Holy Thursday
See commentary on John 13: 1-5 in John 13:1-20
Homily 1 - 2005
Consistently throughout his gospel John reminds us that the purpose of his writing is, as he explicitly spelt out at the end of his gospel, so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing this, we might have life through his name. But John faced a problem with Jesus’ passion and death. How on earth does his death help us to see Jesus as Son of God?
John adopted two solutions: irstly: in the way he fashioned his account of Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion, he creatively and very deliberately showed us a Jesus in control – as an old latin hymn Vexilla Regis put it, Regnavit a ligno Deus: God reigned from the cross.
John’s second approach was to insist that Jesus was not a helpless victim, even if willingly accepting his death as the will of the Father. Rather he insisted that Jesus freely chose death himself, out of integrity and love. He set out to illustrate this, symbolically, by his account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
What was normally a menial task more appropriately done by a slave - washing people’s feet - for Jesus was a free act of loving service. Jesus saw it as symbolic of his fast-approaching death that would likewise, and pre-eminently, be a free act of loving service. It was because it symbolised his death that Jesus said to Peter that Peter could have no part with him if he refused to be washed clean. If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me; and why he could then add: No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over. It would be by his death in fact that Peter, and the whole group of disciples, indeed the whole of humanity, would be really washed clean lovingly.
Jesus holds out to us the possibility of the same behaviour: to be carried out in the ordinary course of our day – to choose loving service of others freely, not as victims, even when, if we are true to our deepest self, we may sometimes have little alternative. He holds out the possibility to do so without resentment or a feeling of being trapped, whether by God or by our own sense of decency.
That same message the other gospels conveyed through their story of the Eucharist: this bread is my body given up for you: this broken bread is my body broken for love of you; this bread is my body broken so that you can share it together. Jesus went on to add: Do this in memory of me. To remember me, do precisely this: carry out the ritual so that you won’t forget, but more importantly, move beyond ritual to give your bodies, your energies, in loving service, broken perhaps in love, not as trapped victims of circumstances, resentfully, but in freedom.
And do it together, not as isolated individuals at some kind of ecclesiastical McDonald’s, but in the friendship symbolised by the sacred meal shared in common.
Homily 2 - 2012
It was Passover. Even in Jesus' day, Passover was an ancient observance – the night when the Hebrew People celebrated freedom. They had long memories: Twelve hundred years beforehand, they had been an enslaved people – until, on the first Passover Night, God set them free from their oppressors. God was [sort of] proud of that achievement. The first of the commandments has God saying: I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of slavery. God rejoices in being a liberating God.
It was to free us, the whole of humanity, that God sent his Son to us. Jesus' mission was a liberating mission. He came to set us free from our addictions and compulsions, and the radical insecurity from which they stem. He came to set us free from the hostilities and violence that cripple us and constantly spoil our happiness. True to form, acting out of our endemic violence, we murdered Jesus. But not before he had time to become [for those who would take notice] the way, the truth, and the life.
On that last night of his life, on our Feast of Passover-par-excellence, he told us how he wanted us to remember him – not for his sake, but for ours. He would love us to relate to what he came for – to become free, free within ourselves, and free, too, eventually, from the all-too-common actions of others that inhibit our freedoms. He would love us to prioritise our search for freedom. So he suggested two things to keep us focussed – two things that he did himself.
Firstly, as we heard in tonight's Gospel, he suggested that we wash each other's feet – metaphorically. The way to freedom is to wash each other's feet! That means to let go of our own puffed-up sense of over-importance. None of us is the centre of the world. We don't need to be – God already loves us. That's enough. Look at all the energy we would save, all the hurt we would avoid, if we no longer needed to be the centre of the world. Washing each other's feet is to choose to take care of others, to respect them, to meet their needs. Perhaps, it means to die to self, surprisingly to find our self. The way to freedom – learn to love.
He also suggested, as we heard in tonight's Second Reading, that we remember him by having a meal together. And, in that meal, to take a loaf of bread, to break it, and together to eat that broken bread, and then to wash it down with a drink of wine. Wonderfully, in this meal, the bread broken is his body broken for us, his body freely given for us; and the cup of wine is the wine of the New Covenant between God and us, where the wine is his blood poured out for us on the cross. Following his lead, he wants us to be ready to allow loving to break us, sometimes.
The way to freedom – surrender to love, whatever the cost. The message is amazingly simple. It is clear. But it's a struggle. Perhaps, first, we have to let him wash our feet. It seems to be the condition for our having any part/share with him. We have first to let him be broken for us, to pour out his blood for us. Until we first let him love us that much, we lack the wherewithal to follow his way.
Tonight … let him love you.
Homily 3 - 2014
Washing another’s feet… It is an unusual activity, even a striking activity. Here in Church, it was a ritual; and for me, at least, the emphasis centred more on the activity itself and on the logistics than on the personal interaction. But it invites reflection. Would I ever do it spontaneously?
It is an act of service, but not of any service. Service can be performed from a sense of superiority, and can strengthen that sense of superiority. I, who have more or am more, give to you who have less and are less - whether my more is money, or skill and ability, or learning, or whatever. I can feel pleased with my generosity, proud of my humility.
When Jesus suggested we do it, what did he have in mind? In his world, foot-washing was a very practical act of service. But it was a task for a servant, for an inferior – a duty, not a spontaneous act. But if someone other than a servant were to do it, it would no longer be a duty but a spontaneous offer of service. It would have about it, I believe, an air of vulnerability, perhaps even of intimacy. It would involve a surrender of all superiority.
Might there be other everyday equivalents in our world? What comes to my mind is the readiness to take time to listen to another – not just listen to the constant stream of words that make up most of our interactions, but to listen, for example, to another in their grief, or in their confusion, or in their disillusionment, even in their anger.
We can feel vulnerable in such listening. We don’t know what to say. We feel awkward. We are not in the place of power. Yet, our listening to them, our simple being there with them, sometimes even in silence, can be what helps them most - not taking over, as it were, and offering logical explanations or platitudinous consolations or giving advice, but respecting their reality and simply letting them be as they are. Perhaps we are at our best when we have nothing to offer but a listening ear and a genuinely caring heart. Sometimes, of course, we may have something we could offer – experience, or knowledge or practical help. Yet if we have not first listened, if we have not first loved, our offers can be more hurtful than helpful. When service is not love, it can be more resented than appreciated.
Jesus offers forgiveness, the forgiveness that serves to save us, to save us from ourselves. He offers it, not from any sense of superiority, but from the place of the victim, the vulnerable one, from the place of powerlessness. He offers from a heart that loves. He does not overwhelm. We can walk away. But the offer always remains; and the love never grows cold. That, I think, was what he was illustrating when he washed the feet of his disciples - and invited us to interact similarly.
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!
Homily 5 - 2018
If you wanted your family and friends, after you die, to remember you and what you were on about during your life with them, what would you suggest they do, or what might they keep as a memento that somehow sums you up [and we shall rule out photos]?
I was thinking about that briefly myself this morning – and found it rather hard. For one thing, I don’t have close family; and a lot of my best friends, the ones still alive, are scattered about all over the place. But I did think of two things. See how you go. Perhaps think about it after you go home this evening.
We know what Jesus suggested we do to remember him. He suggested two things, in fact. We read about the first one this evening: “If I have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” Why? Because the only way our world will change for the good, become somewhere safe for everyone, is if we are prepared to relate to each other in an attitude of service, even being prepared to get dirty ourselves in the process. For some reason or other, his suggestion never seems to have been taken up seriously.
But there was another thing he also suggested to remind us of him and his insistent message for us and our world. He made the original suggestion at the same meal where he washed their feet: “He took bread, and giving thanks to God, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given up for you’.” Just as he broke the bread, people would soon break his body. From his point of view, he would give his life out of love for us, to show us how far our love could go, too. Then later, to wind up the meal, “he took the chalice, and once more giving thanks to God, he gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins’.”
By drinking together from the cup of the covenant, he wanted us to pledge ourselves together to his project of addressing the sinfulness, the hostility, the mutual violence, lurking in our own hearts and the hearts of everyone else.
To remember him, he said, do this. What? Come together as friends, share a meal. That is what it is all about ultimately – friendship with everyone. Consistently loving our friends is hard enough. But loving our enemies certainly raises the bar. It will be costly. We need to be prepared to be broken somehow in the process, as he was. But we have each other. Consciously pledge to work together, he said, commit yourselves together in covenant love, inspiring, encouraging, empowering each other, knowing that he is there doing precisely that, and more, with us – nourishing us, strengthening us, motivating us. He is prepared to be our food. That’s something!
Might a bit more of washing each other’s feet have been a stronger reminder?
Homily 6 - 2021
“If I have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet… I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you”.
Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet was a parable in action. It is John’s parallel to, and reinforces, the parable that Jesus enacted at his Last Supper -- according to the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke [and Paul]. There he had said, “Do this in memory of me”.
The important thing is to understand what he had done in metaphor, and to repeat it in life.
In John’s account of the foot-washing, Jesus’ action was a servant’s act of service, a metaphor of his boundless love for the disciples. That metaphor became reality on the next day when Jesus, went so far as to give his life -- motivated by his utter conviction of the essential necessity of the way of love if the world is ever to be saved from itself. Jesus went so far as to say that Peter would never have anything “in common with Jesus” if he did not let Jesus “wash his feet”, that is, give his life, expend all his energy, out of his total commitment in love for the world.
Jesus made the same point, in the accounts of the Eucharist found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and in Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians. There they said, as Jesus took the loaf of bread and broke it into pieces so that it could be eaten by all those present, “This is my body, which will be given up for you”. Jesus was soon to let his body be broken as the price of his unshakeable commitment to the way of love as the means to the world’s salvation.
He made the same point when he took the cup of wine and passed that around. He said it was his “blood” that would be “shed for you and for ‘the many’ so that sins may be forgiven” and people freed from their instinctive violence; and be regularly reminded, and learn, to live together genuinely in mutual respect, care and love.
Much like what he had said when he had washed the disciples’ feet, Jesus said to the disciples, “Do this in memory of me” – never forget it, understand it, and live it. Give your lives in service to each other, in service indeed to all, if the world is to have any chance of becoming truly alive, any taste of salvation.
The eucharistic action took place, takes place, as did the foot-washing, in the context of a meal shared together. Meals can be beautiful parables of mutual respect, friendship and love. Our task is to make sure that the parable, contained in every meal and every Eucharist, is translated into life.
“If I have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet… I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you”.
“Do this in memory of me”.