is room for patience and laughter. Friendship among nations, for friends of Jesus. For friends of Jesus, there’s friendship among religious groups. Patience and laughter. Friendship among classes. It’s one thing to give a poor man some money; it’s another to name Lazarus as one of your friends. Jesus calls us friends, he washes our feet and then he tells us to do likewise. That’s his final word, that’s his final action. The entire Gospel of John can be summed up in this event. Serving and loving.
Come, let us be the church. Let us do as Christ has done for us. Let us wash one another’s feet, for Christ has washed ours. In the end, for Christ, that’s all there is: Love. Awkward, tingly, risky, smelly, dangerous, unconditional love. AMEN.
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