April 21, 2011

Linda Murphy

Maundy Thursday


This beautiful, spiritual space tonight is alive with flickering candlelight and glorious music.

We enter this Maundy Thursday the beginning of the ‘Easter triduum’, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Day with longer darker nights and much colder days than those we were experiencing at the beginning of our Lenten walk.

Some of us have chosen to walk this beautiful labyrinth; others sit and watch, or sit and listen. This can be a quiet time of movement, prayer or meditation, as it has been for many, over the last few days. It is an opportunity to stop the hectic pace of daily life, if only for a while, as our service tonight is also a time of meditation and reflection for the following holy days.

Tonight we will participate in the act of washing each other’s feet, such an intimate and physical performance.

Just as Peter was uncomfortable having Jesus wash his feet, many of us are uncomfortable about having our feet washed by another. We ask our selves, “Are our feet clean, do we need a pedicure?” It is an act that means we are not in control, we are vulnerable, or are we just embarrassed about our own aging feet.

For Peter this was an act that was outside the social norms, the teacher did not wash anyone else’s feet, this was a duty done by those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. While this act of foot washing is not a familiar or normal ritual in our Western, Twenty First Century world our feet are nevertheless an essential and distinctive part of our human body. Our feet allow us to get places. They are essential for most of us in our daily life, our feet are precious, bunions and all!

John’s Gospel is the only gospel that mentions this ceremony of foot washing rather than recalling the celebration of the last supper, the Eucharist. What was John attempting to explain to his audience and what does this gospel say to us? 

The people of the first century of the Common Era were used to the washing of feet as they entered a house; it was part of hospitality in the ancient Mediterranean World. The host would provide a servant or slave to wash the feet of guests this was a normal part of their culture. Given that the footwear was sandals, and sealed roads and storm water drains were not part of their life, it was very prudent that guests entered the dining space with clean feet. Nevertheless the gospel tells us that Jesus chose to wash the feet of his friends after the meal had been consumed, so one can assume they had clean feet already and this act by Jesus was an attempt to instruct his friends into the wisdom that he had been seeking to initiate his friends and followers into.

This act represented an assault on the usual notions of social hierarchy, a subversion of the normal categories of honour and shame. For the audience of this gospel it was shocking that the teacher was performing a lowly submissive act.

Why was John’s Jesus doing this subservient act?

The teacher moves in a downward arc making himself open and vulnerable to others. It is the exact opposite of society’s standards where one seeks to be on top, exerting power and control.

This was a metaphorical teaching, Jesus acts from the heart and his deeds reveal a yearning for deep communion with his friends. He uses the washing to demonstrate servanthood and humility to his friends. He was demonstrating his commandment “to love one another as I have loved you’. They needed to learn that ‘greatness’ is achieved in serving others; it is not a tribute merely to be bestowed arbitrarily. The pathway to ‘greatness’ is not by self-assertion; it is through service to each other and community. Jesus was demonstrating an attitude, not requiring a literal act. Such an act makes real for us the abstract, whether it’s our humanity or our own individual call to service.

Jesus’ act of washing his friends’ feet was setting an example of servant hood which we will re-enact when we wash each others feet. I, as many of you, feel more comfortable washing someone else’s feet than having my own feet washed. We need to put that discomfort aside and surrender to this gift of loving service. To enter into this mystery, followers must take the lowest place and tear down the walls separating humanity from each other. The act of foot washing is a moment of grace and love.

As you leave this holy place in silence take a walk and reflect on the words we have heard tonight and the ritual we have shared.

Amen.