Tonight, we enter into the Triduum, the three most sacred days in the Christian calendar on which we enter anew into the story of Jesus’ Last Supper, arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and Resurrection. Though our watches and calendars might tell us that it is the evening of March 28, 2024 – we are inhabiting holy time. Through Scripture, Sacrament, and community, we are entering into God’s timeless presence. Our worship over these next three days plunges us into the love and drama of that first Holy Week.
All
week, the sermons have been focusing on one particular character each day. By
focusing on one person, we find an entry point to our place in the story, to
hearing ourselves being spoken to by Jesus, to receiving his grace extended to
each of us. On Maundy Thursday, we focus on Simon Peter.
His
name was Simon, but Jesus gave him the nickname “Peter;” petros in
Greek, which means “rock.” Earlier in the story, Simon says that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of the Living God and Jesus says “You are Peter, and on this
rock I will build my church.” Name changes are common in Scripture. Abram
became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel, Saul became Paul, and
Simon becomes Peter. I’m not suggesting that you need to change your name, God
has a special name for you. If you listen deeply, you just might hear God calling
you “beloved.”
Before
he met Jesus, Peter was a Galilean fisherman. He left behind his boat and nets
and became a disciple, a student, of this Jewish rabbi who was preaching about
the Kingdom of God. Peter, along with James and John, was a part of the inner circle
of the disciples and was one of the first witnesses to the Resurrection on
Easter. And on Jesus’ last night, Peter plays a leading role.
As
it is described in John, the evening began with a very strange and unsettling ritual
– the washing of feet by their master. In those days, your feet would get
pretty dirty as you walked on unpaved streets, through fields and roads where
trash and animal waste were common. And given that most people would be either
barefoot or wearing sandals, foot washing was as important to hygiene as hand
washing is today. Foot washing was also a show of hospitality – as you welcomed
someone to your home, washing their feet was an invitation to come inside and
stay awhile. What is so surprising is that Jesus, the rabbi, the master, does
the foot washing. This would have been the job of a slave or a person of low status.
In a culture that focused a lot on honor and shame, to reverse the roles in the
washing is to upend all of society, to call into question everything that was
assumed about status and roles.
But
Jesus gets up from his seat, symbolic of how the Son of God left the realm of
heaven and took on flesh, and took off his outer robe. In the worship of the
Temple, once a year the high priest would remove his ornate priestly vestments
and put on a simple tunic to enter into the holy of holies on the Day of
Atonement, Yom Kippur, to ritually enact God’s forgiveness upon the whole people.
It is no coincidence that Jesus’ actions on his last night mirror the actions
of the high priest.
After
removing his outer robe and taking up a towel, Jesus prepares the basin to wash
the disciples’ feet. Peter immediately recognizes the absurdity of having his master
wash his feet. The other disciples probably felt the discomfort, but didn’t say
anything. Peter was the one willing to speak up. And even though Peter didn’t
get it right, at least he was willing to speak up. Because he spoke up, we all
learn from Jesus.
When
Peter objected to letting Jesus wash his feet, Jesus said “Unless I wash you,
you have no share in me.” Yes, there are allusions to Baptism here and that’s
by design. Jesus is making it clear that our relationship with him is one of
grace. He comes to us to wash our feet, to cleanse us from our sins, to restore
us to wholeness. Jesus knows that among those whose feet he will wash is Peter
who will later deny him, Judas who will later betray him, and the other
disciples who will later abandon him. He does not wash their feet because they
are particularly deserving, but rather because this is what he has come to do –
to heal us, to save us, and to love us. That is how we relate to Jesus, by allowing
ourselves to be served by him.
But
we don’t necessarily like this. We prefer to be self-sufficient. We present ourselves
as being put together, not in need of washing. We’ve been trained to be
thinking about whate we are supposed to be doing, not what we are receiving. So
often we think that Christianity is about how we are supposed to serve Jesus,
but that’s to make the same mistake that Peter makes – it is to say “You will
never wash my feet.” We’re not enacting the ritual of foot washing tonight, but
we’ve done it off and on through the years. What I can tell you, from
experience, is that fewer than half of the congregation would allow their feet
to be washed. Foot washing is intimate, there is a sense of vulnerability, and there
is a sense of weirdness in letting the clergy wash your feet. If foot washing
makes us uncomfortable, how much more it is to have our sins forgiven?
