How They Will Know Us
FROM THE RECTOR
I do not enjoy washing other people’s feet, but I especially do not like having my own feet washed. I suspect many of you feel the same. Tonight, we will gather at the beginning of the Paschal Triduum—the holiest three days of the Christian year—to embark on the sacred journey from the Last Supper to the empty tomb, and it starts with the washing of the feet. Why?
At staff meeting last week, we discussed whether we should include the ceremonial foot-washing in our liturgy this year. Because of Covid, we have omitted it for two years in a row, and the prayer book makes it clear that it is not necessary. We could skip it again this year. Soon, maybe no one will miss it at all. Maybe, without the emphasis on feet, more people will want to come to church on Maundy Thursday, a service at which our attendance is shockingly small. Among the staff, all who spoke out acknowledged that they would be quite happy to let it go, including me. Reluctantly, however, I admitted that, as much as I do not like participating in the washing of feet, I like being a part of a congregation that makes that sacred practice central to its Holy Week rituals.
As we will hear again in the gospel reading tonight, Jesus said to his disciples, “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.” It is that commandment—that mandate—from which Maundy Thursday gets its name. Although that does not mean that we must wash each other’s feet, it does mean that we must love each other with the kind of self-sacrificing love with which Jesus loves us. Thankfully, the foot-washing part of our Maundy Thursday service is completely optional, and you can absolutely be a follower of Jesus without ever taking part, but I think that beginning the Triduum with this humiliating gesture of love helps us understand everything that follows.
In a tangible, tactile way, Maundy Thursday makes real to us our place in the rest of Holy Week. How can we make sense of the cross until we understand that what happened on Good Friday was both a gesture and an example of sacrificial love? How can we venerate the means of Jesus’ death until we understand what it means to take up our own cross in order to follow him? How can we celebrate the resurrection at Easter until we know what it means to experience the self-emptying death that begins with a willingness to love others in the same way that we have been loved—with the kind of love that kneels down to wash another’s feet and that lets someone else offer that kind of love to us?
Over the centuries, the church has created many definitions of faithfulness. The creeds we recite help define what we believe in ways that strengthen our confidence in God and God’s salvation. The canon of scripture sets boundaries on what we hear as God’s word. The authorized liturgies of the church offer structure for how we faithfully worship and pray together. The various catechisms set out the ways in which we understand the Christian faith across the centuries. I am grateful for all of those guidelines, but the principal way that Jesus defines what it means to be his disciple is the nature of our love for each other. In his final address to his disciples, he teaches us that the world will know that we are Christians when we love one another as he has loved us.
That love is not easy. It is not comfortable. It does not come naturally. It costs us something. It is as awkward and out of place as anything we do. Being a Christian would be a lot easier if we were allowed to pick the people we love, choose the ones with whom we identify, and limit our exposure to those who like us back, but those whose job it is to wash another’s feet—the servants of Jesus’ day—are not allowed to choose whose feet they want to wash. Neither are we allowed to choose the ones we love. As the prayer for mission in the Daily Office reminds us, Christ stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross so that everyone might come within the reach of his saving embrace. Because we, too, are loved like that, we must love others just the same.
I hope you will come to church tonight at 7:00 p.m. and begin the Paschal Triduum with us. Those who choose to participate in the foot-washing will come forward, have their feet washed by whoever was in front of them in line, and then turn and wash the feet of whoever comes next. Those who choose not to participate will stay in their pews and meditate on what it means to be loved by Christ and to love others in the same way. After that, we will share Communion together—the last time before Easter—as both a symbol of the love that unites us and as a means by which that love becomes more fully manifest in our hearts. Either way, whether you wash or not, tonight is an opportunity for us to experience what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and begin this sacred journey together in love.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner