This sermon was preached on the 17th of April 2025, Maundy Thursday, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie
Texts:
Would you have let Jesus wash your feet that night?
Imagine yourself in the room we have just heard of. You and the other disciples are sat around the dinner table. There’s a sense of foreboding, of tension… there’s a tingle of fear in the air… a silence, strange and thick, falls upon the room.
And then suddenly you hear the creak of a chair. Jesus stands up, picks up a towel, ties it round his waist, and starts washing the feet of everyone in the room.
This is your teacher, your master, the Messiah.
You have seen him stand before crowds of hundreds, even thousands, captivating them with his teaching, with his knowledge of the Scriptures, with his knowledge of God.
You have seen him heal. He has even called Lazarus back from death.
You have heard him prophesy… and at times you have hoped that he is wrong… indeed, you hope desperately that he is wrong about what he says is to come soon.
All of these thoughts, all of these recollections, rush through your mind… then comes the slosh of water, and you are jolted back to reality.
Jesus is washing the feet of your neighbour at the table. You have seconds to make your decision. Would you have let Jesus humble himself for you? Would you have let Jesus wash your feet that night?
We live in a different world to that of the Gospel. Ours is a culture of abstraction… a culture of the mind. We live in an increasingly lonely and disembodied society.
And so, if we step out of our imaginings and back into the present, I don’t think it’s easy for us to let anyone wash our feet, let alone Jesus.
Things have shifted for us. There’s a collective reluctance when it comes to this particular tradition. Many churches have ended Maundy Thursday washing of feet entirely. And yet, the reason for our collective discomfort is hard to pin down.
Peter and the other disciples ran headlong into a cultural taboo. For them, feet were repellent, disgusting, unclean… and so to wash a foot was the lowest job, a gross job… the job of the lowest servant, the lowest slave. It was hard for them to allow Jesus, whom they loved, who they esteemed above all others, to take on that role.
But I don’t think that’s the case for us. To wash someone’s feet is perhaps a bit odd, but I don’t think we’d call it disgusting. So why the difficulty?
I wonder if perhaps we flee anything embodied, anything physical, anything real, fleshy and grounded, because it amounts to a confession. A confession that we are not simply entities of intellect, or thought, or reason… we are not simply minds, but rather we are messily embodied, imperfect human beings. Human beings that live amongst other human beings.
Fully a quarter of our society’s young people – those aged 15 to 24 – are experiencing social isolation… and that number is sharply rising. Surely there’s a connection between that and the increasing disembodiment of our society. Isolation is on the rise for every age group.
I know that most of the time I talk to my friends on Messenger, Signal, or WhatsApp; if it’s urgent I text; if something is on fire, then I might phone… and all too rarely do I talk to them face to face.
Sometimes, I feel lonely. I’m sure many of us in this room do, more than we would like to admit.
Jesus was and is the greatest teacher that ever lived. And by getting down on the floor, and washing feet, he taught the people in that room, not with words, but with actions. And Jesus continues to teach. Jesus teaches us, here, tonight.
In the washing of the feet, Jesus gave us a proclamation of what the Church was to be, of who we are to be. We are not to be a community of abstraction, we are not to be a community of the intellect alone.
We are not to be a community apart, but rather a community of profound togetherness, a community of inclusion and welcome. We are to be a community of reciprocal service, each to all, and all to each. We are to be a community in which nobody is alone.
Thursday in Holy Week is only known as Maundy Thursday in the English church, and those churches which emerged from it. Maundy is an old word… it comes from the Latin, and it means commandment. Just after Jesus washed the feet of his friends, he spoke, saying:
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.34)
Let’s sit with that for a moment.
“Everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Today, everyone here that wishes it, will have their feet to be washed.
And, equally, if you don’t want that, that wish will be respected, without query or shame. Boundaries and consent matter: upholding them is another way in which we demonstrate our love for one another.
Everyone here is invited to feast at the Lord’s Table. If you wish to share in the Holy Meal instituted by Jesus, if you wish to share in the love and hospitality of God, then you are welcome.
In Communion, in the washing of the feet, we find embodied togetherness. We find companionship. We find profound love. The Body of Christ, the Church, has been called into being by God to be a living proclamation of that love. A living proclamation of the hospitality of God.
Earlier, I asked a question: would you have let Jesus wash your feet that night? Deeper questions lie beneath.
Will you accept the hospitality of God?
Do you dare to accept the abundant, and overflowing love of God, and so be transformed?
Will you accept God’s love, and then bear it to the world, this night, and evermore?