On
most Sundays, we open worship with a prayer that says to God “all hearts are
open, all desires known, and no secrets are hidden from.” God knows our gifts,
our quirks, and our flaws and loves us through and despite them all. Jesus
comes to us, just as he came to Peter, to wash and cleanse us. Will we say “no,
that’s not proper” or try to hide our dirtiness? Will we remain in denial about
our need to repent and be forgiven? Will we struggle to forgive ourselves and
hold onto the sins that God has already let go of? Later in the story, in the
book of Acts, God tells Peter “What God has made clean, you must not call
unclean.” But so often we struggle to love ourselves, to really believe that
Jesus has washed us, to trust that we are forgiven. There is an invitation here
to embrace and enjoy the forgiveness we have been given. Peter shows us that
while it’s natural to resist being cleansed by Jesus, there is abundant grace
waiting for us when we respond “Lord, not only my feet, but all of me.”
To
which Jesus tells Peter that he doesn’t need to wash his whole body; just the
feet are sufficient. Think about being dirty from head to toe – you take a bath
or a shower and you can pretty well get everything clean, except the feet. As
soon as you put that foot down on the floor, it’s in the dirt that you’ve just
washed off. Yes, because of things like indoor plumbing and drainage, maybe it’s
not a huge problem for us. But in Peter’s time, it was a reality; the feet that
you’re standing on will still be dirty.
Jesus
comes to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot atone for all of
our sins, we cannot conquer the grave, we cannot redeem all of the brokenness
of our lives. But Jesus can. To be connected to Jesus is to be washed and comforted
by him. There is no other relationship. Sure, we can admire Jesus, we can learn
from him, we can inspired by him. But to actually know Jesus, to belong to him,
to be in a relationship with Jesus is to be washed by him. And being washed, we
are then ready to be fed by Jesus, just as Peter and the others were fed at the
last supper they shared as rabbi and students.
While it is true that
Jesus comes to do for us what we can never do for ourselves, at the same time, Jesus
does not say “Sure, Peter, I’ll go ahead and wash all of you” because there are
some things that we can do, and Jesus does not take that away from us. He gives
us love to share, peace to further, forgiveness to pass on, joy to participate
in, and healing to continue. Forgiveness does not mean that we are done;
Baptism is a starting line, not a finish line; grace does not mean we have
nothing to do. The grace of forgiveness means that we don’t have to do anything
to earn our forgiveness, but there is plenty to do with our forgiveness.
This
is the example that Jesus demonstrates this exacted parable of foot washing –
he says “If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to
wash another’s feet. For I have set you an example… If you know these things,
you are blessed if you do them… I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another…. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have
love for one another.” This commandment is where we get the name of this day.
In Latin, the word for “commandment” is mandatum, hence Maundy Thursday.
We are washed and forgiven so that we are able to love ourselves and to, in
turn, love those around us.
And
that’s the example that Peter gives us. He becomes a leader of the early Church,
proclaims the message that “God shows no partiality” in Jerusalem, Antioch, and
Corinth, and eventually follows his Teacher’s example all the way to his own crucifixion.
Yes, Peter makes some mistakes as well. Later this evening, he will receive the
bread of life which Jesus says is his body and he will drink from the cup of salvation
which Jesus says is his blood, and yet when he is accused of being a
collaborator of Jesus, he will, three times, deny that he knows who Jesus is.
Peter, as we are so prone to do, will choose self-preservation over being a witness
to love.
What is so helpful in
thinking about Peter in Holy Week is that his mistakes do not erase his place
in this story. Just as Peter did, we will make mistakes. Being forgiven isn’t something
that happens once. Jesus washes us daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes every 10
seconds when our patience is really being tried. Christians aren’t supposed to
be perfect, we’re supposed to be honest. Honest about our need to be washed,
honest about how Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves, honest
about witnessing to the love we have received, and honest in sharing this love instead
of judgment, vengeance, or apathy with others.
An ancient prayer of our tradition about receiving Communion is “Behold what you are and become that which you receive.” On this holy night in which we receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, given for us, we pray for the courage to behold who we are: the beloved of God who have been washed clean so that we might become love of Jesus for a needy and hungry world. Amen.
