Renewed Love
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 • Psalm 116:1, 10-17 • 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 • John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” What an odd thing to say to the faithful, to those who knew their holy scripture and the commands Moses had passed along from the LORD, not the least of which included from Leviticus: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev 19:18, NRSV, emphasis added). Of course, there are a lot of other commands in Leviticus, too. Fortunately, Jesus didn’t settle into dinner with the disciples on this critical night and condemn hybrid animals or plants or our mixed-fiber garments. Jesus did say, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” But what is new?
At this point in Jesus’s ministry, we are used to the constant threat of the powers that be pursuing Jesus, seeking his demise. Jesus’s ministry, as we were reminded in our inquirer’s class, was about confronting the power and authority of the world. Jesus had enemies, but Judas was the first of his friends to betray him. Mind you, he’s not the only one. Peter will deny Jesus three times before the cock crows, and we’ll wonder where all the other guys have gone. Yet Judas betrayed Jesus to death in a critical and fatal choice. What did Jesus do in the face of such betrayal, a betrayal he knew was unfolding? He continued to live into his ministry, teaching, showing the way of love, respecting and honoring that God’s will be done even in the face of personal betrayal.
As if the personal and emotional undercurrent of radical love weren’t already enough, in the middle of the meal Jesus gets up and prepares himself to wash the feet of those gathered with him. We get the verbal exchange with Peter, but Judas was there, too, to receive the washing and share in the meal. In this dramatic move of the teacher washing the feet of the student-disciples, Jesus humbles himself to serve. He tells them he is setting an example for them, instructing them to do for others as he has done for them and that they will be blessed to do it. Their love isn’t to be without action, and their service is grounded in love, regardless of what status or roles they think they have. Undoubtedly this is new and different, adding to the tally of the unexpected things Jesus did along the way, expecting his followers to do likewise.
If this is your first Maundy Thursday service, this might be a challenge for you, to participate in the washing of one another’s feet, to allow your feet to be washed. As often as Jesus sat in the midst of the outcast and focused the gaze upon the lowly, we, too, still have a hard time doing uncomfortable things like being on the same level as others or sacrificing whatever it is that gives us comfort or power, like our time, our money, our care, and our security. But Jesus’s example doesn’t give us instructions on how to cross-examine those for whom we will humble ourselves, nor does Jesus’s example give us qualifiers or exceptions for doing the washing. Jesus’s act is disruptive, unexpected, intimate, and embodied. It’s physical, vulnerable, and available to all who are willing. We extend the invitation to participate, and your participation is both to give and to receive. Just as you receive the love of Jesus Christ, so, too, are you the means through which others can receive God’s love. It’s not a demand, but it’s an “ought-to.” We should wash one another’s feet. It is good for us to do so.
But perhaps what I realize as if for the first time is how this footwashing reveals the new covenant, the new iteration of God’s love. In humbling himself to wash the feet of the disciples, Jesus foretells his humiliation on the cross. Through the water poured over the feet, they and we are reminded of our baptism, of the salvation we now have through Jesus Christ. In his commentary of the Gospel according to John, Raymond E. Brown writes that from verse one of the thirteenth chapter, it’s clear that “Jesus approached his death as an act of love for those who believed in him.” [1] To believe in Jesus is to believe in the Son of God. To believe in Jesus is to relate to God in a newly revealed way. For Jesus to be glorified meant that God would be glorified, God’s will being fulfilled, humanity drawn into covenant with God anew for all who believed, for all who choose to believe, for all willing to receive such grace, mercy, and love. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “if you have love for one another.”
One thing I found difficult in reading about the gospel was that the Johannine community was just fine with the command to love one another to be exclusive to those who also believed as they did. Fortunately, as we believe the Bible is written “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” (BCP 853) and that “we understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of the Scriptures” (BCP 853-4), our understanding is ever-evolving. When we hear the new commandment to love one another, we hear the command and the challenge to love not only those who are easy to love but also to love those whom we would rather ignore or maybe even despise, and even those who betray us.
But if we can position ourselves at table with Jesus, as little children eager to learn, yearning for love and attention, craving intimacy with Christ, might we also be able to receive all that is new through Jesus Christ? While not an exhaustive list, Jesus embodied radical non-violence, selflessness, humility, fellowship, hospitality, divine sacrifice, and God’s glory. We don’t have to wash one another’s feet, but we ought to, for it is here in this simple act that we, too, die to who we think we are and be more like Christ with one another. It is here that what is happening in these three holy days comes into focus. We begin here, kneeling before one another, kneeling before the altar, kneeling in silence in humility and grief but not without hope because of Love—the love we have for one another grounded in the love of God.
[1] Raymond E. Brown., S.S., The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Ch. 46: The Meal: The Footwashing (xiii 1-20). Yale: New Haven and London, 1970. p.563
© 2024 The Rev. Sara Milford
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas