This Night of Reversal John 13:1-15 Maundy Thursday, March 24, 2005 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi Tonight is a night about reversals. It is a night of intimate friendship blended with betrayal by a friend. It is about Jesus' last meal with his friends. Death is always about reversals, and death always end our pretenses and takes us down to the basics. Tonight is about Jesus' final hour, and it was time to get down to the basics. Tonight, Jesus reverses the role of host and servant. Although the host, he assumed the role of servant and served them the meal. Tonight is the night Jesus reversed the meaning of the Passover meal. "This bread, it is my body given for you. This wine, it is my blood poured out for you. After tonight, we will no longer break bread together. After tonight, this bread, this wine will keep us together forever." While normally hosts, before a meal, had servants wash the feet of guests or offered water for guests to wash their own feet, after the meal, in the intimacy of the moment, Jesus continued to reverse the role of host and servant. Gathering a water bowl, he laid his clothes aside and wrapped a towel around his waist. A few weeks ago, we read of his feet being anointed with oil, now, he comes to the dusty, callused feet of his friends - followers, simple uneducated folk, who'd walked many, many miles with him, rough, worn feet, aged and young feet, men's and women's feet - one by one he takes those feet in his hands, pouring water over them, and then wiping them dry - a very baptismal image, isn't it? Perhaps, as Jesus held those feet, he thought of where these friends have been with him and where their feet would take them in the years to come. We hear the ever impetuous Peter, first decline having Jesus wash his feet and then asking to have his whole body washed, continuing evidence of his failure to ever quite get it. What about the others, how do you think they reacted? Matthew, whose life as a tax collector had been forever reversed. James and John who had wanted seats of honor and now the one they wanted to sit at either side of his throne washes their feet. The pragmatic Thomas who realized the journey to raise Lazarus from the dead would result in their own deaths. The women in the group whom society taught that their role was only to serve, not be served. Judas who knew he was on his way to betray the one now washing his feet. How Jesus must have agonized for them, because he knew that his time had come and they still didn't understand. How he must have loved each of the people those feet belonged to, even the one about to betray him. How would you respond if tonight Jesus made his way among us - patiently waiting for each of us to remove our shoes and socks and one by one he takes your and my feet in his hands, pouring water over them and then wiping them dry? We have trouble understanding this kind of love. We cannot fathom loving the one about to betray us. We want to exclude some feet. We find it painful to pay a few cents more for a product so the person producing the product earns a living wage. We resent taxes that might provide health care and an education to all who need them or assist those who are unable or can no longer work. We believe we can have everything we want without having to stoop down and wash dirty feet. And so, Peter's response is our response. It is embarrassment: that the host, the teacher would demean himself. It is seeing it as act of washing away dirt and not an invitation to have an intimate relationship with Jesus. It is fear that to be this intimate with him, we are called to do the same. Will we avoid eye contact with him and slide our feet under the pew? Or, will we allow him to wash our feet? If we don't, he says we will have no share; we will not participate fully in his life. It is an invitation to enter into his suffering - not his martyrdom but his identification with the suffering, to enter into the tomb with him, to enter into the resurrection with him. To have Jesus wash our feet, is to experience baptism as a reversal of how we far too often think of it: as a social affair in which we invite family and friends to an infant debutante presentation or only as a symbolic purification. It is get down to the basics. It is to enter in the relationship with Jesus that he wants the disciples - us - to experience. It is to receive from Jesus an act of hospitality that decisively alters one's relationship to Jesus and, through Jesus, to God. It is to enter the journey of dying to self and rising to a new life. "After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? . . . I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.'" Jesus meant far more than the washing of feet. He got their attention by that unique act, but he didn't stop there. He got up, laid aside the towel, and led them to Gethsemane. Maundy Thursday, the first day of the Triduum ("three days" in Latin), introduces us to love that is beyond our imagination and our ability and opens our eyes to the shape of the baptized life and the real meaning of discipleship. So Christian memory devotes this night to teaching, to breaking the bread and sharing the cup, and to the washing of feet. In this night of reversal, we experience a liturgy that moves us almost literally from the sharing of a meal and the washing of feet to the naked image of an empty cup and plate, a stripped table, and finally into the still darkness of Gethsemane. However, more than simply gathering to remember, tonight calls us to go beyond our comfort zone; to make the journey of humble service guided by the Holy Spirit; to carry the touching, healing, and transforming message out to the world that God loved enough to send a Son to die for. Tonight we are called to love one another as Jesus loves us; to give up the image of ourselves as being powerful or important; to reach out to one another without worrying about the human-made rules which push us apart; to find new ways to wash feet and nourish bodies and give comfort to people who are in pain. Renewed by the presence of his Body and Blood within us, we take seriously the divine call to bring Good News, to help the hungry, the homeless, the harried, and the hurting. Tonight invites us to join Jesus and his friends into the darkness of the night, into the dark expectation of his pending suffering and death, that we accept the role of a servant, which, if taken seriously, we may, at one time or another, also journey to Gethsemane. The service which is yours to do will depend on your opportunities, your skills, and above all, your willingness. Don't feel you must do someone else's task that demands skills far different from your own. The person waiting for you may be a chance encounter or someone at your workplace, in your school or even in your home. There's no shortage of people in this world, in Starkville, dying by inches for lack of love. Wash the feet God places before you. That will be enough. Tonight is a night of reversal. Jesus asks us to love one another as he loves us, to keep washing each other's feet, keep being of service to one another and keep on walking with each other into Gethsemane, to the cross, and into the promise of the resurrection. To do this, we must first accept the unconditional love he gives to us. Whether you symbolically have your feet washed or wash someone else's feet tonight, is not that important. What is important, on this night of reversals, is will you let Jesus wash your feet? If so, tonight may end in a darkness of solitude, of prayer, of remembrance, perhaps of repentance, but this darkness will not be without hope.