JP Kastner, Elder
This Lenten season we are using the Narrative Lectionary and it does something a little bit weird. We have zoomed forward in time, skipping Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the story we will tell on Palm Sunday, and we find ourselves in the room where Jesus and the disciples would be celebrating Passover.
Passover is a holiday in the Jewish tradition that Jesus would have celebrated with his family and closest friends. It is the time when our Jewish siblings remember God bringing the people out of slavery in Egypt.
In the beginning of this text, we read an interesting sentence. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” I was struck by “to the end.” I’m spending all this time and money on learning Greek, I should probably use it. The phrase is “ace telos”. It is a word with two roots. The first root is to turn or revolve around. The second root is to bear or endure. Put together, it means complete purpose, end goal, or as Aristotle used it, the final cause. That is what God’s love for his disciples was. That is what God’s love is for us. The complete purpose. The end goal. The final cause.
So, Jesus has gathered everyone together. The table is set. Everyone is ready for a good time. Jesus was just celebrated a few days ago. Around the table, they would remember and celebrate God acting in strength and signs and wonders. Those gathered with Jesus were also expecting Jesus to do the same thing, to act in big ways again.
Then, out of nowhere, Jesus stands up, and the room falls silent and they all expect him to speak, but instead he takes off his robe, and pours water into a basin. If you were a disciple sitting there, you’d be wondering what Jesus was doing. Maybe, he’s going to make some of that awesome wine he made back at the wedding in Canna? Maybe, he was going to teach another secret of the Kingdom? No, Jesus does the one thing that no one expected him to do, kneels down and starts washing feet.
Foot washing was a normal thing to do in Jesus’s day. Walking the roads from town to town made one filthy. Before you can rest and eat, you need to wash, and your feet are the dirtiest. But, that job was the job of a servant. Certainly not the teacher. To the disciples, it was almost embarrassing to watch. Their teacher is on the floor, lowering himself from his station. Peter says what we would also say. “Lord… you shall never wash my feet.” We’re supposed to wash Jesus’s feet, not Jesus washing ours.
Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” Notice what Jesus does not say: He doesn’t say, “If you don’t wash feet, you aren’t worthy of me.” He says, “Unless I wash you.” Unless you let me love you, because God’s love was the complete purpose. The end goal. The final cause.
Like Simon Peter, we can miss the point of the love being offered to us. Jesus wasn’t washing feet because he had a thing against dirty feet. Jesus was washing feet as a symbol of selfless love. Jesus knows how messy our lives are, and yet, he’s already kneeling on the floor with a basin and a towel. Judas was in that room. Jesus washed Judas’s feet that night as well.
Jesus is turning the tables on what it means to be the ‘leader’. These people were expecting Jesus to be a warrior king who would end their oppression and misery. But instead Jesus is the servant doing the meningeal work. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Jesus knows the hierarchy of the world. He knows he has come from God, and is going to God. Yet, his response to having all power is not to consolidate it, but to divest from it. Jesus teaches that power is not measured by how many people serve us, but by our capacity to dismantle the barriers that drag people down.
It is that kind of authority that terrifies those in power. We saw that a couple of weeks ago. CBS declined to air comedian Stephen Colbert’s interview with Texas Senate candidate by the name of James Talarico. Why? If you don’t know who James Talarico is, he is a well spoken, good looking, extremely intelligent PC(USA) seminarian, just like pretty much every PC(USA) seminarian. He is a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and he speaks out against the hypocrisy of those who claim to be Christian in a form that is nothing more than white nationalism. He speaks the truth of what the bible says and what it means. White Christian nationalism depends upon a bible that looks like swiss cheese. Or the redactions in the Epstein files.
It cannot stand up to the scrutiny of the whole bible. So, the FCC threatened and CBS, well… What does it matter at this point? The Bible tells us that in order to lead, one must take off your robe and wash the feet of everyone who walks the troubled road of life.
I am proud to be in this room. We all have one thing in common. We are advocates. Nurses and teachers and preachers. Our lawyers are zealous advocates for their clients. Small businesses and people in danger of being thrown out in the cold. We work for non-profits. We work for the forces of good, even when it doesn’t pay as well. I want you to know that the principles and power fear your voice just as much as they fear James Talarico’s.
Why? Because the last thing they want anyone to hear is what Jesus said when he finished. “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” And anyone who lives their life like Jesus did, well that brings a chill down their spineless spines. Remember that the table is only half of the story. The other half is at the floor. May we never lose the courage to kneel, the humility to be washed, and the love to see the Divine in the dust of our neighbor’s feet. For that love is the complete purpose. The end goal. The final cause. Amen.
Calvary Presbyterian Church 