Be washed and be fed.
Today we remember Jesus washing his disciples' feet, and we recall the last supper when Jesus spoke of the bread and the wine as his body and his blood. The disciples needed to be washed and to be fed by Jesus, and so do we. I offer a brief reflection on these themes this evening.
Be washed. It is traditional at this service to re-enact Jesus' washing of his disciples' feet and for the president to wash the feet of twelve members of the congregation. Of course, with all the rules of social distancing, we cannot do that at the moment. I have a bowl of water and a towel here to help us imagine it (and I hope you may also have one at home).
It is Jesus' last supper with his friends. During that supper, Jesus takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel around himself and stoops to wash his disciples' feet. It is a very shocking scene as Jesus, their Lord and master, takes the role of a slave, bending down and washing their dirty and smelly feet. John tells us that Jesus knew he had come from God and was returning to God, yet he takes on himself this humblest of tasks. I'm reminded of Paul's words, that Christ 'though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.' (Philippians 2: 6-7). Here, as Jesus kneels at the disciples' feet, we see a visual demonstration of the humility of the servant king.
When Jesus has washed his disciples' feet, he tells them that he has set them an example; that they should wash one another's feet. They too should humbly serve one another, becoming like the servant Lord they follow. There is no room for self-importance, status and domination if they are to follow Jesus truly. This is a powerful reminder of how we should relate to one another, and how humility and service need to be at the heart of the life of any Christian community.
But Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet is not just a powerful example of humble service. It is also about the need to receive humbly. The disciples have first to be willing to have their own feet washed before they can wash the feet of others. This is a challenge to us too.
At the heart of this incident is Peter's initial refusal to have his feet washed. When it comes to Peter's turn, he cries out indignantly 'you shall never wash my feet!' It doesn't seem right to Peter for Jesus to stoop down and wash his tired, grimy and unsightly feet. It offends his sense of the right order of things. Now, if Jesus had asked him to wash his feet, no doubt Peter would have jumped up eagerly.
Of course, Jesus is not simply concerned with washing dirty feet, he is talking about a deeper kind of washing. 'Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.' Part of being drawn into the love of Christ and united to him involves being 'washed'. They need to be washed, to be cleansed, to be forgiven, and so do we.
'Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,' the Psalmist says (Ps. 51:7). However much we try to clean up our own hearts and lives, we cannot do it on our own. We cannot ourselves wash away the stains of our past mistakes, however much we try, and we cannot clean out the self-centredness, the anger, bitterness, the greed, the meanness, the indifference of our hearts.
Being washed sounds simple – but this also demands humility. We like to think we can sort things out for ourselves. We can sometimes be too proud to receive and want to hide the grimy, unsightly parts of ourselves away rather than willingly presenting them to God to be cleansed.
We need to be washed; to come before God in humility, with all our selfishness, guilt, pettiness, self-frustration, pride and failure, to be cleansed and forgiven.
We also need to come humbly before God to be fed. Being fed by God is a recurrent theme in scripture. Think of the people of Israel fed with manna in the wilderness. Jesus often speaks of meals and banquets, and eats many meals with his disciples. He feeds the 5,000, taking that humble fare, the five loaves and two fish, looking up to heaven in thanksgiving, and then breaking them and distributing them to the crowds. At the last supper Jesus, takes the bread and after giving thanks, he breaks it and gives it to his disciples. Then he gives them the cup of wine to drink. Simple, ordinary food and drink; but this bread and wine represents his body and his blood. Jesus, through his self-giving death, his broken body and his outpoured blood feeds us with his very self, and fills us with his life. 'I am the bread of life' Jesus says (John 6:35); our deepest hungers and thirsts will never be satisfied other than in him.
At the last supper, the disciples are told to break this bread and share this cup in remembrance of him. We still come, week by week, with empty hands to be fed. In the words of Calvin, 'we need to hasten to Christ, empty and hungering, that we may be filled with his good things.' Here, we are nourished through the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ, and we find sustenance for our spiritual journey, looking to the day when we will one day feast together with him at the heavenly banquet.
We need to be washed and to be fed; to know our need and to come with humility and simplicity to receive what Christ freely offers to us. Maybe there seems something rather childlike in being washed and being fed. We might perhaps like to think our faith depends on something a bit more grown up; that we can achieve something impressive through our many gifts and talents. But at the heart of our faith is a simple receiving of God's grace, and, as Jesus said, unless we receive the kingdom of God like a little child we will never enter it (Mark 10:15).
In this service we remember both Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet and the institution of the last supper. But there is a third thing that happens in this service. At the end, the altar is stripped in preparation for Good Friday tomorrow. We will hear in the Gospel of the Watch how Jesus is betrayed, deserted and denied by his closest friends. Jesus even seems to be deserted by God as he hangs on the cross. Jesus is stripped down to his simple trust in his Father even in the midst of the darkness of isolation and death.
On Good Friday, our souls are stripped bare too. There is a stark simplicity about Good Friday when we are taken back to basics as it were. Looking at Jesus hanging on the cross, we see the costly self-giving love of God, and our own sin and need. We see the desperate need of our world, and of our own hearts. The cross confronts us both with ourselves and with God. Ultimately, we cannot sort out the mess in our hearts and in our world on our own; only God's self-giving love in Christ can change things.
We need to respond in humility like a child. There is no room for pride as we kneel before the cross. The events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday reveal what God has done for us, not what we can do for God. May we have the humility to wake up to our need of grace, to receive the abundance of God's love, and be cleansed and nourished through the costly death of Christ. Then, washed and fed, we may have something to share with others.
Helen Marshall