Episcopal Church of the Messiah

Worship Service Sermons

March 20, 2008

 The Reverend Carolyn Estrada

I watched my daughter give her son a bath the other day – he’s two, and had just returned from san afternoon in the park, so you can imagine how dirty he was! As she gently wet, lathered, rinsed, and dried each part of her child’s body, images of tonight’s Gospel lesson flashed through my mind: the loving ministrations of Jesus for his followers as he washed their feet.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of such loving care; and, the mothers among us – and some of the fathers – have done our own share of providing such care ourselves.

It is an intimate experience, our love expressed through the care of the bodies of those whom we love.

Yet, as adults, the whole idea can make us uncomfortable.

Perhaps it is TOO intimate for our Episcopal reserve…

Tonight’s "that night" again, that night when we are confronted with footwashing.

Can we just skip over that part of the service?

Will it be obvious if I don’t participate?

Do I have to take off my nylons, too?

I don’t mind washing someone else’s feet – but, ooo, gross! I wouldn’t want someone to have to wash mine…

Maybe I could just stay downstairs during that part of the service and clean up after the meal?

Or, perhaps, in anticipation of tonight – because the footwashing part of the service isn’t going to go away! – we have prepared: our feet are clean and presentable, perhaps even pedicured, so that we don’t embarrass ourselves – or "gross out" someone else.

The disciples didn’t have that advance warning: Jesus’ footwashing didn’t show up on a liturgical calendar somewhere! However, it was normative both for their feet to be dirty – they walked in sandals through the dust and grime of their streets – and for their feet to be washed as a gesture of hospitality. It just wasn’t normative for JESUS, the Lord and Teacher, the host of the feast, to be doing the footwashing. That was a slave’s job, and we’d have heard no protests from the disciples had a slave tied his outer garment around his waist, taken some water and the basin, and proceeded to wash and dry their feet.

In today’s world, our protests have more to do with WHAT is being done than with WHO is doing the service.

Our FEET? In PUBLIC? Yuck!

Yet, we are an incarnational faith: we celebrate God-made-man in the person of Jesus, the physical, corporal presence of God in the world.

We know ourselves as the Body of Christ.

Weekly – without flinching! – we consume the body and blood of Jesus.

For many of us, it is easier to bare our souls in private than to bare our feet in public; to offer our hearts to Jesus than our feet to our neighbor.

There is a danger, of course, in getting "hung up" on the footwashing… it can blind us to the real message of this passage.

The passage isn’t simply about footwashing, of course: it’s about love and service; about our mandate to care for one another. But it is the footwashing that carries the intimacy of the mandate – this isn’t remote, from-a-distance, love-and-caring. This is up-close-and-personal, involved love-and-caring.

This isn’t lip-service – or gloss-over-the-ugly parts –service; it’s service that personally-touches – or offers to be touched – so that transformation may occur.

It’s love that isn’t "too good" – or too afraid – or too conditional – to kneel, get dirty, touch the unclean – or to expose one’s uncleanness that it might be touched and changed.

It’s service that honors, not patronizes, the relationship between server and served, the washer and the washed.

It’s about expressing our love for one another in very tangible ways.

Tonight, as an expression of the intimacy we share as members of Christ’s body, we come forward to bare our feet, offering them for washing, and washing the feet of another. May we, in this act, know the love of God which has transformed the world.

Amen.

Miré a mis hija, bañando su hijito. Tiene dos años, y acabó de regressar del parque. Los pies eran tan soucios – como los pies de los siguidores que lavaban Jesús en la lectura de hoy.

Recibimos todos este amado cuidado de nuestros padres – y muchos de nosotros hemos proveído este cuidado nosotros-mismos. Es una experiencia íntima cuando expresamos nuestro amor en el cuidado de los cuerpos de los que queremos. Pero – como adultos – este idea puede hacernos inconfortables.

Este noche es la noche en que otra vez encontramos el lavatorio de los pies – una experiencia íntima cuando expresamos nuestro amor en el cuidado de los pies de nuestro projimo.

Y unos de nosotros somos inconfortables.

Nos preguntamos:

¿Es posible omitir este parte del servicio?

¿Sea obvio si no participo yo?

¿Tengo que sacar mis calcetas?

No me molesta lavar los pies de algien – pero ¡no quiero que alguien lava los mios!

¿Es posible que yo puede quedar abajo durante este parte del servicio, y limpiar despues la ceña?

O – posiblemente – en anticipación de esta noche – nos hemos preparado: los pies son limpios para que no nos turban.

Los pies de los discipulos era siempre soucios porque los caminos en que andan eran de polvo. Era normal de lavarse los pies cuando llegaron en casa; pero era trabajo de un esclavo! Los discípulos no protestaran la acción de lavarse los pies – pero protestaran que ¡era Jesús que los lavó!

En nuestro mundo, protestamos no quien hace este servicio – pero ¡lo que hace!

¿Nuestros pies? ¿En público?

Tenemos un fe encarnacional. Celebramos Dios hecho hombre en Jesús, la presencia física del Dios en el mundo.

Nos conocemos como el Cuerpo de Cristo.

Cada semana comemos el cuerpo y la sangre de Jesús.

Pero, por muchos de nosotros, es más facile desnudar nuestras almas en privado que desnudar nuestros pies en público; es más facile ofrecir nuestros corazones a Jesús que nuestros pies a nuestro projimo.

Si pensamos solamente de la acción del lavatorio de los pies, puede cegarnos al mensaje fundamental de este lectura. Este lectura no es simplemente del lavatorio de los pies: es del amor y el servicio; es del mandato de cuidar, unos por otros. Pero es el lavatorio de pies que lleve la intimidad del mandato. Este no es un amor y cuidado del distancia – es el amor y cuidado muy cerca, muy personal. Es una acción en que tocamos – o dejamos ser tocado – para que ocurra la transformación.

Es una acción que honra la relación entre lo quien sirve y lo quien es servido, lo quien lava, y lo quien es lavado.

Es una expresión de amor muy tangible.

Este noche, como una expresión de la intimidad que comparatimos como miembros del cuerpo de Cristo, venimos adelante para desnudar los pies, ofriendolos para ser lavado, y lavando los pies de un otro. Podemos nosotros, en este acción, sabemos el amor de Dios que ha transformado el mundo.

Amén.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean." 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? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."