Holy Thursday - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2015

In tonight’s Gospel, Jesus said, You should wash each other’s feet. In the Second Reading about Jesus’ last supper, he said, Do this as a memorial of me. 

As you drive into the town here, you see a sign saying Dunkeld. The sign is not Dunkeld – the town is. But the sign names the town; it indicates it; it points to the reality. Washing each other’s feet is not the reality. Eating a piece of broken bread that has become the body of Christ is not the deal. Both are signs that name a deeper reality. 

What did Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet signify? What did Jesus’ handing over of his broken body signify? What reality did they name? Both actions, quite different in themselves, named the one reality – just like whether you have a flash construction saying Dunkeld, or a plain piece of coloured tin saying Dunkeld, it is the same town that each is naming. 

In Jesus’ case what was the reality? Washing feet was an act of love expressed in the shape of an act of humble, self-effacing service. The broken bread pointed to the same reality of humble, self-effacing love, this time expressed in the surrendering of his life for the world of people whom he loved. He also said that his washing the disciples’ feet, that is his dying for them in love, would make them clean all over – that is, sinless. The body broken for them, that is, his life handed over to his executioners from love, was for their sake, for the forgiveness of sins. 

How does Jesus manage to love us so much? It is because when he looks at us, he sees first our hearts. Like God our Father, he sees where all our actions come from. We are a wounded humanity. He sees the dark emptiness buried within everyone, that black hole needing to be filled, and that can be filled only by love. He sees the unhealed wounds within us caused by all the rejections, real or imagined, that we have experienced since we were infants. He knows that every cry of anger is firstly a cry of hurt, and that every grasping act of selfishness comes from that black hole within that craves to be filled. He looks on us with profound compassion. 

Forgiveness does not need to be a decision on God’s part; it is written into God’s very essence. Mercy is the definition of God. Even though some of us seem to see God as obsessed by sin, sin is not an issue for God. Sin is an issue for us, because sin does real damage. It harms others; it hardens us; it is destroying our world. So God wants passionately to free us from its grasp. 

What we are called to do in memory of Jesus is to imitate him in his love for the world and in his deep respect for every human person. Our eating his broken body signifies our personal commitment to that project of his. As we allow him to transform us, the more spontaneously will we learn to look firstly at people’s hearts; to look at everyone with compassion, before ever considering their behaviour. Seeing with love opens us, subsequently, to listen to each individual, respectfully. But it all takes time, because old habits die hard. 

When we eat this bread and drink this cup, our gradual transformation in love proclaims his death – for all to see and for us to enjoy!